BCO London Talk & Tour: UCL East, Marshgate

Marshgate, UCL East
Designed by Stanton Williams, Marshgate is a 35,000 sqm new breed of academic building at the heart of UCLEast–the largest single expansion of University College London since its foundation nearly 200 years ago.
Marshgate’s vision is based on the recognition that the answers to the global challenges facing our planet today lie less within traditional disciplines than in the interaction between them. Therefore, to enable new interdisciplinary ways of working, the design focussed on highly flexible spaces that encourage collaboration between teaching and research, academia and the public.

No existing faculty is based at Marshgate. Instead, the building hosts new cross-disciplinary courses, ranging from robotics, green technologies, fair finance and global health; for example, bringing together artists, engineers and computer scientists working on courses that combine technology and art.

Its eight floors are grouped into ‘neighbourhoods’, each with its own double-height space for informal meetings/exhibitions. The lower levels include a network of publicly accessible spaces with a café, art displays and activities designed to draw the public into the building. Student, academic and research spaces are located on the central floors, with highly specialised laboratories on the upper levels. A central daylit atrium connects all activities vertically, and highly visible circulation routes create further opportunities for chance encounters and interaction.

The East Bank
The East Bank is a unique collaboration between cultural institutions, world-leading universities and the people of the Olympic boroughs. Made up of University College London (UCL East), University of the Arts London’s London College of Fashion, Sadler’s Wells East, BBC Music Studios, V&A East, and V&A East Storehouse, the universities opened in the autumn of 2023.