Remodelling of a five-storey building within the Bloomsbury Conservation Area to provide a high-quality facility for the School’s post-graduate students. The scheme brings a pool of general teaching spaces together into a single building with co-located breakout and social learning spaces. Support spaces include IT and student services help points, one-to-one rooms, recording booths plus a variety of welfare facilities including prayer spaces and reflection areas.
Formerly a warren of small offices, the existing building is significantly opened up at its heart with a large light-filled, double-height social space punctuated with a focal staircase which extends at ground floor to provide a seating area.
A key design ethos was to work with the quirks and character of the existing 1904 fabric both pragmatically and aesthetically. Original steels, brickwork and soffits have been exposed to reflect its history and careful layout development has avoided significant new structural interventions. The design has also been assessed using the SKA environmental methodology with ‘gold’ targeted.
To see a flythrough of the project click here.
