Image: Architect’s visualisation of EFI is used courtesy of Bennetts Associates
One of the capital’s most loved buildings is revealed in a digital tour of EFI’s intended home.
The Old Royal Infirmary, currently undergoing renovations as it prepares to house the University’s Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI), will feature in a new online tour that uncovers its past and offers a glimpse of its future.
The Lauriston Place site housed Edinburgh’s main hospital from 1879, before the new Royal Infirmary opened at Little France in 2003.
Once the £120m refurbishment is complete, the building will be home to EFI, offering a new approach to research, education and engagement. EFI will house expertise in the humanities, social sciences, engineering, science and arts, alongside sector-leading work in data science.
As well as a new public piazza, the space will include teaching facilities, collaboration spaces for working with industry partners, incubation areas for start-up businesses, labs for innovation and prototyping, and exhibition and performance spaces.
Professor Lesley McAra, Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute, said: “As an iconic building with a unique past, the renovation and renewal of the former Royal Infirmary is being carried out with care and sensitivity.
“We hope to create a special relationship between the environment that is being created in the building and the ambition of the Edinburgh Futures Institute – open, inclusive and transformational. Alongside some wonderful images of the past, this online tour provides a delightful glimpse of what the future holds.”
The online tour of the EFI can be accessed here: https://efi.ed.ac.uk/online-tour
