Centre Building, London School of Economics

London, UK

In November 2013, RSHP won a RIBA design competition for the LSE’s new Centre Building, London, UK. The scheme is a 188,368 sq ft new landmark teaching and academic building at the heart of the LSE’s Aldwych campus, the design of which design is inspired by the schools’ core values: Collaboration, Excellence and Innovation.

The original brief called for worldclass architecture to match the LSE’s international academic reputation and included the demolition and redevelopment of three existing buildings to create a new 10-storey building. RSHP has gone further by designing a new public square located at the heart of the university, creating a new focal point for the school and improving connectivity and wayfinding throughout the campus.

The scheme comprises two simple interlocking buildings of 2, 6 and 13-storeys with landscaped roof terraces. The volumes are joined by dynamic circulation and meeting spaces, designed to encourage chance meetings, discussion and collaboration. Innovative and inspirational spaces to attract the best staff, academics and students have been created by simple, flexible floor plans that provide a mixture of cellular and open plan offices. adaptable teaching spaces and study areas for students. Five academic departments and the Directorate are located on the upper levels which are all naturally ventilated. These floors are linked by a meandering stair which promotes inter-faculty exchange; the stair rises through a series of connected double height spaces which are evident on the main façade flooding the interior with natural daylight and providing breakout spaces to foster wellbeing.

The BREEAM Outstanding design is vertically zoned, with the most public and highly-serviced facilities located on the lower levels, these are joined by a 4-storey atrium which links social learning spaces, formal teaching rooms and a large auditorium. Full height glazing to the learning commons and café at ground floor provides animation to the newlycreated LSE square and Houghton Street.

Located on the outskirts of Venice, H-FARM is part of the wider masterplan for H-Campus. The completed scheme includes a primary school, secondary school, university, and student accommodation, aiming to become a tech start-up orientated education facility for a world which is constantly reinventing itself.

Students live alongside entrepreneurs, teachers, experts, and managers of large companies — a community of people who will participate in building a collective and cultural identity.

The RSHP-designed focal building - called The Hill - is a multi-purpose, flexible, auditorium, library and cafe sitting within the centre of the scheme and linking all surrounding facilities.

The east wing comprises a large kitchen and seating area aiming to satisfy the needs of the entire campus, while the west wing contains a flexible multipurpose hall with seating for 1000 people. This facility accommodates a variety of events, including exhibitions, workshops, and conferences.

At either end of the building, the ground rises creating a gentle pedestrian route up and over the building. In such a flat terrain, even this gentle gradient provides distant views over the surrounding countryside.

The whole building essentially performs as a covered arena, a real centre of gravity for the entire campus. It is conceived as a public square where students and the external community can all meet.

H-FARM Roncade, Italy

Location Roncade, Treviso

Date 2016 - 2021

Client H-FARM

Site area 26,909 sq ft

Height 29,5 ft

Number of Storeys 2

Co-Architect ZAA

Structural Engineer RS Ingegneria Services Engineer Manens-Tifs

Project Manager Manens-Tifs

Sustainability Certification LEED Platinum

Masterplanning + Placemaking

Madrid Nuevo Norte Madrid, Spain

Madrid Nuevo Norte is an urban regeneration project located in Madrid. The objective of this ambitious project is to close a major split in the city where the railway alignment running north out of Madrid divides the city in two.

The site is currently an empty space, a black hole on the map of Madrid. Although it is surrounded by reasonably consolidated areas, it is a vast expanse of unused territory of 5.5km long from north to south and at its widest is 1km east to west.

Exploiting the excellent connectivity provided by this transportation corridor, the project will reinforce and unite neighbourhoods currently isolated by this huge tear in the city’s fabric. It will also introduce a new neighbourhood tailored to the needs of businesses. This new CBD is squarely aimed at enhancing the commercial competitiveness in Madrid and of Spain as it emerges from the economic recession.

This is a huge project comprising 568 acres of marginal urban land surrounded by neighbourhoods of various periods in Madrid’s history which all have very different characters. Isolated from each other and from the city centre, these neighbourhoods have suffered from decades of decay caused by the uncertainty of the regeneration proposals for the site. The existing Chamartín Station sits isolated at the very heart of the site. This will be redeveloped to provide a significant uplift in capacity to serve the needs of the new High-Speed rail network (AVE).

Chamartín station is a crucial public transport node with good connectivity to the city via bus, metro and tram, the capital’s region ‘Communidad de Madrid’ via an extensive commuter train network the ‘Cercanías’ and to the rest of the Iberian Peninsula via the soon-to-be complete nationwide AVE network. Furthermore, Madrid’s Barajas Airport is only a 15-minute train ride away providing excellent links to Europe and the rest of the world.

The location of the new CBD is also located at the nexus of a number of existing corridors of economic activity, including the ‘Paseo de la Castellana’ and the A1 – one of the key routes out of Madrid. One of the aims of Madrid Nuevo Norte therefore is to unite these areas into a single, coherent entity.

