090 EDUCATION
‘I think they’re representing their standing within the wider community, which is important, and creating buildings of quality that reflect that is a way of attracting the right students as well. You can be visibly part of that collaborative world, which is in stark contrast to the building where humanities come from – all rooms off a simple double-loaded corridor with blank doors.’
Tis trend is set to continue for the forseeable future, for a multitude of reasons. One – especially post-pandemic – is the motivation to gather the student population
back together in physical space. Says Teobald: ‘As the digital world becomes more sophisticated in its fostering of the ability to collaborate, so the physical environment should enhance the social and sensory experience. You need a reason to be in the physical environment. If it’s not interesting enough, why would you bother? Tere is a risk that people will stay in the digital world and not benefit from the intensity of a face-to-face discussion. Now that matters almost more than when the building was designed...but it actually satisfies the current criteria rather well.’
Tough it has only been fully operational since late spring 2022, it has fulfilled aspirations, says Teobald: ‘What we’ve heard has all been incredibly positive. People are really wanting to come in, to be in the building rather than working from home. I hear that it’s getting quite competitive – students have to make a beeline early in the morning to get the optimal spaces for social learning.’
Tere may have been concerns that a highly interactive learning environment would be more hazardous for those returning,
CASE STUDY KINGSTON TOWN HOUSE
Kingston Town House is a £50m, 9,400 sq m knowledge, research and performance hub that opened in January 2020. Conceived by its architects as a piece of ‘social infrastructure’, its sociability was of course radically curtailed by the events that unfolded in March 2020 and the lockdowns that followed. But the original intentions for this six-storey, porous building of glass and tall pre-cast concrete beams and pillars still holds good.
The interior is organised as a three-dimensional social matrix, navigated via a wide social staircase, and animated by a three-storey interior courtyard, which acts as amphitheatre and performance/ event space. Soundproof doors can be closed off for events but when not in use, they are open, leaving these tiered benches available for study, interaction or just relaxation. Dancers moving between studios on the first floor are visible from the benches, and vice versa. A long, spacious café that fronts onto the main public thoroughfare also doubles up as bar/food space for performances, whether those of the students or hired out to local companies. The welcome to the wider community is reinforced by the café’s visibility from the adjacent busy road, and the wide, ground-level undercroft colonnade. The second and third floors are dedicated to library services. Really comprehensive acoustic paneling – as well as the acoustic isolation in
dedicated performance and rehearsal spaces – make the building calm, voices barely rising above a gentle, conversational murmur. Fourth and fifth floors provide a mix of ofice, study and meeting space, with a second café on the fifth floor offering a roof terrace with panoramic views across to the River Thames.
This and two other exterior terraces, plus the generous landscaping, planting and seating along the building’s base, reinforce the perception of the Town House as part of an open, urban, civic landscape. The generosity of study and seating spaces is partly driven by the unusual nature of Kingston’s cohort: around 60% of students are drawn from the local area, and living at home. This building offers somewhere to suit all contemporary social or individual study requirements. At the opening, director of estates, Sean Woulfe stated: ‘I think this is actually a built expression of our philosophy of openness and inclusion.’
Client Kingston University Architects Grafton Architects Area 9,400 sq m Cost 50m Completion January 2020 Awards RIBA Stirling Prize 2021
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113
