Students’ Second Home

Set at one end of Grade I listed Wivenhoe Park and Lake, a welcoming flagship building contains student support services, study areas, a media centre, a University Council board room and adiminstrative offices. Resting on a deck of stone at the edge of the lake, three oversailing in-situ concrete ‘trays’ support a syncopated rhythm of limestone piers and vertical glazing and act as a counterpoint to the library behind. The covered outdoor entrance space below the cantilevered second floor slab is propped up on an irregular forest of slender columns lit from above by round openings in the roof. Inside, a sculptural steel and oak staircase undulates through the reception space, its smooth rounded forms a contrast to the texture of the board-marked concrete and stone. The building is so popular it is fully occupied ‘24/7’, having become a second home for students.

2012 - 2015, with Patel Taylor for Essex University.

RIBA Building of the Year 2016.

My role was team leader from Stage 1 to completion of a design-and-build contract with Kier Eastern.