Elaborate business faculty for Leeds

Steelwork has recently been completed on the Rose Bowl, a new home for the Business and Law Faculty, for Leeds Metropolitan University.

Scheduled to open in September 2009, the premises will provide a state of the art learning environment inside a five storey signature glass fronted building consisting of offices, teaching areas, lecture theatres and a cafe.

Situated opposite Leeds Civic Hall, the U-shaped building features a distinctive glazed bowl structure at the front. Supported on a series of Y-shaped columns this structure will house the school’s lecture theatres.

Simon Sutcliffe, Project Manager for main contractor BAM, said: “It’s a very complex part of the project and the design lent itself to steel.”

The Y feature columns are connected to a horizontal truss, or steel diagrid, which goes around the circular structure. A series of these diagrids form the bowl shape which has been fully glazed.

Fisher Engineering has erected approximately 1,350t of structural steelwork for the project.