On the drawing board: Hawkins\Brown’s Bartlett School of Architecture
Due to open for the start of the school year in 2016, Hawkins\Brown’s project for the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London (UCL) completely overhauls the existing run-down Seventies building Wates House. Euan Macdonald, partner at Hawkins\Brown, discusses why a retrofit was chosen over demolition with Bartlett alumni Cate St Hill.
How did the project come about?
The Bartlett was becoming a victim of its own success, rapidly outgrowing its restricted space within the original Wates House. UCL had previously appointed several architects to prepare feasibility studies exploring how the building could be adapted, but none had really gained any traction. The start of UCL's new competitive framework in summer 2012 re-established the transformation as a priority project within the Bloomsbury Campus and we were appointed following a competitive design process.
Although Wates House was very much in need of a renovation, its students had something of a love/hate relationship with it. Were you daunted by the prospect of the project and what the students would make of it?
Designing a new home for one of the world's most lauded schools of architecture was initially a very daunting prospect, but ultimately one that has been richly rewarding and enlightening. Despite its condition, and many flaws, the original Wates House was in part a positive contributor to the strength of the school as its robust neutrality helped it fade into the background to allow the design and research that it housed to come to the fore.
We have many Bartlett graduates working at Hawkins\Brown, each with their own memories and recollections about their time at the school. When we started thinking about the project we collected these personal readings of the building, positive and negative, and used them to inform how to make it work better for its users. More than most buildings, the school is a living vessel, it's constantly being changed and adapted by its students and staff. Our approach seeks to nurture the positive qualities we have discovered while addressing the historic flaws, and imbue the vessel with more social qualities.
Euan Macdonald
Was there any consultation with students or faculty members?
Absolutely! Consultation has been an intrinsic part of the design process for this project. As this building will be home to one of the best schools of architecture in the country, the focus on design is acute. Our consultation sessions were unanimously supportive of the school's studio-unit system, and we have worked hard to find a solution that will continue to nurture these family-like clusters, while simultaneously encouraging broader interaction and collaboration throughout the school.
How are you making use of the existing structure for the new building?
We considered several options for the remodelling of Wates House, from relatively modest extensions through to full-scale demolition and new-build. Ultimately, the final solution of 'deep retrofit' was selected as the optimal balance of time, cost and sustainability, combined with the fact that any new-build would not have provided as much usable area on what is a highly constrained urban site.
The majority of the existing concrete structure is being retained, but will be complemented by a lateral extension to the entire building perimeter and a new seven-storey extension facing Gordon Street to the west. Key moves include the demolition of part of the existing first floor to create a double-height space that will house a public gallery. This will be complemented by a new physical connection to the adjacent Christopher Ingold Lecture Theatre, which will allow the school to host large-scale events to advance the public discussion of architecture.
Fundamental to the reorganisation of the building is the arrangement of interactive spaces at the building's perimeter. These spaces, such as the public gallery, experimental space, roof terrace and primary seminar/crit rooms have been carefully located to activate the building's facades and respond to the specific views and contexts of the surrounding streets. If the studio spaces are the 'homes' for the individual unit 'families', then the space around them are the streets and squares that enable and support communal exchange and debate.
The new entrance to the Bartlett
What is the biggest construction challenge?
The biggest technical challenge of the project has been balancing the limitations of the existing structure with the need to add load to support the additional areas. When this was coupled with the planners' insistence that we use masonry for the new facades this created a problem that required the whole team's creative input to resolve. The existing structure has been opened up in key areas and strengthened in others, and we have specified a slim-format, handmade, German, water-struck brick that, when combined with the lightweight new structure of the extension, will minimise additional loading on the frame and foundations.
Ultimately, our aspiration is to create a building of timeless quality that responds assuredly to the surrounding historic urban fabric of Bloomsbury, provides a home befitting the school's outstanding reputation, and supports and reveals the creativity of its users.
