In this viewpoint, Ziona Strelitz, Founder and Director of ZZA Responsive User Environments, explores how the London School of Economics’ evolving campus exemplifies the powerful role of design and user experience in shaping social and institutional outcomes.


The built environment sector doesn’t hold back proposing that physical space influences social outcomes. It’s in our interests. But the link can be challenging to show.

So the recent Sunday Times University League Table (September 21 2025) placing London School of Economics in Number 1 position – repeating LSE’s lead ranking last year – is relevant to consider.

Yes, the indices underpinning this result cover much more than campus quality, but to anyone aware of LSE’s ambitious development programme, the view that its enhanced environment impacts positively makes intuitive sense. This is certainly credible for the League indices that reflect LSE’s physical estate most directly – Student experience and People & planet.

Usefully, there’s also evidential data. In 2011, Julian Robinson, LSE’s Director of Estates, commissioned ZZA to research how students perceived and experienced the campus. Seeing many needs for improvement, he wanted a baseline for a structured steer. ZZA’s research highlighted key attractors – students’ favourite aspects were LSE’s central location and compact campus. The outputs also flagged negatives – mainly overcrowding, lack of study space, and poor overall condition, maintenance and FM. In 2015, after LSE had procured the listed former Land Registry building at 32 Lincolns Inn Fields and the Stirling Prize short-listed Swee Saw Hock Student Centre by O’Donnell + Tuomey, Julian commissioned follow up research on campus perceptions.

Then with ZZA’s further UX research in 2019 and 2023, this has evolved to a unique longitudinal data set, covering the pivotal new Centre Building and related plaza designed by RSH+P (opened in 2019), and the majestic Marshall Building designed by Grafton Architects (opened in 2022. And there’ve been other transformations – pedestrianisation, greening, new outdoor furniture, enhanced wayfinding, and big strides in maintenance and FM, all within a dynamic social context – pandemic, ubiquitous IT, proliferating communication platforms, rising student numbers, and the expectations of high fee-paying international students.

The serial research shows improved student satisfaction, and appreciation of the evolving campus offer. The 2019 data showed study space now hard on the heels of students’ first and second favourite things – compactness and location, reflecting the Centre Building’s large new learning commons. And then the 2023 breakthrough! With ‘Architecture / design’ now as second favourite thing, and ‘Range / choice of settings’ (mostly study space) students’ third favourite thing after compactness, the greatly enhanced campus quality is now recognised. The serial data also evidences a marked turnaround in stewardship: from ‘Standards: design, condition, maintenance + cleanliness’ as students’ worst thing about the campus in 2011, to their high rating on all aspects of estates management in 2023. In parallel, the serial data had shown the differential between new and old campus stock widening for students, with LSE’s responsive upgrades in older buildings been endorsed in subsequent evaluations.

While these results affirm the improved campus infrastructure and management, new student cohorts are oblivious of how things were before. Their perspective is based on their use – in their time; their aggregate evaluation reflects what the evolved campus offers now.

ZZA’s evaluation data always combines quantitative and qualitative inputs, and we have extensive narrative comment that speaks to the students’ shifting perspectives over the period. Still, it’s further affirming that the National Student Survey 2025 corroborates our results, referencing LSE’s campus strengths as location, compactness, the Library, and the other pluses that students now appreciate: study space, academic and learning space, and overall quality:

Can we make even more of The Sunday Times ranking in respect of campus quality? Might its high scores for indices like Teaching quality, Research quality, and Graduate prospects have some bearing?

Case-studies that cross typologies are always instructive, and Leeds City Office Park was a milestone in showing how built settings can intersect with social outcomes. Speculatively developed with design objectives for space that felt good – volume, views, light and airy, natural ventilation, biophilia, etc, the initial building was leased by O2’s forerunner to promote customer retention and increase market share, predicated on the view that teams working in better space, would better support customers phoning in. Testing this through ZZA’s Post Occupancy Evaluation in the realised building confirmed the company’s strategy to commission a second building. Informed procurement!

So back to LSE’s current ranking. Though teaching, research and student outcomes aren’t direct reflections of the physical campus, the likelihood is that better workspace, better teaching facilities, and an overall improved environment also enhance staff experience, the university’s culture, and quality of service to students. In the event, there’s data to back this. Separate from our research on campus quality, and starting with the academic building designed by Grimshaw (opened 2008), ZZA has undertaken POEs of all LSE’s new and adapted space. Covering the experience of academics, administrators, and staff who run the buildings – as well as students, the evaluations show all the user groups becoming more positive over the period of campus development, with increasingly effusive descriptions of what people like. In the multi-factor realm of design and urban experience, this is gold dust.

LSE’s league table success is by no means just down to estates – the School is hugely focused on pedagogic and research excellence, and student support. But campus experience is key in the equation, and the data helps the institutional leadership factor in the positive impact of a fine environment and the relevance of onward investment. The vision, work, and user steers have coalesced in current validation by the data. Now there’s more afoot, with the Firoz Lalji Global Hub designed by David Chipperfield and Feix & Merlin under construction at 44 Lincolns Inn Fields, and Alison Brooks’ recent selection to adapt the School's latest acquisition – 61 Aldwych, also with Feix & Merlin. The student steers from the preceding data sets will be addressed in a concerted promotion of campus wellbeing, and then the UX tracked again as ambition and scope shape the onward campus evolution.

Image credits: LSE / Maria Moore  Ziona Strelitz, ZZA / LSE Estates.
Read the overall summary of ZZA's time series campus research on LSE's website.