Edinburgh: One Year On...

A year on from the launch of our Edinburgh office, we asked Edinburgh Director, Stephen Osborne, to summarise some highlights from the last twelve months.

It has been a fast and exciting year and I have very much enjoyed the growth of our Edinburgh office, building on my own 30 years to date as an MEP Consultant in the city, as well as the wide portfolio of work completed previously by Wallace Whittle. There can’t be many new offices that can point to a development like Edinburgh St James Quarter and say, “we did that…”. I’ve had great support from clients, industry friends and colleagues, and the trust put in me and my team is hugely appreciated.

Our projects are diverse, spread across various sectors, reflecting the experience and flexibility of the team. In offices, we are delivering new workspace for Rathbones Wealth Management, for Burges Salmon solicitors, and at Rowan House where we are refurbishing four floors of quality Grade A office space. We are very happy to work beyond the confines of the city, and we are providing MEP design and Sustainability and Wellbeing consultancy for the new Royal London HQ, at 80 Fenchurch Street in London, as well as an industrial project for James Donaldson Timber at Ilkeston. In education, we are working on a comprehensive refurbishment of the Stow Building for Glasgow School of Art, and both Maybole Community Campus and Ardrossan Community Campus are being delivered from Edinburgh. Both campuses are sector exemplars in sustainable low carbon fossil-fuel free design, with Maybole achieving band A LEIP funding. Our residential commissions include Columba House, recently submitted for Planning, and the Dundashill residential development, comprising 79 new build exemplary low carbon homes.

We have provided professional services support in Technical Due Diligence, condition, and acquisition surveys, and undertaken a series of refurbishment works, including low carbon plant replacement at the Thistles Centre in Stirling.

Several other projects are currently at early stages and can’t be disclosed here, including new premises for a luxury retail operator and an innovative leisure project. We have even discussed conversion of a highland castle to five star leisure accommodation.

Our Edinburgh team has grown in line with the projects we have secured, and we now have twelve staff based in the Edinburgh office. This includes Sustainability and Wellbeing, as well as MEP engineering expertise, and our company marketing is led from Edinburgh, providing a strong, talented, and diverse team of people. We are closely integrated with the wider business and enjoy the support of resource and specialisms from our other offices as required. We are currently recruiting for Graduates and Degree Apprentices and we will continue to grow the team to ensure that we consistently deliver quality of product and service.

Our office at Spaces at Lochrin Square has been flexible and served us well as we have built our team, but we have now outgrown it and we look forward to moving into our new city centre office in early summer. We are fitting the office out to reflect our move to hybrid agile working and this, along with our additional staff benefits, underlines our increased focus and commitment to staff wellbeing.

Looking to the future, we are working on several exciting new projects which are all confidential at this stage. I look forward to sharing more news as these become public, and to continuing to build the Edinburgh office to serve the needs of our clients and collaborators. Please get in touch if you would like to hear more about what we are up to, and I would be delighted to meet to discuss any assistance we can offer you.