Quadrangle Building, King’s College London, Westminster

2025 RIBA London Award

Education
Hall McKnight for King’s College London
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 3,280m²

This project has overcome many complex challenges to transform lost space into useful accommodation, and also provide a precious new piece of the central London public realm. The new quadrangle space immeasurably improves the setting and access to two of the Grade I-listed structures of Somerset House East Wing and the King’s Building, and provides adaptable spaces for students and staff of King’s College London. 

Beneath this new quadrangle, flexible teaching and learning space has been skilfully created by reusing the delicate 1940s concrete structure. Care had to be taken not to overload the structure, with thermal performance and drainage designed and detailed within very fine tolerances.  

The entrance sequence and circulation into the new facility take the visitor through the refurbished brick underground vaults of the King’s Building’s lower-ground floor into a new commons space with a timber loggia. From here, prototype robots, stereolithographic printers, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) testing equipment and groups of industrious undergraduates are juxtaposed alongside the 19th-century foundations of these heroic buildings. 

New spaces navigate, synthesise and celebrate over two centuries of engineering technology. Contemporary fair-faced concrete light wells that sit between them are robust in their materiality, geometry and depth.

Hall McKnight has carefully thought through the material choices to ensure their longevity, function and low carbon impact. Concrete has been used to reduce operational emissions overall by providing high thermal mass and the project is energy efficient due to the nature of its containment on three sides. Energy use is impressively lower than predicted, and the thermal mass of the historical fabric contributes positively by reducing internal temperature fluctuations and consequent demands on heating and cooling.  

For over 12 years, client and architect teams have worked symbiotically and constructively to challenge one another to surmount the considerable heritage, technical and briefing challenges. The result is a bright, flexible and robust teaching and learning facility for the engineering faculty. The new public realm has restored coherence to this part of the campus and considerably enhanced the experience of these highly significant heritage buildings.

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RIBA Regional Awards 2025 sponsored by Autodesk, EH Smith, Equitone and VELUX