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Entwurf • Design Grafton Architects, IE-Dublin
„Das Nebeneinander von kontemplativen und
performativen Aktivitäten bietet einen fantasievollen
Ansatz für Bildung als Prozess der Entdeckung.“
Grafton Architects
Grundriss Erdgeschoss • Ground floor plan Grundriss 1. Obergeschoss • Floor plan level +1 few thresholds as possible. On the ground floor, also a café is located
Grundriss Erdgeschoss • Ground floor plan
Grundriss 3. Obergeschoss • Floor plan level +3 Grundriss 5. Obergeschoss • Floor plan level +5 the building for several works.
Bauherr • Client Kingston University, UK-Kingston u. T.
Standort • Location UK-Kingston upon Thames
Nutzfläche • Floor space 9.100 m 2
Fotos • Photos Ed Reeve; Dennis Gilbert/View (5)
Mehr Infos auf Seite • More information on page 128
KINGSTON UNIVERSITY
IN LONDON
With university buildings in Milan and Lima, Grafton Ar-
chitects had already attracted attention, and they remain
on the road to success: in 2018 Yvonne Farrell and Shel-
ley McNamara curated the Architecture Biennale in Ve-
nice, this year they were awarded the RIBA Gold Medal
and the Pritzker Prize. Now they have expanded Kings-
ton University with the spectacular new Town House.
T he Town House is the most recently completed building of four
Kingston University campuses spread across the southwest of
London — and the name says it all. For the university, which with
19,000 students represents half of Kingston's population, the new
building costing £50 million is intended to be both a centre and a
showpiece — for Kingston itself it is the identity-forming gateway to
the town. Referring to Victorian townhouses, which are characterised
by brick façades and colonnades connecting entire streets, Yvonne
Farrell and Shelley McNamara chose this architectural vocabulary
and designed the orthogonal, six-storey building with a brick façade
and an open, outward-facing structure made of prefabricated con-
crete elements. The architectural openness reflects the desired use:
library and archive, dance studio and theatre, learning space and café
are designed to bring students and the population together with as
next to the wide foyer directly at the street, and a central, roofed,
three-storey inner courtyard serves as an open meeting place. Here,
the wide sliding doors and the seating steps allow for flexible use; the
visual relationships between all the levels arouse curiosity about the
different spaces. The stairway also has an important connecting role:
as a large grandstand, it starts in the foyer next to the café and winds
its way up to the fifth floor — thereby becoming ever narrower —,
where it ends in the café area. On the way there, it provides access to
9,400 square metres of floor space, 50 percent of which is open-plan.
Slide-in modules and storey-high glass walls create light-flooded
rooms and zones conducive to communication, which can serve as a
retreat or meeting place for students and residents. The library stret-
ches along the open staircase over several floors — where it ends and
where free working spaces begin — and remains flowing. Thus, an
urban, democratic architecture has been achieved that equally invites
both, the students and citizens, to have personally explore and use
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