Urban landscape works to improve the public realm of Sheffield Street are now underway, due for completion in 2014.
The Student Centre building, designed by O’Donnell+Tuomey Architects, is located at the corner of Sheffield Street and Portsmouth Street, just east of Kingsway, on the London School of Economics’ main urban campus: Site Location Map. It is a short walk south down the side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields from Holborn Station on the Central/Piccadilly Underground Line, or northward from Temple Station on the District and Circle Lines. The meeting point will be the south west corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields on the park side, where there should be ample room to gather, and hopefully still some shelter under the trees. Wheelchair access will unfortunately not be possible at the time of the site visit.
For some critics it is a lesson in architectural origami, "have produced a fold-out marvel that ducks and dodges between its neighbours' rights to light" said Oliver Wainwright (The Guardian).
This striking piece of redbrick origami has a £24m budget. The architects describe the use of brick as an obvious response to the opportunity to build in London. Shoehorned into an unpromising triangular site, the building has to limbo beneath a plethora of invisible restrictions, ducking and dodging below its neighbours' rights to light.
The new School, "It's a bit like a cruise ship," says Sheila O'Donnell. "A great stack of different functions, from a nightclub and gym, to cafes and prayer rooms, all these bits of different shapes and sizes interlocking together in a complicated jigsaw puzzle." and Tuomey says "disturb the street, to suck the pavement into the building and take it for a vertical walk".
An interesting play of folds outside is more debatable inside where the new school, "Es un poco como un barco", dice Sheila O'Donnell "Un gran apilamiento de diferentes funciones, desde una discoteca y gimnasio, a los cafés y salas de oración, todos estos pedazos de diferentes tamaños y formas entrelazadas juntas en un complicado rompecabezas." y su compañero de estudio, Tuomey, completa la definición del interior diciendo "alterar la calle, para introducir el pavimento en el edificio y llevarlo a dar un paseo vertical".
To this we must add, an ornate finishing details, almost baroque, excessive and that the architects have sought to justify as reflecting diversity when in reality they have created a very complex area and difficult to use, because in the near future, programs and needs will change, evolve or will need give answers to new uses.
"We see this staircase as part of the medieval street pattern," says O'Donnell. "It is a public route with different facilities spilling off it, each managed by different people." There are no swipe-card doors and, like the rest of the LSE campus, which spreads from Kingsway to the Royal Courts of Justice in a hotchpotch of 12 buildings, is intended to feel like part of the city.
Every floor supports both a new function and a distinct configuration. The complexity is exacerbated by the diversity of the internal surfaces. Floors are variously in oak and terrazzo while there are walls in insitu-concrete, brick and timber. Iron oxide-coloured steelwork completes a palette that is deployed rigorously but to very graphic effect.
Description and ideas by O’Donnell+Tuomey Architects
The brief was to bring student facilities together under one roof. The multi-functional building includes a venue, pub, learning café, media, prayer, offices, gym, careers, dance studio and social spaces. The brief asked for the "best student building in the UK" and had the aspiration for BREEAM Excellent rating. The design achieved BREEAM Outstanding.
Planning Constraints
The site lies within the Strand Conservation Area. The context was complex and the site was restricted by surrounding building lines. Specifications were closely monitored by Westminster planners, who supported the ambition for a contemporary design integrated with its setting. Throughout the building process, the planners maintained a commitment to the enduring quality of carefully crafted construction.
Street Life
The site is located at the knuckle-point convergence of narrow streets that characterise the LSE city centre campus. The faceted facade operates with respect to the Rights of Light Envelope and is tailored to lines of sight, to be viewed from street corner perspectives and to make visual connections between internal and external circulation. The brick skin is cut along fold lines to form large areas of glazing, framing views. Analysis of the context has influenced the first principles of a site specific architectural design.
Embodiment
The building is designed to embody the dynamic character of a contemporary Student Centre. The complex geometries of the site provided a starting point for a lively arrangement of irregular floor plates, each particular to its function. Space flows freely in plan and section, with stairs turning to create meeting places at every level.
Construction, Colour and Atmosphere
London is a city of bricks. The building is clad with bricks, with each brick offset from the next in an open work pattern, creating dappled daylight inside and glowing like a lattice lantern at night.
The building has the robust adaptability of a lived-in warehouse, with solid wooden floors underfoot. The structure is a combination of reinforced concrete and steelwork. Steel trusses or ribbed concrete slabs span the big spaces. Circular steel columns prop office floors between the large span volumes and punctuate the open floor plan of the café. Concrete ceilings contribute thermal mass with acoustic clouds suspended to soften the sound.
There are no closed-in corridors. Every hallway has daylight and views in at least one direction. Every office workspace has views to the outside world. The basement venue is daylit from clerestory windows.
Inclusive Design
The building is designed with accessibility and inclusive design as key considerations. Approaches are step free. Floor plates are flat without steps. Circulation routes are open and legible with clearly identifiable way-finding. Services are located at consistent locations. The central wide stair was carefully designed to comply with standards and details agreed with the approved inspector.
