The UK\'s largest granite building, the currently empty Grade A listed Marischal College in Aberdeen, is to get an £80million upgrade to turn it into the new headquarters of Aberdeen City Council. The project is due to be completed by 2011.

A leading Scottish architectural practice, Holmes Partnership, has been appointed to design the scheme. They were chosen by an Aberdeen City Council selection panel from an initial list of 22 that was shortlisted to five.

Holmes, with offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh, will act as lead consultants on the Marischal Project as part of a team comprising Arup Scotland as the civil and structural engineer, Doig+Smith as chartered quantity surveyors and Gardiner & Theobald as the project managers. Stone specialists have yet to be chosen.

Harry Phillips, Chairman of Holmes and the project leader, described Marischal College as a "truly exceptional project" and "one of the most exciting schemes in the country".

The price of the project is capped, with £50million of the £80.4million budget being allocated for construction work.

Ian Jamieson, a partner at Doig+Smith, says: "Delivering to budget is our crucial role, so from now until completion in December 2010 we will be using our challenge ethos and commercial process to ensure that we deliver maximum value for money as well as cost predictability through all stages."

The council\'s point is that they want to avoid the embarrassment of escalating costs such as those of the Scottish Parliamentary Buildings (see NSS January 2005).

Marischal College was commissioned in 1593 by George Keith, Fourth Earl Marischal of Scotland. The building that the council will be moving into was constructed between 1837 and 1844 by Aberdeen architect Archibald Simpson. It formed a U-shaped quadrangle with a small entrance via an archway amid unrelated housing on the west side.

The building was substantially extended between 1893 and 1905, in the heyday of Aberdeen\'s granite industry, by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, giving it its famous granite cage front that encloses the quadrangle.

It lays claim to being the UK\'s largest granite building and the second largest in the world, exceeded only by Spain\'s Escorial, once home to the Spanish monarchy. The frontage is more than 120m long with an average height of 25m.

The granite faÁade will be retained while the interior will be demolished and more floors added to increase the overall floor space to more than 16,000m2 and maximise the floor plates. Two college rooms (the Senate Room and the Senate Ante Room) will be retained and renovated.

The key objective is to provide a modern working environment for 1,300 council staff while preserving a key historic landmark.