Edinburgh St James Centre

The landmark Edinburgh St James Centre demonstrates Bryden Wood’s capability in providing specialist façade design and detailing services. 

This is a project which uses a natural stone façade. Bryden Wood are providing structural engineering design for all precast panels including the design of bracket connections as well as all stone design and detailing (partly handset and partly panelised).

The stone cladding is quarried in Petersbuch Quarry, Germany and a digital model is used to create the stone cutting schedules. Bryden Wood have modelled and produced quantities with sizes for all the stones that sit in the handset and precast stone finished panels. Stone is used to comply with the planning aspiration to complement the surrounding buildings.

Designed by Allan Murray Architects, the 1.7 million sq ft Edinburgh St James scheme will see the 1970s shopping centre replaced with 850,000 sqft of retail space, anchored by John Lewis, Edinburgh’s first Everyman cinema, the UK’s second W Hotel and 150 new homes.

Bryden Wood led the interface detailing between the different façade packages and have done all the façade performance engineering and detailing:

• Structural
• Thermal and Condensation Risk
• Waterproofing
• Air Tightness
• Fire
• Acoustics

How we added value:

• Bryden Wood produced cutting schedules directly from a digital model, applying 4D BIM for works scheduling and 5D BIM for cost integration
• All façade panels were modelled to a fabrication level of detail and information, fully coordinated with our project partners and scheduled directly from the model for procurement
• Bryden Wood used bespoke Dynamo scripting to automate the modelling process for stones, placing 19,000 individual stone pieces using predefined rules based on the architectural concept 
• Advanced digital workflows for façade panel fabrication and installation