Of Certainty and Indeterminacy

The scheme uses a demolished northern section of an urban block adjacent to Cadbury Brown’s RCA buildings in Kensington, London and is massed to create two courts for the school’s separate Research and Studio functions. It endeavours to explore the uncertainty of contemporary architectural ‘style’ while responding to the urgency of the climate crisis.

The singularity of Albertopolis as a site stems from the dense amalgamation of significant and well-crafted residential, cultural and educational buildings all existing in dialogue with each other. The existing buildings of the Royal College of Art imbibe this sense of contextual sympathy, albeit through the modernist lens of H. T. Cadbury Brown. The Kensington campus, including its unrealised extension in 1973, was intended as one built by periodic addition – a series of sensitive responses to what came before. This ethos informs the approach for my proposed extension to the College, in the same adjacent site considered by Brown half a century ago. The proposal makes use of a demolished northern section of the urban block and is massed to create two courts - one with the existing buildings, and another smaller one to its south that is completely enclosed from all sides. These not only provide legible green space within the scheme but also allows for a separation of the Studio/Workshop and Research programmes. This pragmatism of the plan is also reflected in the interior spaces, which are unfussy and functional to facilitate creative making in a building with high occupant turnover. In negotiating the relationship between workspace and circulation, spaces of intimate enclosure are contrasted with momentary expansiveness for social exchange. The façades of the building correspond to the differing senses of place and scale along Queens Gate and Jay Mews, exploring craft and visual mass in masonry and timber. There is a greater emphasis on specificity and style in the building’s exterior in acknowledging the importance of permanence and extroversion in public urban façades. The building’s structure, however, comprises a lean timber frame with CLT slabs, asserting the belief that although architecture faces a period of aesthetic uncertainty, the importance of maximising low-carbon construction is indisputable.