Developing our Holloway campus

Transcription

1 Developing our Holloway campus Welcome to London Metropolitan University. We are embarking on an exciting journey to bring all of our teaching together in one location at our Holloway Road campus: One Campus, One Community. As part of this project, we want to transform our Holloway Road site to increase capacity, create new facilities for both learning and socialising, and become much more open to our local community. In 2016, we developed a masterplan for our Holloway campus which identified key areas where we can improve the site to benefit both the University and local community. This masterplan has led us to the proposals set out in this display, which outlines how our Holloway campus has developed over the last 120 years, and how we hope to improve it. We have chosen to invest in our future in Islington, and have some exciting ideas about how we can work with local communities to ensure as many people as possible benefit from our University. We want to hear your thoughts about our plans, so please take a look at the display and tell us what you think. You can find details about how to get involved at the end of the exhibition. We want our campus and facilities to be more open to the people of Islington and members of the public. We are committed as a university to playing an active and constructive role in our community. The proposals in our project, One Campus, One Community, will benefit our students, staff and members of the local and wider community. We will create more opportunities for collaboration, enhanced spaces in which to teach and learn, and a greater sense of community both within the University and reaching out to our context of Islington and London. Professor John Raftery Vice Chancellor

2 The existing campus The University has been in Holloway for over 120 years, and in that time the campus has expanded and developed incrementally as the institution gained control over adjacent portions of land. The buildings have been developed in an increasingly piecemeal fashion to meet short-term needs as the institution grew. This has led to a diverse collection of buildings that occupy almost all of the developable footprint of the site. The current security line (in red) is pushed out to just behind the pavement line on Holloway Road, with other potential entrances into the site gated and closed off. This offers very little of a welcome for users and visitors to the University. The buildings on the campus are of varying quality and condition. Many are in need of refurbishment and upgrade in terms of external fabric, and provide poor quality interior space. The environmental performance of the existing spaces is also poor, resulting in inefficient building servicing and proportionally high running costs. Despite the obvious presence of Tower Building, the campus offers very little at the pedestrian level in terms of active frontage to the street. The majority of the frontage at street level consists of buildings with blank walls and blanked out windows, services entrances and alleyways. Many of the buildings have no street level indication that they are part of the University at all and offer nothing in terms of openness or permeability. This lack of welcome and external presence has been reflected through the consultation process, as many times staff and students have highlighted the lack of presence the campus has. The reality is that, unlike many university campuses, London Met does have a significant street frontage despite it facing on to a main arterial route into London. Yet this frontage is rather opaque, with an almost fortress-like character with blank facades facing on to the public realm and no permeability into the campus. 2 1 A significant proportion of the existing campus buildings are low-rise, low density, making up around half of the site s building footprint. The buildings are limited in potential for densification and expansion and so represent a future limit in terms of available space. In the above diagram, the light grey buildings are two-storey, with darker greys representing taller buildings. There is an irregular distribution of space uses across the site, and a significant proportion of spaces suffer with poor functionality and underuse due to access and circulation issues. Navigating the campus today can be a disorientating experience. The different colours in the above diagram highlight various key phases of development which have resulted in the campus we see today. The above image is of an architectural model of the campus as it was in the 1930s. A series of robust brick buildings developed from the original 1880s Rocket building facing on to Holloway Road (1) and culminating in J Block (2). During the development of the masterplan it became apparent that almost all of this original core of buildings still exists, but is hidden behind layers of subsequent development. The above diagram highlights these buildings within the current campus. The final masterplan seeks to bring greater focus on this collection of buildings as well as seeking to enhance them.

