Herzog & de Meuron designed the new Battersea Campus for the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London's Battersea Creative Quarter. After winning the competition in 2016, this project is presented as a work that seeks to merge a new way of conceiving science, art and design.

This building has been the largest investment by this historic school and features a flexible programme covering a total of 15,500 square metres. The development transforms the dynamics of the university, adapting it perfectly to current technological developments.

Founded in 1837, the RCA is the world’s largest community of postgraduate art and design students.
Herzog & de Meuron's work includes a series of workshops on the ground floor, followed by studios on the next four floors. Added to this is an 8-storey research volume located on Parkgate Road. The main access to the campus is established on Howie Street.
 
“The RCA campus in Battersea is conceived as a porous and flexible ‘territory’ of platforms upon which the varied needs of the RCA curriculum are given space to change and grow, enabling the transformation of space as needed during this process. The studio and research buildings are designed as communities unto themselves - a place that encourages interactions between students, faculty and staff.

Our intention is also to create a civic connector, encouraging circulation through the site and inviting exchange between members of the RCA community, the neighbourhood and wider city.”
Herzog & de Meuron

The interior spaces belonging to the workshops are interconnected. From the street, a connection is formed that unifies all the existing buildings of the school. Large windows provide an effective and elegant visual connection between the rooms.

The upper studios are equipped with a series of flexible infrastructures that allow for great permeability in the programme. Its structure is made of concrete and the spaces constitute a series of cantilevered galleries, thus achieving a high environmental quality.

The materials used have been defined as robust and simple. Through brick and a structure of operable glass panels. On the ground floor we find a simple brick with certain ventilation perforations, while in the upper area there is a certain break and the material is laid upside down with manufacturing marks. The research building is set with curved white wings, providing verticality and aesthetic luminosity to the whole.

Royal College of Art by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Iwan Baan
 

Description of project by Herzog & de Meuron

The Royal College of Art campus in Battersea delivers a formula for education, research, and entrepreneurship that explores the creative possibilities at the intersection of science, the arts, and design. It is a flexible architectural solution that adapts to the constantly changing programmes of teaching and research at this 184-year-old institution, with the aim to unite and strengthen the culture of design innovation and entrepreneurialism at the Royal College of Art (RCA).

The site occupies the urban block to the south of the existing RCA Battersea buildings within the Battersea Creative Quarter. The project delivers 15,500 sqm of workshop, studio and research space; it is composed of a ground floor base of workshops and manufacturing facilities supporting a low-rise 4-storey Studio Building along Howie Street, and a taller 8-storey Research Building prominently located along Parkgate Road. Howie Street will become the main thoroughfare for the combined RCA Battersea Campus.

The textured brickwork and large, north facing clerestory lights of the workshop and studio building present a unique yet contextual profile to Battersea Bridge Road; the metal fins of the Research Building offer a distinct skyline identity for the campus.

Connectivity and flexibility
The workshop is the nucleus of RCA activities. Workshop spaces are arranged as a series of interconnected volumes, over which the upper studio spaces span and overhang, and incorporate the entrances to the studio and research spaces. The street level arrangement of volumes forms a passageway that connects the existing RCA buildings along Howie Street and allows for views through the site and large picture windows provide visual connections to the workshops. The overhanging volume of the studio levels above provides covered walkways and sheltered seating areas at street level, as well as balconies and terraces above.

A portion of the previously closed-off Radstock Street is incorporated into the ground floor; upper studio floors span across this space to create a double-height “Hangar” – a flexible zone for the production and display of large-scale work that is also spacious enough to host RCA assemblies and events. This space can also be opened to the public, creating another thoroughfare from Howie Street to the main reception area of campus.

The studio floors provide a series of three terraced floor plates, each comprising approximately 2000 sqm of high-quality workspace. These spaces contain a flexible infrastructure that can be adapted to a range of RCA programmes. In addition to the essential qualities of natural light and air supplying the indoor studios, the concrete floor plates extend to form cantilevering external galleries, providing shade and natural ventilation, and an immediate connection to the outdoors for those working within.

