The Royal College of Art’s brawny brick campus in Battersea makes its public debut
Earlier this week, London’s Royal College of Art (RCA) formally unveiled its highly anticipated new campus in Battersea, a sprawling south bank district best known for its defunct landmark power station.
Spanning nearly 170,00 square feet, the $169 million Battersea campus project, a Herzog & de Meuron–designed concrete behemoth clad in textured brick and glass, is described by the RCA as the “largest investment in transformational space” in its 185-year history. As noted by the RCA, the new Battersea development “marks a critical point” in its evolution into a “dynamic, STEAM-focused postgraduate university.” Featuring workshops, studio spaces, research facilities, and event/exhibition venues, the massive new compound will enable the storied London institution to expand into new fields of research and study—namely computer and materials science, robotics, advanced manufacturing, complex visualisation and data science, and intelligent mobility, as the RCA detailed—while providing postgrads with the tools and know-how to tackle “some of the most pressing challenges of our times.”
Switzerland’s Herzog & de Meuron won the project out of competition in 2016, triumphing over a shortlist of international practices that included, among others, Studio Gang, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and France’s Lactaton & Vassal.
Wrote the firm of the project, which is a notable new addition to the nascent Battersea Creative Quarter (and not too far from Foster + Partners HQ):
“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.”
Anchoring the hulking campus complex is The Hangar, a roughly 3,800 square foot “multifunctional activity space” featuring massive doors on both ends to allow for the installation of large and complex works of art. It’s joined by a smaller but similarly soaring flexible event and exhibition space, the Robotics Hangar, which, true to its name, primarily serves as a venue for the research and testing of “intelligent mobility, design engineering, sculpture and robotics, with aerial and aquatic robotics,” according to a press announcement from the RCA.
Two conjoined volumes comprise RCA’s new Battersea campus: the taller, white metal fin-wrapped Rausing Research & Innovation Building, which features eight stories of “independent and confidential research space” for materials science, soft robotics, advanced manufacturing, intelligent mobility, AR and VR visualization, and more. A spacious, terrace-flanked seminar and conference facility is situated on the top floor of the building, while InnovationRCA, a hub for “enterprise, entrepreneurship, incubation, and business support,” is housed on the two levels below that.
To the immediately north of the Research Building along Howie Street is the Studio Building. The low-slung structure is topped with a sawtooth roofline and features workshops and manufacturing facilities on its ground-level with three levels of studio space supporting postgraduate art and design students above. “Designed as social and educational spaces of creative transfer and collaboration, the studios will also accommodate temporary exhibitions and large-scale works,” explained the college.
Featuring natural ventilation and daylighting strategies, a rooftop solar array, and other sustainable design elements, the campus has received a BREEAM “Excellent” rating.
Concurrent with the debut of the Battersea campus, the RCA also revealed its five-year strategic plan for 2022–2027, which “sets out its ambition to use interdisciplinary thinking to solve global issues, while continuing to attract the world’s most talented faculty, students, artists, designers and supporters.” More on that plan can be found here.
