UCL East Marshgate is the first part of University College London’s new East London campus. Designed by Stanton Williams, the state-of-the-art academic building is designed to deconstruct institutional silos and foster cross-disciplinary learning, thinking, and research.
Breaking down disciplinary silos
The UCL East campus marks the university’s most significant expansion in its 200-year history. The eight-storey, 35,000-square-metre Marshgate building stands as UCL’s largest single building. The facility houses a diverse range of teaching and research fields, including the creative industries, engineering, robotics, green technologies, and global health. To fulfil UCL’s vision of an academic space that promotes innovation by breaking down disciplinary silos, Stanton Williams designed a series of highly flexible “neighbourhoods”. Strategically integrated throughout the building, these neighbourhoods promote the emergence of new disciplines and collaborative working methods. Neighbourhoods are clustered on different floors, each with its own double-height space for informal meetings and gatherings.
Design and configuration
The Marshgate building’s lower levels feature a network of publicly accessible spaces, including a cafe, art displays, and various activities, inviting individuals, schools, and community groups into the heart of UCL East. Research and academic spaces are concentrated on the central floors, while specialised laboratories and workshops are primarily located on the upper floors. This configuration was was shaped by end-user briefing sessions, conducted by Stanton Williams to the end of RIBA Stage 3 (Spatial Coordination). Further end-user briefing sessions were carried out by joint interior architect Sheppard Robson for the subsequent stages. Sheppard Robson built upon Stanton Williams’ design by configuring internal spaces to meet UCL’s requirements, including the design of laboratories, workshops, and workspaces.
A hub of connectivity and collaboration
A central, naturally-lit atrium connects the Marshgate building’s range of activities. Highly visible circulation routes, including stairs and escalators, create further opportunities for chance encounters and interaction. The building boasts a number of additional facilities: fabrication workshops, media studios, exhibition areas, design studios, lecture theatres, a library, and an executive suite. There are also spaces that provide opportunities for collaboration and engagement with local businesses and communities.
The choice of furnishings complement the building’s use of concrete, steel, and wood, adding colourful accents and creating spaces for focused work and collaborative conversations.
A newly landscaped public realm offers an animated and accessible interface with London’s Olympic Park and the adjacent riverside.
A fusion of UCL’s heritage and sustainable design
The Marshgate building echoes the solidity and permanence of UCL’s original Bloomsbury campus in central London. Its massing also recalls East London’s industrial heritage. In a departure from the often-used lightweight curtain wall facades, Marshgate’s facade is made up of in-situ and precast concrete panels with subtly graded tones and textures. These panels utilise low-carbon, slow-curing concrete with high cement-replacement fuel ash. The lower floors feature a decorative, board-marked concrete, while the upper levels are sculpted to maximise natural daylight and ventilation.
The Marshgate building achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating. The building’s solid facade delivers high thermal performance and solar shading, while passive design strategies informed its overall design. The building is powered in part by renewable electricity, with the aim to reach net zero carbon by 2035 in keeping with the district’s wider sustainable energy strategy.
Community Wood, a network of UK-wide wood-recycling social enterprises, collected waste timber from the Marshgate site. The timber was used to provide training in carpentry skills for locally unemployed people.
