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‘Bourne again
Ravensbourne has rebranded via a new building and a location closer to the action, says David Taylor
G
reenwich Peninsula – for many years around the Millennium associated with Government bungling and an overspend of lottery cash on a Dome with no
content – is now coming of age. And the latest piece in its mas- terplanned jigsaw is Ravensbourne College, which has upped sticks from its Chislehurst base to be closer to the media action. The college is in an extraordinary new building clad in eye-
catching tiles designed by Foreign Office Architects and opens its doors to students for the first time this coming term. Situated on Peninsula Square immediately south of the O2, the scheme is at the heart of a new district developed by Lend Lease (Europe) and Quintain through Peninsula Regeneration Limited. It will benefit not just from good transport links into Canary Wharf and central London primarily by Jubilee Line and the bus network, but also from its proximity to the O2, with all of the creative and touristic spin-offs that entails. And although much of the attention is being paid to what
© Morley Von Sternberg
the architects describe as the building’s facade, with its ‘non- periodic tiling system’ symbolising a more diverse and contem- porary approach to technology and inspired by Gothic rose window and flower patters, the interior is just as interesting. A hive of interlinked floors and flexible spaces, brand new facilities and equipment for the latest digital technologies have been designed to encourage collaborations between different disciplines and practitioners within Ravensbourne. This has been carefully hewn, says FOA’s Alejandro Zaera-Polo, in order that the college can champion the creative, collaborative exploitation of digital technology through vocationally focused design and communication courses from further edu- cation to graduate level. Its origin is down to the ‘carefully crafted and deliberate approach’ of Robin Baker, the head of the institution. ‘He wanted an institution that is capable of bringing together the departments the school has, such as fashion and media and design and other disciplines, that in their previous embodiment were rather detached from each other’, says Zaera-Polo. ‘He wanted to break the isolation and for the disciplines to update their techniques to engage with the kind of new digital media.’
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