2022 – The Marshall Building LSE, London

A new building with a presence for the university on Lincoln’s Inn Fields as part of their campus in the heart of London. This is a bold insertion into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, one of London’s largest and oldest public squares. Within this structure, four different areas are stacked vertically, rising from below ground to the sky. Designed as a microcosm of a city, the worlds of sport, civic space, teaching, research, are all volumetrically and structurally interwoven.

At approximately 18,000m2 the building houses lecture theatres, informal study spaces, academic offices, music rehearsal and arts facilities, squash courts and a 20mx35m sports hall. To accommodate this range of uses a rotating structure was developed to creatively address the need to transfer from the smaller spans at the upper levels, to the ever increasing spans required at ground and lower ground levels. This led to a weave of ‘tree like’ columns and beams which direct the forces of gravity to the ground, through the increasing outward spread of tapered diagonal ‘branches’. On the upper floors, the articulation of the massing brings daylight deep into the building plan and provides glimpsed views back out to the city.

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