Innovation support spaces including offices and meeting rooms will be available to hire for start-up companies, with zoning creating a strong sense of identity. Encouraging connections and ideas exchanges among building users, the facilities will provide an income stream, as well as being available for the local community. A natural material palette will create a sense of calm, with acoustics, connections and views into the building and to the outside, creating inspiring places to work and study. Locally quarried stone, local timber, bricks and rocks in gabion walls are all being explored for potential features in the building, drawing on the area’s rich heritage and surrounding beautiful natural landscape.

Within the site of the Centre, two demonstrator houses will be constructed, one will allow communities to see how low carbon technologies can be applied in a home, with the second house used for research purposes. High quality landscaped public realm will offer amenity spaces and connections to nature, providing strong links to the adjacent Barony Campus and knitting into the neighbourhood. The design seeks to maximise and enhance the natural features of the site, with existing shrubs, grasses and hedgerows retained. Additional areas of open green space, planting, green roofs, an attenuation pond and bird and bat boxes will be installed to provide amenity space for visitors and improve biodiversity.

The BREEAM Outstanding and Passivhaus building – which cuts energy use on conventional buildings by up to 80% - will create a healthy environment and will use natural daylight and local materials to create a sense of place. Additional renewable technologies will achieve a net zero carbon in use building, with lifecycle carbon impact minimised.

Beautifully but simply built, the two-storey construction will use robust materials that are easy and cost-effective to maintain. The project will be delivered through BIM Level 2 to reduce lifecycle cost and waste, with built-in flexibility allowing the building to be easily adapted for differing event requirements or future use as needs change.

The centre of excellence aims to transform energy production, distribution and connections and support the UK’s transition to a low carbon society, establishing Cumnock as an exemplar low carbon town. As part of the project, a range of initiatives will be explored including using local former mining sites to extract heat from rocks underground or from minewaters, using surplus wind energy to reduce residents’ bills, expanding the electric vehicle infrastructure, grid systems and energy community schemes, as well as retrofitting existing council houses. STEM education programmes will link to local schools and Dumfries House, which offers a range of building, arts and crafts skills training.

Planning permission was granted in June 2022. The building is estimated to be open for use in 2024.

*Images shown are representative of design aspirations and are CGI renders – final designs may change