University College London: Bicentennial – Main Quad & Wilkins Building
University College London: Bicentennial – Main Quad & Wilkins Building
We provided heritage advice to help secure listed building consent for UCL to undertake significant improvement and refurbishment works across the Main Quad and Wilkins Building as part of their Bicentennial celebrations in 2026.
The Wilkins Building lies at the heart of UCL’s historic campus. It’s distinctive portico and dome form the emblem of the university, identifying the its buildings across Bloomsbury and beyond. This monumental building is as historically significant as it is architecturally striking as the earliest building of the wider university, one of the country’s first institutions to admit men regardless of their religious affiliation and the first in the world to admit women.
With the bicentenary of the university fast approaching, UCL recognsied that the existing quadrangle felt sparsely furnished and cluttered with later structures and was an underwhelming space that was ill-suited to forming the primary arrival sequence of the University’s most
historic buildings.
The proposed quadrangle redesign will be the first holistic design for the space since Wilkins’ original sketch in 1826. Working with ecologists, the landscape has been designed to provide planting and new habitats in accordance with the principles set out by the Wild Bloomsbury campaign. The works will improve existing accessibility arrangements, create multi-functional spaces, improve landscaping and biodiversity, enhance educational and public realm space on campus and better reflect the University’s world class status as a leading University.
We were involved in the feasibility, pre-application, submission, and post-submission stages of the project and engaged positively with the London Borough of Camden, Historic England and other stakeholders throughout the process. We demonstrated that, despite significant and notable changes to the existing layout, the proposals would nonetheless enhance the setting
and significance of the Wilkins Building and the setting of the enclosing Grade I buildings around the quadrangle, as well as the Grade II observatories within it.
Client: University College London
Collaborators: Gerald Eve