Design Engine’s winning scheme consists of ten history and politics classrooms, a social centre and café and extended art teaching facilities including a new double-height gallery over 2100 sq. metres.

The architecture of this £5.3 million scheme not only has to reconcile the numerous existing buildings that surround the site, including the Grade 2 Listed rackets court, but it also has to provide fluid connections internally between these buildings of varying internal floor heights.
A key consideration was to achieve a building of a timeless quality, which sits and functions in harmony with its neighbouring buildings.

The design is principally of brick with zinc roofs and ventilation towers to facilitate natural ventilation throughout. The colonnades to both Clock tower Square and the green area facing H-Social (a boarding house) are important features which are intended to order the buildings appearance by borrowing the structural grid dimensions from the adjacent rackets court whilst also providing much needed areas of covered external circulation.

The project has commenced on site with enabling works and the main contract is due to commence in March 2012, with completion in June 2013.

Design Engine have completed the remodelling of the main reception of the Old Building, off Houghton Street, WC2. This is the main entrance foyer to the LSE and its famous Theatre, which was in need of a major transformation to meet current security, access and wayfinding improvements. The project, which was won in competition, includes a new green room for the theatre, toilets, reception and split-level waiting areas. Central to the scheme are glass cabinets, which clad the existing walls, offering information, signage and inspirational extracts from luminaries’ speeches given from the theatre.

Careful internal planning has enabled the extension to incorporate four squash courts on the western side of the extension by sinking them into the ground, whilst ensuring that the overall height of the extension remains similar to the height of the existing eaves of the QSC. The mass of the extension is reduced further by cutting the building back on the western side by offering the roofs of the squash courts as a viewing terrace.

A diagonal brick and glass wall running North-East to South-West provides the containment to the internal accommodation; effectively turning the existing entrance forecourt into internal space. A curving open colonnade is constructed from a series of double pre-cast concrete columns set approximately 4.5m apart, with each column supporting a single curving pre-cast beam tied back to main facade. The colonnade, whilst influenced by the natural curve of the landscape and cricket pitch, also creates a dynamic relationship with diagonal brick facade encouraging people to enter the street from either end. The colonnade also subtly hides a sloping ground plane, allowing wheelchair users and golf buggies seamless access to the playing fields.

The project is seen as an opportunity to reconstruct a very damaged and poorly utilised part of the the main Gothic campus which was originally built in 1872. The new two-storey building will contain 6 new laboratories; three on each floor along with preparation areas and staff offices. The northern elevation which faces the principal entrance approach to the school is dominated by 3 stone chimneys which house the chemical flues from the laboratories. In contrast, the southern façade faces into the main campus introducing a two storey colonnade providing a new external pedestrian route at ground floor and first floor access to the classrooms whilst offering solar protection to the building.

This project, Design Engine’s fourth major collaboration with the University of Winchester, is a 11,000 sqft arts faculty building. Sitting in a natural bowl, the three-storey centre is linked to other parts of the faculty and consists principally of voluminous dance studios with break-out communal areas between them. The budget of £1.8m was a demanding one for such accommodation and the project was constructed through a design and build procurement route in six months; with Design Engine providing full information before acting as Employer’s Agent for the contract.

The proposed skin of the building will be instrumental both in knitting the campus together in a homogenous way and in creating a range of environments conducive to each unique use.
Conceptually, it is our intention that the skin can be used in some way to refer to the values of Oxford Brookes University. As an inspiration, detailed research has been undertaken to incorporate images of the cellular structure of trees into the building skin in reference to the University’s strong environmental ethos.
Poetically, the tree cell structure images refer to the building blocks of the natural environment, and therefore the comprehension of the building’s design evolution through rigorous scientific research.