Page 13 - GenRCA Demo

PLACES
BATTERSEA: BUILDING THE FUTURE
The expansion of the Royal College of Art’s Battersea campus is an important step in the RCA’s evolution into a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics)-focused postgraduate university.
Designed by renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, our new, state-of-the-art building will sit alongside the RCA’s existing Dyson, Woo and Sackler Buildings and Clore Innovation Centre, on the south bank of the River Thames.
The striking new building represents the most significant development of our campus since 1961. As the Darwin Building set out the vision for art and design in Britain in the post-war era, so the new Battersea Building will define these creative disciplines in the twenty-first century.
It is designed as two separate but interconnected spaces that provide approximately 15,000 m2 (NIA) of distinct, flexible areas for teaching and research.
– The Studio Building has three floors of naturally lit and ventilated studios located above a complex of sophisticated workshops – from hand-craft to robotics – which will form the creative hub of the campus.
– The Research Building labs host advanced manufacturing and intelligent mobility – which form part of the new vision for the RCA in 2021. It will also house the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and the university’s expanded incubator programme, InnovationRCA, which will see the number of supported start-up businesses increase two-fold.
– A double-height hangar will allow students to assemble, prototype or display large-scale artworks or inventions, providing opportunities to open up the RCA campus to the public and support an enhanced cultural programme.
– A new café and art materials shop will open to the local community, alongside other public realm enhancements, with improved routes through the site to connect the new building to the surrounding area.