3 Relating to the urban realm A B The majority of buildings in the area are domestically scaled at between one and five storeys, with the majority being between two and four. There is an increase in height along major transport corridors, particularly along the railway viaduct and particularly where the railway viaduct meets Holloway Road. Holloway is an area of great diversity in building grain, ranging from the fine historic character of the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian housing to the XXL grain of the Emirates Stadium. Between these extremes are London Met s buildings. Other buildings within this intermediate grain include the Islington recycling centre, the Nag s Head shopping centre (towards the courser grain of the spectrum) and the new blocks of flats and nearby student housing the floor plates of which are not as large as the teaching spaces of the University, but are noticeably bigger than the historic built form of nearby terraced housing. The area enjoys excellent strategic links but this has come at the cost of local permeability. The A1 is a busy road running north-south, creating a barrier to east-west movement. It separates the University from Holloway Road Tube station, Caledonian Road Tube station (though this is a bit of a walk from the University) and student housing to the west. Like the growth rings of a tree, areas along Holloway Road get progressively older moving south towards central London. North of the viaduct is substantially Edwardian. Around the University, the historic fabric is mostly Victorian, giving way to the Georgian townhouses of Highbury Fields to the south. These urban flow diagrams illustrate, at a conceptual level, how the engagement with the surrounding public realm might create a more permeable and integrated campus. The consequence of this could be a campus with a much higher profile and more positive sense of place. Redevelopment has impacted upon this simple reading. Sometimes this is in the form of infill buildings that may add or detract to the general character of the area, but not fundamentally change it. In other instances, significant change, either comprehensive or incremental, has created a whole new character for the area. Main line railways running north from King s Cross also carve up the area and form distinct edges to character areas. Land use has also played a part in stifling the permeability of the area, in particular the University and the Emirates Stadium. It is noticeable that, with the exception of Tower Building, the majority of the London Met campus is of a low scale, with J Block (A) and the Graduate Centre / F Block (B) out of character in their low height. The diagram above left illustrates the current condition, with the University making little impact on the urban context. In the diagram above right the opening-up of the campus has two impacts. The first is to encourage better student flows between buildings, particularly to the library and between buildings surrounding the courtyard. The second is to welcome the public into the campus and in doing so create a stronger relationship between the University and the community. The current campus forms an impermeable barrier within the urban grain of this part of the city. Creating routes through the site and forming an enlarged central courtyard as a semi-public space, controlled by the University, provides the opportunity to open up the site and contribute more to the local city surroundings. The University will also benefit from a much improved sense of accessibility and openness, while the wider area will benefit from the creation of a new place for Holloway.

4 The masterplan re-imagined courtyard, a place where town and gown can meet. Lower Holloway is not short of open space. There are several parks and there is an extensive plaza around the Emirates Stadium. There is not, however, an urban square. The space at the heart of the University will have vitality, fronted by places for eating, social learning, events and a theatre. London Met has strong links with the local community. A large proportion of students come from the local area. School children visit regularly. This is not evident, however, in the built form of our campus. The masterplan seeks to address this by making the campus more permeable and the public life of the University more visible. Around the time Tower Building opened, the campus had a different relationship to Holloway Road than it does today. Then, the polytechnic buildings faced the street with a more open aspect. Some buildings were set back from the street edge, creating semi-public space and making the street less of a corridor. Since then, the University has withdrawn from the life of the street. The campus has limited points of entry; it lacks visual as well as physical permeability and there is very little active frontage. The masterplan seeks to set up a more positive relationship between the London Met campus and its surroundings, particularly Holloway Road. At the heart of the plan is a There will be improved routes into the University, open to students and those who work on campus. Importantly these routes will also welcome in the local community, respecting safety concerns through appropriate and flexible management. There will be two new routes either side of the Graduate Centre. The northern route aligns with Eden Grove, giving long views into the courtyard. The southern route will be lined with events, performance, dance and media spaces. Rollit Street, currently a service access, will become a point of entry, linking the courtyard to the library and social sciences hub. The importance given elsewhere to place making and an enhanced public realm requires a strong approach to the design of the external environment. If prioritised and enacted, it is possible for the landscape to link the wider whole together, reaching out to the Learning Centre, Science Centre and Holloway Road.

