UCL is expanding to east London with a new campus on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The masterplan allows UCL to forge a new approach, one that fosters collaboration and benefits the local community.

University College London (UCL) is building on its pioneering history with a new campus, part of East Bank. It is the single biggest expansion in the university’s 200-year history.

The masterplan by LDA Design, for UCL and joint client LLDC, is designed to make the campus genuinely accessible and useful to local people, in time central even to their lives. It draws on the power of the landscape to foster an open and collaborative academic environment and a culture of exchange between departments, staff and students, as well as neighbouring communities.

The plan includes the novel concept of the ‘Fluid Zone’, a ground and first floor expanse stretched across the whole campus, capturing both external and internal spaces and embodying UCL’s multi-educational model which supports cross-disciplinary working and life-long learning. UCL East will be a place where people can mix easily, enabling new things to happen as knowledge moves out from behind closed doors and into an inviting, well-designed public realm. Lower floors will be curated to ignite curiosity by showcasing research. The scheme was informed by intensive public consultation and tested against higher education benchmarks to maximise development potential.

Strong connectivity with the area and the wider Park setting is key. The masterplan anticipates how people will use the site and distils a clear and simple idea about connecting people and place through landscape, with enticing ways and views through and across the campus, and along sunny riverbanks. There is generous provision of flexible and diverse open spaces for events, demonstrations and workshops.

This expansion will help to maintain UCL’s position as one of the world’s top 10 research-intensive universities. UCL East will add 40% to UCL’s central London site in Bloomsbury – around 180,000 square metres of new floor space.

“The masterplan for UCL East is intended to transform the traditional relationship between city and university. Its ambition is to be inclusive and welcoming to everyone and to harness the power of the public realm to encourage collaboration and exchange. We think by creating this new kind of place, where buildings feel as inviting and accessible as external spaces and where people can mix, then great things can happen for the University and for the local community.” Bernie Foulkes, Director and Masterplan Lead for UCL East, LDA Design