Robertson starts construction of £100m Dundee campus

The Danish-style Hellerup staircase – since kids will sit on stairs anyway

Designed by architect Holmes Miller for Dundee City Council, the new facility will cater for 1,800 pupils from Braeview Academy and Craigie High School and provide leisure facilities for the local community.

Robertson Construction is the main contractor.

The new 19,500 sqm campus will include classrooms, presentation spaces and meeting room as well as a central learning plaza and specialist additional support needs (ASN) areas. The design also incorporates flexible, open spaces such as a wide Danish-style ‘Hellerup’ staircase where pupils and staff can mingle.

Facilities for the local community to share include a music and drama centre, café, library, floodlit all-weather sports pitches, a fitness suite and a dance studio. The indoor accommodation will be arranged around a central courtyard that provides an outdoor civic space for community and school events.

The community campus is being built to the Passivhaus sustainable energy use standard and is scheduled to open in time for the new academic year in August 2025.

Holmes Miller associate Joanne Hemmings explained: “To achieve the rigorous Passivhaus standard, we have placed sustainability right at the heart of the design, which will ensure low energy consumption both during the construction phase and throughout the life of the building. The campus will be a compact, highly insulated building with low energy hybrid ventilation, substantial solar panels and a heating system that’s powered by air source heat pumps.”

Robertson Group chief executive Elliot Robertson said: “As the first Passivhaus building in its portfolio, East End Community Campus illustrates Dundee City Council’s commitment to its communities, to education attainment and addressing climate change.”

The design team also includes Atelier Ten, Sussed Sustainability, Goodson Associates, Sterry-Walters Partnership and Deanestor.

The site team was treated to a visit yesterday by a local politician, Jenny Gilruth MSP, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for education and skills, who joined with pupils to make footprints in wet concrete.