5 The masterplan The combination of a more permeable campus with a greater opportunity to showcase the student experience can create a richer, more diverse and far more animated environment. With a wide range of architectural styles on campus, a common architectural approach to the new insertions can provide an important ribbon that ties the elements into a coherent whole. In this artist s impression of the central courtyard, J Block is visible to the left of the image. One of the most notable criticisms of the existing campus is how the activity taking place within the University is not evident to those passing by. In some cases, such as the base of Tower Building, there is an opportunity to open up the facades but in others, such as the Graduate Centre, this is much more challenging. The strategy developed was therefore to create a street frontage that would wrap into a newly created central courtyard. This new frontage (in red) could then act as a shopfront to the activities of the University. In so doing, it further reinforces the idea of reaching out and inviting in, and a greater University presence. The elevation below takes this folding street frontage and unfolds it. The creation of the new courtyard and active shopfront behind provides permeability and a greater depth to the London Met experience for visitors. The opening up of the base of Tower Building can provide a more generous and welcoming entrance. The juxtaposition of Tower Building and Graduate Centre helps define this entrance point and, from an urban realm perspective, this is further reinforced by this opening being opposite the entrance to Eden Grove.

6 Tower Building As part of the overall masterplan, Tower Building forms an important element. In spatial terms, it provides a significant area for both teaching and staff space. In urban design terms, it acts as an important marker for the presence of London Met and will gain greater significance when offset against the new central courtyard. The University is at an early stage of considering the options for how Tower Building is best re-purposed, both in terms of new internal configurations and an external refreshing of the building. This board illustrates some of the possible options for cladding. Detailed proposals will come forward at a later date as part of a planning application for this element of the campus development. For the moment, the planning application is focused on J Block. This option is based upon a restoration of the existing building, involving a complex task of repair or replacement of the existing precast panels, some of which are spalling in places. This process would need to include the incorporation of thermal insulation as well as improved airtightness to address the current, poor environmental performance. Tower Building once benefitted from some public space at its base, but this has now been lost. Of particular impact is the Tech Tower, which dominates the view of Tower Building when looking south. This undermining of the appearance of Tower Building suggests that a completely new cladding solution, rather than a restoration, is suitable. Some of the options considered for this refresh are illustrated below. In this option, the existing cladding is removed back to the structural frame. The facade consists of full-height glazing with a randomised array of vertical glass fins and panels. The glass fins are angled to encourage an open aspect when viewed from Holloway Road Tube station or the new central courtyard. This also means that the fins are angled to offer solar protection from the south. The existing building performs very poorly in environmental terms. The single glazed sash windows cause overheating in summer and draughts in winter and allow the noise of Holloway Road into the building. The concrete panels have no insulation properties and are showing signs of ageing. The previous options are based around a very transparent glass facade approach, akin to a commercial office building. Considering the local context, and in particular the nearby student residential block, a brick facade solution could be considered appropriate. This option proposes a solution that expresses the structural grid of the underlying frame. It is a solution that has a certain elegance in its simplicity. In this solution the facade has been manipulated to create a richer and more diverse elevational treatment. Each elevation is composed to create a degree of variation in the rhythm of the facade. This is achieved whilst maintaining a 1500mm planning grid so that the internal layout remains flexible.

