New Academic Building – London School of Economics, UK

Creating a high-profile new building for LSE’s Aldwych campus, the extensive remodelling of this Edwardian building creates academic, social and departmental spaces befitting the world-class institution. Linked by an internal street between the two building entrances this 12,700 sq m project exemplifies the value of careful building reuse. Its BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’ reflects the integral strategies of sustainability used throughout. The New Academic Building bridges the urban environment of Kingsway to the west and the open space of Lincoln's Inn Fields to the east It plays a dual role: as a leading, modern educational environment, and to express LSE’s presence in the immediate urban context. More than half of the original building fabric was retained and now frames the three principal new insertions of the project – a light-filled, triple-height atrium that unifies teaching spaces and lecture theatres; a roof pavilion accommodating executive meeting rooms and a function suite; and a reinterpreted forecourt that creates public space and relates directly to Lincoln’s Inn Fields beyond. The building features the entire lower ground floor including four lecture theatres and the level immediately above with reception halls, a café and a central interactive atrium. In addition, the first and second floors incorporate a series of back-to-back classrooms while third floor to seventh floor include office spaces and a moot court. Finally, the last eighth floor is mainly dedicated to meeting rooms. The acoustic challenge was associated mainly with the spaces adjacencies, especially those related to the lecture rooms located right beneath the atrium and the forecourt on Lincoln’s Inn Fields side due to the potential airborne noise and the footfall impact noise and that resulting from tables and chairs being dragged which could pose a significant source of disturbance to the spaces below. The acoustic design and review of the contractor design focussed on the control of impact and airborne noise in light of the vertical and horizontal spaces adjacencies, as well as on the control of the room acoustics of the main spaces such as lecture theatres, classrooms, meeting rooms and office spaces to control reverberance and enhance speech intelligibility but also spaces like the main atrium and the forecourt to avoid noise build-up in light of the level of occupancy and space volume. Finally, the building services noise has been an additional item of design review in order to ensure the achievement of the suitable level of background noise within each space.