Teviot Row House building works
We want your University experience to be the best that it can be. That’s why we continually invest in our buildings to provide you with world-class facilities.
The University is working in collaboration with the Students’ Association to plan for and deliver a significant upgrade to Teviot Row House, the world’s oldest purpose-built Students’ Union. These works will ensure that this much-loved building is refurbished and enhanced to meet your expectations and those of our staff and visitors.
We’ll ensure that Teviot’s character and its unique heritage and history is preserved, while providing the modern facilities that you expect. The upgrade will make the building more environmentally efficient and sustainable, and improve accessibility and toilet provision, while also making it easier to find your way around. All of you who use the building now can likely see how these areas should be improved.
As well as providing you with improved facilities, the building works are necessary to bring Teviot Row House into line with current legislation. These plans hugely improve access into and around the building. At present, none of the building is fully wheelchair accessible without assistance. This will change to the vast majority of areas becoming freely accessible to wheelchair users. The main entrance at Bristo Square will be ramped and Charles Street Lane will also have ramped access.
We’ll be enhancing and modernising facilities throughout the building such as the café and bar areas, as well as repurposing spaces to create a new student community lounge, student group workspaces, a wellbeing studio and a gallery.
The historic character of the Library Bar, the Dining Room, the Debating Hall and Teviot Garden will be preserved. The Sports and Underground bars will be joined to create a bigger, accessible café bar which will function as both a day and evening space for events and will be designed to be as flexible as possible.
The project is still subject to final planning approval and the appointment of contractors, following which the work is expected to commence in October 2023 and complete in Spring 2025.
This means that Teviot will unfortunately be closed for the duration of these works. While this regrettable, this is necessary to achieve these improvements. We know that Teviot has a special place in many students’ hearts, and that some of you will be disappointed that you’ll not have access to the building until works are completed.
However, we are working with the Students’ Association to provide you with alternative social and event spaces which can be used in the evenings and during weekends. We expect that the majority of what currently takes place in Teviot will move into Potterrow, the Pleasance and some additional spaces elsewhere across our estate. We’ll keep you updated once a full list of these alternative spaces has been confirmed.
In advance of Teviot closing for the upgrade works, we will also provide alternative informal study space in our central campus area. This will provide open plan study space just a short distance from Teviot for the duration of the works. We’re currently working on the capacity and layout of this space and will share more information once details are confirmed.
Students’ Association services – The Advice Place, Student Voice Hub, Student Opportunities team and the main Welcome desk – will all stay in Potterrow in their current locations.
We hope that you’ll join us in celebrating these developments, and look forward to welcoming some of you back to the upgraded Teviot in 2025.
Teviot has a special place in the hearts of many students and alumni. This upgrade will ensure that Teviot continues to provide modern and accessible facilities that meet the expectations of our students, staff and visitors.
We are pleased to see these important works to maintain and preserve Teviot and the opportunity to enhance services for students within the building. Obviously there is an impact whilst the work goes ahead and we will work hard to minimise this through our alternative provision.