Wimbledon College of Arts

Designed as a simple, flexible enclosure with excellent natural light and ventilation. This new addition to the campus introduced at the southern end of a range of studio and workshop spaces. Webb Yates Engineers provided the structural, civil, and services engineering designs for this new 535m² studio building at University of the Arts Wimbledon campus. The brief was to provide an open flexible space to embrace the college’s studio/ workshop culture. Sustainability was also key to the project with the client vision that this should be an exemplar building for the University’s portfolio.

An exposed timber and concrete frame was developed in close collaboration with the architect and services engineer to produce an holistic building engineering solution which provided thermal mass to enable the building to be naturally ventilated while giving the building a unique aesthetic appearance. The prefabricated glulam beams were carefully detailed in conjunction with the specialist timber contractor in order to achieve the sleek visible connections.

The prefabricated timber frame minimised the overall weight of the building and allowed a shallow reinforced concrete raft to be used in lieu of a piled foundation solution while allowing simple site installation reducing time of site.

The SUDS design makes use of surface water storage beneath permeable paving which reduces storm water runoff from the site.