7 J Block initial proposals The predominately two-storey building bounded by the red line in the above photograph is identified within the University as J Block. It is a robust brick building constructed in the 1930s and forms the final part of the original core of buildings on campus. Its main facade faces on to the existing courtyard, although there is very little connection between the two. The facades are architecturally modest but the building has a certain honesty and offers the opportunity to be re-purposed as a key element of a transformed campus. J Block is the lowest building of the original core buildings and is predominately two storeys, although it extends higher at its east end. The masterplan identified the opportunity to increase the height of the building modestly to generate greater density appropriate for this urban location and consistent with the wider context as illustrated on board 3. The existing ground levels mean there is stepped and ramped access to the building, which limits the opportunity for ground level rooms to opened out on to the courtyard. Rooms to the east are lit and ventilated by large openings, but the windows are of poor performance. Circulation/escape stairs are located at each end of the building. A double-banked central corridor runs not only continuously through J Block, but extends into and through adjoining buildings, creating a labyrinth of circulation that is difficult to navigate. Teaching rooms located on the east side have the potential for views into the central courtyard as well as views in. At level 0 the teaching spaces to the west extend beyond the floorplate shown here. A single-storey element projects at the far northern end of the building. The internal structural frame is evident in locations and, in combination with the glazed screens to rooms (see below), suggests that the corridor walls act as partitions only.

8 J Block initial proposals The masterplan envisaged the addition of a new two-storey extension to J Block. This densification of the building is critical in allowing for the creation of the large new space at the heart of the campus. The proposal also creates a critical mass of teaching and learning space to generate a new and dynamic environment. The masterplan also suggested that this extension should be clearly articulated as a new element, the design of which could influence other new developments on the campus. To develop the external form of the roof extension the approach has been to consider the internal spaces and volumes to inform the envelope and massing. The concept organogram and sketch sections shown here illustrate early thoughts on the internal layout. Key design drivers are the creation of complementary formal and informal teach and learn spaces, which will benefit from good daylighting and, wherever possible, natural ventilation. This approach has been developed further on the next two boards and continues to evolve as the scheme is developed towards a detailed planning application.

9 J Block initial proposals The design approach taken to the two-storey extension has been to interpret the existing building in a contemporary way. This helps tie the new and old together so the completed building can be read as a whole. The approach to the extension also defines an architectural strategy that can be used as further phases of the masterplan are developed. This will help create a greater coherence to the campus as a whole. Generally the proposals for the interior of J Block consist of the opening-up of the plan to the east side of the building to remove the central double banked corridor and create new study commons space supporting the adjacent teaching and learning space. At level 0, a new food court provides a much improved social hub. This space can now break out into the courtyard, benefitting from the southerly aspect. A The teaching rooms to the east side are removed creating an open and fluid study commons space. This also has the benefit of removing the central corridor to improve the circulation and wayfinding experience. Carrels alongside circulation routes A wide variety of settings B The existing teaching and learning spaces are reinstated at all levels to create a focus of teaching space on the campus. This suiting approach can also benefit space utilisation. C To provide access for all to the new extension above, a new lift core has been added with additional toilet facilities adjacent. D To further improve circulation flows and encourage a dynamic environment new stairs have been introduced. E A new servery space F A new commercial kitchen Easy access to resources G A new food court area considerably larger than the current facility and in a far more prominent position creates a social heart off the central courtyard. An acoustic glazed screen separates the space from the adjacent study commons. This will encourage the use of the space as additional study space outside of catering hours. B F E B C D A D C A G B

10 Thank you We hope you have found this display useful and informative, and that you share our belief that these plans have the potential to bring a positive change to our local area. We really want to hear your thoughts, so please tell us what you think. You can get involved in a variety of ways: Visit our website: londonmet.ac.uk/onecampus us: onecampus@londonmet.ac.uk Write to us: One Campus, One Community Programme Office, London Metropolitan University, Holloway Road, London N7 8DB Tell us now! Fill in a form on one of the tablets provided, or fill in a paper form and post it in the comment box. About the architects Design Engine, a multi award-winning architecture practice founded in 1999, has a wealth of experience in Higher Education architecture, having completed projects for the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and the University of Southampton. Its John Henry Brookes Building for Oxford Brookes University won a RIBA National Award and reached the midlist of the Stirling Prize. Based in Winchester, Hampshire, the practice has been named RIBA South Practice of the Year and reached the shortlist for Education Architect of the Year. Design Engine works across all scales and sectors and its work has been recognised by both critics and industry awards.

11 London s Vibrant Inspirational Metropolitan University