Foreign Office Architects completed a new building for Ravensbourne College in London.
Ravensbourne College by Foreign Office Architects
The new building for Ravensbourne, a university sector college innovating in digital media and design, is located at Greenwich Peninsula on the South-Eastern edge of The O2 building, to the right of the North-South axis that structures the masterplan. By moving to this extraordinary location, Ravensbourne aims to deliver education to meet the shifting demands of 21st century learners – learners who expect access to resources and support on demand and whose needs can differ greatly depending on a variety of social and economic factors.
The new building is designed to stimulate the environment and working practices of creative professionals, providing the best in technology and mobile computing in an environment which enables a variety of learning styles.The main strategy in the design of the building is to produce a structure which will encourage collaboration between the different disciplines and practitioners within Ravensbourne. This will be achieved by structuring the building around a system of two interconnected atria, each piercing through three levels of program.
The atria have been systematically attached to the external facade in order not only to use them as ventilation devices, but also to connect visually the core of the public spaces in the building with the perception of the urban surroundings. The building is specified to reach a BREEAM qualification of environmental excellence.
In order to achieve optimum environmental performance, low maintenance and high flexibility, the massing has been kept as compact as possible with a very low ratio of façade to area, and a deep building which is able to provides flexible space to host the various activities which take place in the building.
The architecture of the building has been designed to express the culture of contemporary production, by using a non-periodic tiling system which symbolises a more diverse and contemporary approach to technology.
Gothic rose windows and flower patterns have also been a rich field of inspiration for the project, but in this building they will not be produced as an imitation of nature but as an abstract construction. To achieve this we have resorted to the use of a non-periodic tiling pattern on the façade, which allow us to build seven different types of windows out of only three different tiles.
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Photography by Benedict Luxmoore and Morley von Sternberg
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