University of Worcester School
of Health and Wellbeing

After extensive redevelopment, Berrows House in Worcester, UK, has been transformed into a state-of-the-art healthcare education facility.
Originally built in 1965 as the offices of the Worcester News, Evesham Journal and Malvern Gazette, the building was home to the newsrooms until 2020, when the University of Worcester purchased the site.

Extensive internal and external renovations were required to make the building suitable to serve as an ‘inclusive and inspiring’ higher education facility in the 21st century.
Providing approximately 4000 sqm of space for teaching, with a capacity of 500 students, the building was transformed to provide a fully accessible environment. The design of the building focused on the introduction of a new central space providing a sociable environment, promoting wellbeing for its users and bringing a range of medical students together in one space.

Today, clad in eye-catching golden copper, Berrows House, has been renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Building after the first woman in Britain
to qualify as a surgeon, and houses an anatomy laboratory, GP simulation rooms, offices, break-out spaces, a café, and teaching rooms. Reusing the existing structure and carefully considering materials specification and performance were key factors in the redevelopment. Low or zero-carbon technologies were used in line with the university’s environmental and sustainability policies, the project ultimately achieving the RICS SKA Gold environmental accreditation for refurbished buildings. The building has also been awarded an EPC ‘A’ rating, indicating it has achieved the best possible energy efficiency.

As part of the project, appointed services contractor CKW Contracts Ltd. had an application where 17 Thorlux SmartScan 1,200 mm circular luminaires were
to be suspended from existing beams down 2.5 m to light the floor of the central atrium space.

The standard suspension systems supplied with the light units were considered unsuitable for then application, so Zip-Clip were asked to advise and design a custom solution.
The Project Site Manager required a fully adjustable solution with a secondary safety wire incorporated to supplement the primary suspension. Three legs were needed to attach to the light unit, which would also offer full adjustability to compensate for the unequal weight distribution of the light units.

The Zip-Clip Technical Team designed a solution with two 2.5 m G-gauge (15 kg SWL) main suspension wires to anchor to the overhead beams using UNI2 eye-bolts and three 1.5 m G-gauge wires to connect to M4x25 eye-bolts inserted into the main light unit chassis. All wires were secured to the anchors using Zip-Clip Rize KL50 locking devices, 5 in total. During the installation, Project Site Manager Dave commented, “If we can’t get the unit level with this set-up, then we don’t deserve to be hanging light units”, a testament to the flexibility of Zip-Clip solutions and the ingenuity of our Technical Team. CKW Contracts Manager Nigel and Dave later commented that it had been a pleasure working alongside Zip-Clip to design a custom, project-specific solution to their needs for this installation.

Click here to watch a fantastic video of the completed project produced by Principal Contractor Stepnell.