Location Madrid, Spain

Date

2017 - ongoing

Client Distrito Castellana Norte (BBVA- San Jose)

Site Area

568 acres

Buildable Area 29 Million sq ft

Construction investment

€6 Billion (estimate)

Services Engineer

BuroHappold Engineering

Landscape Architect

Andrew Grant Contractor DCN

In 2019, RSHP led the winning team for this competition run by the City of Paris, launched in tandem with the co-owners of the existing complex, the EITMM. The project aims to radically transform this pivotal neighbourhood of more than 22 acres, bordering both the Montparnasse station and Tower, by opening up the existing buildings on the site, creating new routes and vistas across the previously impassable and introverted shopping centre that currently dominates the approach to the station. By rethinking traffic flows across the site, the project proposes the significant pedestrianisation of the streets in the neighbourhood, facilitating wayfinding, walking and cycling. As part of the low-carbon vision for this emblematic Parisian hub, more than 1,000 trees will be planted, creating 107,639 sq ft of green space as part of an “urban forest” conceived by Michel Desvigne Paysagiste. The project also proposes a renewal of the site through a strategy of diversification with a range of new residential, office, cultural and sporting amenities serving to strengthen the mix and resilience on the site, as well as seeking to animate and refresh its identity.

The proposed phasing strategies seek to safeguard the scalability of the proposals, limiting their impacts and enabling the gradual transformation of a neighbourhood in flux. The plinth formed by the shopping centre is opened up, revealed and made more accessible. The commercial offer is redeployed in the form of a pedestrian street that is open to the sky and organized to reflect pedestrian movements across the site. Our proposal is based on a contemporary reinterpretation of Haussmann, delivering a sensitive, dynamic urban plan based on desire lines and thereby reflecting the movement of people across the site.

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris said of our proposal: “Our challenge is to transform modernist urbanism of the 1950s and 1970s, to recompose and reconstitute this urban landscape in keeping with Paris’s fabric and with our climate commitments”.

Location

Paris, France

Date

2019 - ongoing

Client

Ville de Paris

Area

22 acres

Built Area

430 - 645,800 sq ft (on going)

Co-Architect

Lina Ghotmeh

Architecture

Landscaping

Michel Desvignes

Sustainability

Franck Boutté

Consultants

Urban Planner

Une Fabrique de la Ville

Legal

SCET

Property Valuation/Cost

CEI

Engineering

Ingérop

Mobility & Flow

Systematica

RSHP has developed a masterplan for the Barangaroo peninsula, a city district on the north-western edge of the Sydney central business district (CBD), that breaks up the area’s disused container port and uniform concrete border, returning it to the city as a bold addition to the urban landscape.

The project extends the city’s existing CBD and provides up to 1,500 new homes as well as leisure and cultural facilities and a new ferry terminal. Two thirds of the development is set aside as public and recreational space. The remaining third –Barangaroo South – will adopt the same scale, height and density as the existing CBD while maintaining a waterside which is public along its entire length.

Covering 15 acres of built development as part of a larger site totalling 54 acres Barangaroo South will become a complete new city quarter that integrates with the existing urban fabric. The masterplan is based on a ‘fan’ of buildings that create views opening outwards towards the west and helping to reconnect Sydney to its western waterfront. Emphasis is placed on creating strong public transport and pedestrian links, and opening up a waterfront promenade into a ‘great city boulevard’ running the full length of Barangaroo.

An extension to the CBD will provide much-needed high-quality office space. The Barangaroo South development locks into the existing city grid at the Hickson Road perimeter of the site. It then follows a radial arrangement

Barangaroo South

Sydney, Australia

Place Sydney, Australia

Date 2009 - 2015

Area

54 acres of which 15 acres will be developed for commercial, residential, hotel, cultural and transport uses

Client New South Wales Government

Co-Architect PTW

Service Engineer ARUP

Landscape Design

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) that responds to the sun path and site boundaries; and ensures good views extend to the waterfront.

The proposal includes a landmark building which is raised more than 30 ft above a pier to allow full public access to the water. The lower storeys of this tower are dedicated to cultural activities and above these sits a 40-storey hotel, topped by a viewing area also open to the public. This will be the first major landmark building for Sydney Harbour since the Opera House opened in 1973, and helps to reinforce the importance of Barangaroo South as Sydney’s great western gateway.

In addition, the existing shoreline will be transformed to include a new cove, breaking up the current straight and monotonous waterfront. The derelict wharves will be transformed to create a more natural, meandering water’s edge and inject a new sense of character to the area.

Barangaroo will complete and enhance Sydney’s waterfront promenade, as well as creating a new ‘culture trail’. The development encourages walking, cycling and the use of public transport. It is part of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Climate Positive Development Program and, when delivered, will be an exemplar of sustainable urban design.