Royal Academy of Arts - The Julia and Hans Rausing Campus
Royal Academy of Arts - The Julia and Hans Rausing Campus
Following the award-winning £36 million expansion and redevelopment of the RA, which unified the existing site in Burlington House with 6 Burlington Gardens, our subsequent engineering work at the RA involved the overhaul of the famous art school building.
Working in collaboration with David Chipperfield Architects and Julian Harrap Architects, the refurbishment, reorganisation and improvement of the school campus involved the relocation of the school’s workshops into a new sequence of spaces now known as The Julia and Hans Rausing Campus.
This work opened up space within the existing building and was the first significant refurbishment of the Royal Academy Schools institution since its integration into the building in 1868.
The reconfigured Schools campus is arranged around the landscaped Lovelace Courtyard, taking advantage of newly available space created by earlier works, as well as re-using and restoring the historic fabric. The project created new facilities for the RA Schools’ postgraduate students including a new suite of workshops in Burlington Gardens, and a new RA Schools library. Other work included the restoration of the historic Sydney Smirke studios, Cast Corridor and Life Drawing Room.
The project also involved the creation of a new suite of technical workshops and the renewal of the schools’ architecture studio.
We acted as engineers for the design and development of the project and following the appointment of a contractor we retained involvement in the project in a monitoring role on behalf of the client.
Client: Royal Academy
Architect: David Chipperfield Architects and Julian Harrap Architects
Images: Courtesy of the architects