The new building is to be home to the Painting Department, currently divided between two separate sites in Kensington and Battersea and will provide excellent facilities for all the Painting students to work together under one roof for the first time in over 10 years.
New Painting Studios
Battersea, London |
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The new Painting Department is the first phase of the RCA's ambitious plan for a major new campus in Battersea also designed by Haworth Tompkins. The campus will eventually house the Schools of Fine Art and Applied Art, and also provide accommodation for start-up units for new businesses in the fields of art and design as well as a gallery and lecture theatre. |
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The building is being redeveloped from an old factory which will become almost unrecognizable as designs for a dramatic new roof structure double the height of the existing building. The 'saw tooth' roof form of the building will allow much-needed north light without direct glare from the sun, ideal studio conditions for painting. |
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The painting department is not an academy and there is no common or dominant theme. Students set their own agenda.
The general ethos / working method is one of studio based work, but the studios also have to provide an appropriate environment for academic work as 'learning spaces', so whilst predominantly industrial space the environment should also have educational gravitas. |
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Precedents such as the Royal Academy painting studios were studied as exemplars of excellent educational studio spaces. The scale of students work varies and the studio spaces will be flexible and allow wide ranging variety in size and separation from each other.
All studios have good levels of north light either from the top or the side and have a minimum floor to ceiling height of 3.5 metres. |
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Studio spaces of various sizes line both sides of a central spine running the length of the building; on one side there are single storey side-lit studios that can be subdivided in different flexible arrangements as required; on the other side there will be five large double height studios, 6.8 metres high at their lowest point, each lit by two rows of north facing roof lights.
These large studios can be subdivided into a maximum of 7 individual studio spaces if required. |
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A lift and two staircases connect ground and first floor. A wide circulation gallery, overlooking the double height studios below, leads through the whole length of the first floor connecting the studios. These first floor studios are all top-lit by a row of angled north facing roof lights.
The building is naturally ventilated throughout with opening windows at low level and circular ventilation panels in the end of each roof light assembly. |
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The entrance is to have large glazed entrance doors and at first floor a glass box will protrude from the building, to act both as a signal for the entrance and also as a break out space for students with views along the street. |
Externally, the existing brickwork of the building is of good quality and colour tone, is in good condition and is to be retained, cleaned and re-pointed, with the existing painted lintels over the windows stripped back to the concrete substrate, so that the whole masonry surface provides a contrasting background for the new window, door and roof interventions that signify the transformation of the building.
Where existing door and window openings are required to be in-filled, the surface will be rendered in either a self finished or painted render with stainless steel door panels to provide maximum contrast with the existing brickwork, thus making explicit the new interventions. |
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Construction work will begin in August 2008 with a scheduled completion date of May 2009, ready for the Painting department to move into its new home for the 2009-2010 academic year. |
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Royal College of Art, Department of Painting
Client: The Royal College of Art
Value:
£2.2million
Completion: Summer 2009
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Anodised Aluminium
Galvanised Steel
Exposed Concrete Soffits
Polished Screed
Repointed brick
Glass
Render
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