The Research Building is organised above the ground floor workshops as a cubic stack of seven 560 sqm floorplates. Sharing the principles of the studio floors, each space is a flexible research unit equipped with provisional laboratory space. Innovation RCA, the burgeoning post-graduate business incubator, is located on levels 5 & 6. Level 7 contains an event space and terrace with views towards the North and to the rest of the RCA campus.


Ground floor plan. Royal College of Art by Herzog & de Meuron.


Robust materiality
To support its role as an efficient and flexible container that can adapt to different modes of working, the materiality of the Battersea campus is simple and robust. The interiors are formed from a combination of concrete flat slabs supported on an 8 m grid of concrete filled steel tubes, with an exposed and adaptable services arrangement.

The ground floor façade is formed from a simple stock brick in a textured Flemish bond, perforated in areas with open patterned brickwork to provide ventilation to the workshop and sculpture studio behind operable glass panels. On the upper studio storeys, the ground floor brick pattern is turned inside-out, exposing the cut ends of the header bricks and marks of manufacture through a distinctive texture.

The Research Building departs from the masonry language with a vertical composition of sinuous white fins, calibrated across the façade to moderate solar gain and glare, and facilitates natural ventilation to the workspaces within.

Environmental resilience
The building has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating. Its efficient form is derived to deliver the correct levels of daylight control, insulation, and natural ventilation within a flexible envelope, combined with durable, low maintenance materials and adaptable services organisation.

The exposed concrete superstructure has a high content of cement replacement, and its mass provides additional thermal assistance to the passive interior. In addition, there is an extensive solar array located on the roof of the studio building to ease overall energy loads, set within a combination of ‘blue’ and ‘brown’ roofs to assist with sustainable drainage requirements and promote greater biodiversity.

More information

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Architects
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Herzog & de Meuron. Partners in charge.- Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Ascan Mergenthaler.
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Design team
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Associate, Project Director.- John O'Mara, Project Manager.- Giuseppe Giacoppo, Project Architect.- Carmo Montalvão. Jeremy Addison, Bruno de Almeida Martins, Javier Artacho Abascal, Tina Bergman, Marinke Boehm, Michela Bonomo, Marija Brdarski, David Connor, Dave Edwards, Niklas Erlewein, Paul Feeney, Elizabeth Ferguson, James Grainger, Merethe Granhus, William Korytko, Maria Krasteva, Dan Ladyman, Nadia Lesniarek-Hamid, Johnny Lui, Luke Lupton, Kanto Maeda, Kwamina Monney, Niklas Nordström, Pedro Peña Jurado, Piercarlo Quecchia, Rebecca Roberts, Tobias Schaffrin, Carlos Tolosa Tejedor, Antonio Torres Tebar, Maria Vega Lopez, Marta Vigeant Gomes.
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Collaborators
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Visualisations.- Michal Baurycza.
Vasileios Kalisperakis.
Design Technologies.- Mikolaj Bazaczek.
Massimo Corradi.
Gia My Long.
Sahng O Lee.
Javier Muñoz Galán.
Dominik Nüssen.
Planning.- The Planning Lab.
Structural and Services.- Mott McDonald.
Cost.- Mott McDonald.
Inclusive Design.- David Bonnett Associates.
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Client
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Royal College of Art (RCA). Client Representative.- Dr Paul Thompson.
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Area
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Site Area.- 47,038 sqft / 4,370 sqm.
Gross floor area (GFA).- 166,841 sqft /15,500 sqm.
Number of levels.- 8.
Footprint.- 68,888 sqft / 6,400 sqm.
Length.- 318 ft / 97 m.
Width.- 183 ft / 56 m.
Height.- 108 ft / 33 m.
Gross volume (GV).- 4,703,918 cbft / 133,200 cbm.
Facade surface.- 91,170 sqft / 8,470 sqm.
The Research and Innovation Building.- 3,723 sqm across 8 floors
Workshop, Level 00.- 1,643 sqm.
Studios, Levels 01-03.- 5,753 sqm.
Reception Area, Level 00.- 49 sqm .
Seminar Rooms, Level 01.- 130 sqm.
Library and material shop, Levels 00 and 01.- 237 sqm.
The Hangar.- 556 sqm.
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Dates
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Competition.- 2016.  
Project.- 2016-2018.
Realization.- 2018-2021.
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Location
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Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London SW7 2EU, United Kingdom.
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Furniture
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The new campus is furnished with work by the following alumni:
● Tip Ton chair by Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby for Vitra,
● Arc Stool by Jemma Ooi & Nathan Philpott for Custhom
● E8 table by Mathias Hahn for Zeitraum
● Sam Son Chair for Magis (2015), Konstantin Grcic
● Comma by Vitra ● with wayfinding led by the acclaimed graphic designer and the RCA’s former senior tutor in Graphics, Margaret Calvert, showcasing the College’s contribution to industrial design over the years.
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Photography
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Iwan Baan.
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Herzog & de Meuron Architekten is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog (born 1950), and Pierre de Meuron (born 1950), closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. They are perhaps best known for their conversion of the giant Bankside Power Station in London to the new home of the Tate Museum of Modern Art (2000). Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been visiting professors at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 1994 (and in 1989) and professors at ETH Zürich since 1999. They are co-founders of the ETH Studio Basel – Contemporary City Institute, which started a research programme on processes of transformation in the urban domain.

Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by five Senior Partners – Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler and Stefan Marbach. An international team of 38 Associates and about 362 collaborators.

Herzog & de Meuron received international attention very early in their career with the Blue House in Oberwil, Switzerland (1980); the Stone House in Tavole, Italy (1988); and the Apartment Building along a Party Wall in Basel (1988).  The firm’s breakthrough project was the Ricola Storage Building in Laufen, Switzerland (1987).  Renown in the United States came with Dominus Winery in Yountville, California (1998). The Goetz Collection, a Gallery for a Private Collection of Modern Art in Munich (1992), stands at the beginning of a series of internationally acclaimed museum buildings such as the Küppersmühle Museum for the Grothe Collection in Duisburg, Germany (1999). Their most recognized buildings include Prada Aoyama in Tokyo, Japan (2003); Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany (2005); the new Cottbus Library for the BTU Cottbus, Germany (2005); the National Stadium Beijing, the Main Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China; VitraHaus, a building to present Vitra’s “Home Collection“, Weil am Rhein, Germany (2010); and 1111 Lincoln Road, a multi-storey mixed-use structure for parking, retail, a restaurant and a private residence in Miami Beach, Florida, USA (2010), the Actelion Business Center in Allschwil/Basel, Switzerland (2010). In recent years, Herzog & de Meuron have also completed projects such as the New Hall for Messe Basel Switzerland (2013), the Ricola Kräuterzentrum in Laufen (2014), which is the seventh building in a series of collaborations with Ricola, with whom Herzog & de Meuron began to work in the 1980s; and the Naturbad Riehen (2014), a public natural swimming pool. In April 2014, the practice completed its first project in Brazil: the Arena do Morro in the neighbourhood of Mãe Luiza, Natal, is the pioneering project within the wider urban proposal “A Vision for Mãe Luiza”.

Herzog & de Meuron have completed 6 projects since the beginning of 2015: a new mountain station including a restaurant on top of the Chäserrugg (2262 metres above sea level) in Toggenburg, Switzerland; Helsinki Dreispitz, a residential development and archive in Münchenstein/Basel, Switzerland; Asklepios 8 – an office building on the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland; the Slow Food Pavilion for Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy; the new Bordeaux stadium, a 42’000 seat multifunctional stadium for Bordeaux, France; Miu Miu Aoyama, a 720 m² boutique for the Prada-owned brand located on Miyuki Street, across the road from Prada Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan.

In many projects the architects have worked together with artists, an eminent example of that practice being the collaboration with Rémy Zaugg, Thomas Ruff and with Michael Craig-Martin.

Professionally, the Herzog & de Meuron partnership has grown to become an office with over 120 people worldwide. In addition to their headquarters in Basel, they have offices in London, Munich and San Francisco. Herzog has explained, “We work in teams, but the teams are not permanent. We rearrange them as new projects begin. All of the work results from discussions between Pierre and me, as well as our other partners, Harry Gugger and Christine Binswanger. The work by various teams may involve many different talents to achieve the best results which is a final product called architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.”

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Published on: May 24, 2022
Cite: "Royal College of Art. New design and innovation campus in Battersea by Herzog & de Meuron" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/royal-college-art-new-design-and-innovation-campus-battersea-herzog-de-meuron> ISSN 1139-6415
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