After calling the Wates House their home since the 1970s, the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture celebrated the official opening of its newly refurbished headquarters today on 22 Gordon Street in Bloomsbury. Collaborating with the Bartlett and UCL Estates, architect Hawkins\Brown doubled the size of the existing building to 8,500 square meters.

Preserving some of the original fabric of the old Wates House and using the existing structural concrete frame, the new “flexible and robust” building now includes a public gallery and provides more open working space for the school's 1,000 students and staff. 

Hawkins\Brown added a fifth and sixth floor, and a main spiraling stairway within a full-height atrium. The renovation also includes double-height glazing at ground level and a new prominent entrance to create a more inviting building in its city-center location.

“A large number of the Hawkins\Brown team are alumni of the Bartlett and have fond memories of the old Wates House,” Hawkins\Brown partner Euan Macdonald said in a statement. “This was a challenging and hugely rewarding project for us [...] As an academic space 22 Gordon Street is far more social and interconnected; as an institution, it has become better integrated to its context, outward-looking and welcoming to the public.”

Photos © Jack Hobhouse.

22 Gordon Street marks the first major project to be complete in the “Transforming UCL” initiative to revamp the university's Bloomsbury campus. The Bartlett will also launch four new architectural education programs at 22 Gordon Street and their upcoming Here East site, including a joint undergrad degree in Civil Environment and Geomatic Engineering.

Find more project photos, diagrams, and a video below.

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