Stanton Williams' UCL East scheme opens its doors to students
The larger UCL East development, once fully complete, will deliver 180,000m² of buildings on plots either side of Waterworks River, which runs through the site.
Marshgate, situated south of Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit, is the main educational hub within UCL East’s first stage and includes eight floors of laboratories, innovation workshops, collaboration spaces, studios, a library and a large public café. At capacity, UCL East's new campus will create a community of 4,000 students and 700 staff.
The Marshgate scheme, which is UCL’s largest single building, has been delivered by Sheppard Robson, which joined the team at RIBA Stage 4B to complete the detailed design of the base build with contractor Mace. The practice’s interior design group, ID:SR, worked on the fit-out.
Different floors are clustered into ‘neighbourhoods’, each with its own double-height collaboration space for informal meetings or exhibitions. The lower levels of the building are publicly accessible, with a café, public art displays and activities curated to draw schools, community organisations and the public in.
Student, academic and research spaces are concentrated on the central floors, while specialised laboratories and workshops occupy upper levels.
A large, central, daylit and naturally ventilated atrium connects all the building’s levels, creating a visible circulation route for ‘chance encounters and interactions’. Additional facilities include fabrication workshops, media studios, exhibition areas, design studios, lecture theatres, a library and executive suite and spaces for collaboration and engagement with local businesses and communities.
Marshgate’s solid exterior has been built to echo the ‘permanence’ of UCL’s Bloomsbury campus. Its massing is inspired by the site’s industrial past, referencing historical buildings in the surrounding Lea Valley while also responding to the sculptural forms of the Olympic legacy structures. In-situ and precast concrete panels in subtly graded tones and textures make reference to the river bed.
The façade features board-marked concrete on the lower floors and upper levels sculpted to ‘optimise natural daylight and ventilation’.
On the east bank, south of Zaha Hadid Architects’ aquatics centre, construction has finished too on Lifschutz Davison Sandilands’ 20,000m² One Pool Street development, a two-tower scheme providing 500 student bedrooms above a three-storey podium and 4,600m² of flexible multifunctional space, academic areas, laboratories, a shop and a café.
Together with One Pool Street, Marshgate marks the completion of the first phase of the UCL East campus masterplan.
UCL East is part of the university’s 10-year £1.25 billion programme of building and refurbishment across its campuses, its biggest development in its nearly 200-year history and sits adjacent to East Bank, a cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park still under construction.
Once complete, it will accommodate V&A East, Sadler’s Wells East, UAL’s London College of Fashion, as well as UCL East and new BBC Music Studios.
Marshgate is also situated within Stratford's SHIFT innovation district, a collaborative initiative headed by UCL and other major bodies to bring together public and private sectors with education, local communities, innovative enterprises and tech companies to test and demonstrate interventions to make cities safer, healthier and more sustainable.
Drawing on the legacy of Lee Valley’s industriousness and creativity, and the exceptional cultural and landscape setting of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Marshgate will be a place of curiosity, learning and collaboration. A place that engages with the surrounding city to create a new kind of university experience that balances a sense of permanence with a designed in flexibility that will both facilitate and embrace the rapidly evolving nature of academic practice. Gavin Henderson, principal director, Stanton Williams
Source:Stanton Williams
The issues facing people and the planet have never been more complex or more urgent. I am confident that the increased scale and space that our UCL East campus will give us, where departments and faculties are all coming together to problem-solve under the same roof, will accelerate the breakthroughs and disruptive discoveries that UCL is known for around the world. Marshgate, with its magnificent design and extraordinary facilities, will be home to research collaborations and world-leading programmes of study, that I am confident will impact both locally and globally. Paola Lettieri, pro-provost, UCL East
UCL has been committed to the involvement of artists in this development, both during construction and on completion, to animate our spaces and in doing so welcome our neighbours to become part of our UCL community. The design of the Marshgate building will give UCL and our community partners opportunities to create public events and creative programmes that reflect on UCL research and local issues and interests. We are looking forward to inviting people into our buildings to experience for themselves our spaces and creative programmes. Sam Wilkinson, head of public art, UCL
Source:Stanton Williams
It has been fantastic to work with UCL, the wider project team and our supply chain partners on such an outstanding building. Marshgate is exceptional in its vision – championing collaboration not just between the students and academics but including the wider public. Working closely with the community has been a core component of the delivery strategy to ensure we create long-term social value for the wider campus. I can’t wait to see Marshgate open and all the great ideas and innovations come to life. Terry Spraggett, MD public sector construction, Mace
Source:Stanton Williams
Start on site 2019 Completion March 2023 (practical completion), September 2023 (building operation) Gross internal floor area 35,000m2 Form of contract NEC3 with Option A Construction cost £250 million Construction cost per m2 £7,100 Architect Stanton Williams Interior architects Stanton Williams and Sheppard Robson Delivery architect Sheppard Robson Client University College London Structural design AKT II Design manager Plan A Public consultation Soundings PD advisor Bureau Veritas Catering Tricon Accessibility All Clear Designs/Arup MEP, Infrastructure, Lighting, Acoustics, Logistics, Vertical Transportation, Transport, BIM, Security, Fire, CFD modelling, DSEAR, Risk and Resilience, Facades, Information Management, Sustainability Arup Cost consultant AECOM Access and maintenance REEF Associates MEP contractor design Hoare Lea Landscape consultant Vogt Landscape Project manager WSP/Turner and Townsend Principal designer Stanton Williams Approved building inspector Newham Building Control Contractor Mace CAD software used Autodesk Revit
Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >2% Not calculated Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >5% Not calculated On-site energy generation 1000m2 of PV delivers 13% of regulated CO2 emissions Annual mains water consumption 7 m3/occupant Airtightness at 50Pa 2.4 m3/h.m2 Heating and hot water load 24 kWh/m2/yr Overall area-weighted U-value 0.54 W/m2K Design life 60 Years (Structure / Superstructure) Embodied/whole-life carbon 970 kgCO2eq/m2 (1) Annual Regulated CO2 emission 14.5 kgCO2eq/m2
