Royal College of Art - Kensington and Battersea Campuses
Royal College of Art - Kensington and Battersea Campuses
We gave long-term, strategic conservation advice to the Royal College of Art as part of a major, decade-long transformation of both its Kensington and Battersea Campuses.
The RCA has been ranked the world’s number one university for art and design for 11 consecutive years. To support its ambition as a leading institution, it must offer facilities that enable its students, staff and alumni to continue undertaking innovative work. For its Grade II listed campus in Kensington (opened in 1963 with a Brutalist building by H. T. Cadbury-Brown), we first undertook an assessment of significance and reviewed options for its future in collaboration with architects Allies and Morrison before advising on a scheme led by Witherford Watson Mann and Clementine Blakemore Architects. The project will create new teaching and learning spaces, modernise studios and workshops, and open up the campus with step-free access and more areas open to the public. The plans will reinstate the historic 1851 Place entrance facing the Royal Albert Hall which will provide a striking new gateway and reconnect the College to Exhibition Road’s world-famous institutions. A new café, gallery and event spaces will invite greater public engagement, giving local residents and visitors more opportunities to experience the work of RCA students and staff.
For the College’s Battersea campus, the College wanted to redevelop their sculpture school and a number of neighbouring buildings into a major second campus, combining teaching, gallery and studio facilities as well as commercial retail space. The site occupied a prominent position in a conservation area, and included a mix of early Victorian shops, twentieth century infill development and several large industrial sheds. Our role included analysing the historic character of the site and its relationship to the rest of the conservation area, so that architects Haworth Tompkins could develop their proposals. We then produced a justification which argued successfully for the demolition of the existing buildings and erection of a contemporary purpose-built structure. The completed building became the Dyson Building, which was followed by the Woo Building and the new RCA Battersea building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron.
Client: Royal College of Art
Architect: Various