Named after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in the UK, the building provides outstanding facilities for the University’s health students as well as becoming the home of the University’s new Three Counties Medical School, which will welcome its first cohort of students this September.

Formerly home to the Worcester News and Berrows Journal, the iconic building has undergone a complete transformation over the past 12 months, from drab concrete to a beautiful golden colour which restores its elegant lines. Global multi-disciplinary design practice BDP’s civil and structural engineering teams worked on the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Building, with BDP’s landscape architects responsible for the campus masterplan and public realm, which includes a ‘wellness trail’ that will form part of the campus in the future. Seventy per cent of the embodied carbon of the new health and medical school structure is from pre-existing components from the original printing house.

Effective reuse of the existing foundations and frame has secured significant carbon savings when compared to the potential impact a new build structure would have had. In keeping with the University’s commitment to sustainability, the refurbishment has been completed to outstanding environmental specifications, achieving a Gold SKA environmental rating from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The architects on the project were Glancy Nicholls Architects (GNA) and the M&E designers were CPW. The university’s complete construction partner was Stepnell.