Herzog & de Meuron completes RCA Battersea campus – ADC

Herzog & de Meuron’s project for the Royal College of Art comprises two new buildings – The Rausing Research and Innovation Building, and The Studio Building – together totalling 15,500 square metres.

The first building spans eight floors, clad in recycled variegated aluminium fins that serve as shading devices, and will primarily be used primarily as a space to undertake research. Here, the ‘Intelligent Mobility Design Centre’ will be housed along with an entrepreneurial incubator, VR and AR visualisation labs, and material and computer science research centres. On the top floor is a seminar and conference space that boasts impressive vistas over west London.

The project’s nexus manifests in what is known as ‘the Hangar’ — a double-height, 350 square metre area found at the ground level of the studio block, which opens up through two floor-to-ceiling bi-fold doors at the north and south sides of the building. The north door opening onto Howie Street serves as the main entrance point for visitors and as a viewing gallery of sorts, as well as allowing large-scale works to be brought in. Herzog explained the intention for this space also to also be used as a temporary exhibition area and for crits.

The mezzanine level above, meanwhile, is a more formal exhibition space. Currently on show is the Archive Exhibition, which fittingly shows works related to the construction of the two new buildings.

“It is so important to tell people around in the neighbourhood who you are, what you do and to let them in. And the same thing should be happening inside the building. This horizontal exchange is so important,” said Herzog.

“Our experience with designing many museums in the last 20 years tells me that art institutions increasingly tend to blur the traditional boundaries between the collection, presentation, preservation, and even the production of art. In addition, such institutions want to be great social spaces and focal points for public life,” he continued.

“Our design for the new RCA and its programming at Battersea traces a path not so dissimilar to this new ideal. Students, teachers, and visitors will find themselves in a kind of village built around the topic of art, with an architectural atmosphere that encourages the entire community to engage in a constant process of teaching and learning, producing, presenting, and discussing art.”

Herzog & de Meuron won the commission for the project in 2016, staving off competition from French studio Lacaton Vassal, Chicago-based Studio Gang, London-based Serie Architects, Christian Kerez from Switzerland and Robbrecht en Daem from Belgium. the project gained planning two years later, after being awarded £54 million in grant funding from the treasury in 2016 and a £15 million gift from the Sigrid Rausing Trust (among other donors).

Though now open, work is still to be done: the café on the south side of the building, alongside new courtyards to complete the public realm, are yet to complete.