Scott Talon Walker wins Surrey University contract to design mobile technology centre

Dublin-based architects Scott Tallon Walker has won the contract to design what the University of Surrey is describing as the world’s first centre for research into the fifth generation of mobile technology.

The firm, whose London office is headed by Eoin Ó Moráin, won an international competition for the £35 million (€41million) project, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and corporate sponsors.

The building will house Britain’s largest academic research centre for mobile communications with 130 researchers and around 90 PhD students. It’s seen as so “urgent” that construction is to start immediately.

Scott Tallon Walker’s concept for the new building creates a flexible space with a circular atrium that’s designed to acts as “a central lung and focus, to ensure maximum interaction amongst researchers”.

Peter Dudley, the firm’s director of science and tecnology, said the design team had studied “how creative groups share ideas in the workplace and our design will mean that people will have a strong sense of contact”.