ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE


this delightful spot is one of the most inspiring new squares in britain


1 library 2 library reading room pod


3 break-out terrace 4 bridge link 5 lecture theatre


0 pod plan


5m


mezzanine used increasingly for tutorials. The college calls the courtyard its Social Learning Project. And that’s exactly what it is: a place to learn in the company of fellow students and teaching staff, as opposed to being stuck in front of a laptop in a student bedsit, studying head down in the library, or taking notes in lectures.’ Founded in 1791, the RVC is a busy


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institution about 10 minutes’ walk from St Pancras Station; if it was open to the public, this courtyard would rapidly be overrun, so public access is currently restricted (this may change); requests should be made by letter to the college. The spot, which would be ravishing in the soft daylight even without its skeletal exhibits, certainly deserves a wider audience: no wonder Cook and his firm have been retained for the redevelopment of the RVC’s two campuses, this one in London, the other out in the Hertfordshire countryside. However you choose to enter or


4 1 UP 010 ArchitecturePLB / 1971–2011 / Buildings DN


exit the main RVC building, you end up passing through Cook’s courtyard. The architect leads me up to the corridors that wrap around the top of the space, high above all those brightly coloured tables. The


view comes as quite a surprise: an indoor-outdoor space, with so much coming and going, and yet such a relaxed atmosphere. Those planning or redesigning


our town and city squares would do well to come here and see how a space that was once all but dead – save for the odd student sneaking out for a cigarette – can come so intelligently alive without recourse to annoying gimmickry, dull water features or characterless chain stores. Here, beneath a transparent polymer roof, the finishes are simple, the materials are made to last, and there is an abiding sense of purpose – courtesy of those silent skeletons. In recent years, it has become


de rigueur for big museums and galleries to turn courtyards and lightwells into new rooms or circulation spaces, where the public can tramp about, eat, gawp and take photographs; the Great Court at the British Museum is a good example. The RVC courtyard is a reminder of how it’s possible to fashion truly delightful public spaces without spending a fortune or making a song and dance about them. Extracted from an article originally published in the Guardian.


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