Faculty of Arts Building, Warwick University Campus Building, Architecture Project, England, Images
Faculty of Arts Building in Warwick
24 May 2022
Architects: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Location: Warwick, Warwickshire, England, UK
photo © Daniel Hopkinson
Photos: Daniel Hopkinson and Hufton and Crow
Warwick Faculty of Arts Building, England
Warwick University opens new Faculty of Arts Building
‘a most glorious environment.. embodies the teamwork inherent in the design, and embraces the possibility of collaboration and engagement within and between departments’ as described by Warwick Alumnus and Filmmaker, Laurence Till
photo © Hufton and Crow
The new Faculty of Arts Building (FAB) designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios for the University of Warwick brings together the departments and schools of the Faculty under a single roof for the first time. The new building is designed as a platform for engagement in the arts. Spaces are open, inviting, and flexible to promote and enable collaboration, creativity, and innovation.
photos © Hufton and Crow
The building is shaped by its context at the heart of a campus which has a parkland character and links out into surrounding countryside. The building is conceived as four light filled pavilions grouped around a central stair sat amongst the mature trees of its site. To retain the existing large oaks, pines and poplars the footprint steps and cranks. Routes across the site inform the massing of the building which twists along desire lines and offers out a cantilevered overhang to gather those passing between the library, central teaching building and Arts Centre.
photo © Hufton and Crow
The public realm extends into exhibition, social learning and café uses at the ground floor. An internal street provides a route through the building. Lit from above by natural light from the series of interconnected voids, the street is a dynamic space, providing break out space for the auditoria, theatre performance spaces and cinema spaces which open onto it. Large moveable walls provide opportunities for performance or exhibition to flood the whole of the ground floor.
photos © Daniel Hopkinson
In place of a traditional atrium, a large wooden stair spirals around a series of spaces for use as studios, exhibition, and event spaces. Imagined as a ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ the stair is the main route through the building offering spaces the display of artwork, manuscripts and antiquities and space for serendipitous meetings and collaboration between departments.
photos © Hufton and Crow
“Having a building to come and work in that is full of space and light is really uplifting. Moving into the new building, and having new spaces and new interactions, has really made a difference to how students and staff see their work, how they work together and how they work individually as well. The building has changed the culture of the way we work.”
Penny Roberts, Vice Provost and Chair of the Faculty of Arts
photo © Hufton and Crow
Seminar rooms and departmental space are located within the square ‘cluster’ floorplates which branch off from the centre of the plan. Rather than separating academic workspace and teaching space across different levels of the building, as is usual within university buildings, there is a mix of uses on each level. This strategy means that users are invited to every level of the building, encouraging cross disciplinary collaboration. Close adjacency of teaching space to academic space also provides flexibility for uses to migrate should departments grow over time.
photos © Hufton and Crow
“I love bumping into people and have conversations when you cross paths… it really does enable collaboration within this building to have such an open space … bump into others and share conversations.”
Megan Kelly, Student
photo © Daniel Hopkinson
“The building feels so natural, so open, so airy. Its just incredible”
Erika Rugyendo-Henry, Student
photo © Hufton and Crow
The cluster floor plan breaks down the mass of the building supporting the development of identifiable ‘academic neighbourhoods’ for the various departments and schools of the Faculty. A hybrid arrangement of cellular shared and open workspace is provided within each of the departmental clusters enabling individual and team working. Each neighbourhood is arranged around a central open ‘Academic Studio’ which contains reading room tables for meeting and working.
photo © Hufton and Crow
To enhance the student experience social learning space was concentrated at entrances to academic workspace to strengthen strong departmental identities.
photo © Hufton and Crow
With its distinct articulated form and fluted terracotta façade the building has become a new landmark on campus, a beacon promoting wider engagement with the Arts.
The building was designed by FCBStudios and constructed by Bowmer + Kirkland with executive architects MCW.
photo © Hufton and Crow
Warwick Faculty of Arts Building in England – Building Information
Architects: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios – https://fcbstudios.com/
Start on site: April 2019
Completion date September: 2021
Gross internal floor area: 13260 sqm
Gross (internal + external) floor area: 8430 sqm
Form of contract or procurement route: Competition
Construction cost: £43 million
Construction cost per sqm £3242 / sqm
CAD software used BIM
On-site energy generation 4.2kWh/ sqm
Airtightness at 50pa 4.96m3/h.sqm
Overall area-weighted u-value 0.16 W/m2k
Design Life >60years
Embodied / whole-life carbon
Upfront Carbon A1-5: 602 kgCO2e/sqm
Embodied Carbon A1-C: 997 kgCO2e/sqm
Annual CO2 emissions 18.6 KgCO2eq/sqm
BREEAM Excellent rating
EPC A
photo © Hufton and Crow
Photography: Daniel Hopkinson and Hufton and Crow
Faculty of Arts Building, Warwick images / information received 240522
Location: Warwick, West Midlands, central England, UK
Warwick Building Designs
Warwickshire Architecture Designs – architectural selection below:
The Oculus
Architects: Berman Guedes Stretton
photograph : Quentin Lake
The Oculus at the University of Warwick
Warwick Students Union
Design: MJP
Warwick Students Union
Bluebell Views Student Residences, University of Warwick
Design: Page Park Architects
University of Warwick Student Residences
Warwickshire Architecture
Warwickshire Architectural Designs – Selection
Jaguar Land Rover Design Studio, Gaydon, Warwickshire
Design: Bennetts Associates
photography © Hufton+Crow
Jaguar Land Rover Design Studio Building
Sherborne House, Coventry, West Midlands
Design: Fraser Brown MacKenna Architects
photo : Tim Crocker
Sherborne House Coventry Building
BFI Master Film Store
Design: Edward Cullinan Architects
BFI Master Film Store
Royal Shakespeare Theatre – redevelopment, Stratford-upon-Avon
Design: Bennetts Associates
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Company Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Design: Ian Ritchie Architects
RSC Courtyard Theatre
Comments / photos for Faculty of Arts Building, Warwick designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios page welcome
