A New Lease of Life for Strand Campus

King’s College London may be almost 200 years old, but our university is constantly developing to retain our position at the forefront of education, research and service to society. This attitude is reflected on our campuses, which include some iconic, historic buildings but are also ever-changing to reflect the requirements of students and researchers in a leading modern university. Two major developments currently underway on are a fantastic example of this: the Quad redevelopment and Strand pedestrianisation will create new spaces for education, research, socialising and culture at King’s and further integrate the university into our local communities.

A historic campus

Buckingham Palace and Regent’s Park were among the locations considered for King’s in the 1820s. Sir Robert Peel, the then Home Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, proposed to the Bishop of London that the new university be granted a site between the Strand and the Thames, next to Somerset House (which at the time was unfinished).

The King’s Building was built on this spot on the Strand between 1829 and 1831; it is now just one of several historic buildings that form part of the university estate, with much of the Strand Campus itself falling into a conservation area. In recent years, the campus has expanded to include such important buildings as the Grade II-listed Maughan Library (formerly the Public Record Office), the East Wing of Somerset House and Bush House (the former home of the BBC World Service). These impressive buildings provide inspirational spaces for our students and staff to work in.

With this impressive foundation, King’s is excited about the phased capital projects on the Strand Campus, which will significantly raise the quality of teaching and research spaces.

A new home for Engineering

The Quad, framed by the King’s Building and the East Wing of Somerset House, has always been at the heart of King’s and student life. It is currently being redeveloped to create a major new social thoroughfare on campus, and welcome the Department of Engineering back into its historical home.

The rejuvenation has already seen the replacement of the old Quad surface and the rebuilding of the historic King’s steps leading into the existing Grade I-listed King’s Building. A new courtyard of light provides an outdoor space for staff and students that will also act as a major thoroughfare and public space for London to enjoy. It has been a pleasure to welcome our community of students back to the Quad this Spring to gather, socialise and discuss bold new ideas. This is where the seeds of new world-changing ideas are planted.

Now is the right time for King’s to establish a vibrant and innovative engineering teaching and research environment. We will educate the engineers of the future to take a creative approach to problem solving, to investigate and inquire as well as to innovate and create.

Professor Barbara Shollock

Beneath the ground, work continues in the basement levels of old laboratory space – the setting of the historical Photo 51, which was taken 70 years ago this year and led to the discovery of the structure of DNA. These spaces are now being transformed into the home for King’s new Department of Engineering and will become the setting for an innovation hub, where students and researchers will work towards solving the challenges of our times. The Quad will accelerate the research needed to make a significant societal impact, from building new technologies that help us mitigate climate change to developing new lifesaving medical devices.

Professor Barbara Shollock, Head of the Department of Engineering, shares her thoughts, ‘Now is the right time for King’s to establish a vibrant and innovative engineering teaching and research environment. We will educate the engineers of the future to take a creative approach to problem solving, to investigate and inquire as well as to innovate and create.’

Alumni have already contributed well over £100,000 to support the Quad redevelopment. Together, we are giving the Quad a new lease of life for our growing communities and ensuring we can offer our students the best facilities to foster their talent. In this way, we are giving them the tools to become the changemakers of tomorrow. Find out about how our community is supporting this work.

Promenading on the Strand

Heading back through the Strand Building from the Quad, visitors will see more exciting developments underway. Led by Westminster City Council, the Strand Aldwych project is transforming the Strand and Aldwych from a polluted, traffic-dominated area into a fully pedestrianised zone, complete with trees, lawns and cycle lanes.

The north side of the former Strand-Aldwych gyratory system has already become a two-way road, allowing all motor traffic to be removed from the section of the Strand to the south. This means a section of the Strand, encompassing St Mary-le-Strand church, Somerset House and much of the King’s Strand Campus, is already available for use by the community while further improvements are made.

For King’s, pedestrianisation of the bustling hub of the Strand-Aldwych will contribute substantially to the safety of the 2,500 staff and 16,000 students based there and introduce a stronger sense of campus on the Strand. It will also support the delivery of the ambitions we set out in Vision 2029 to make the world a better place: to serve, to shape and transform, to inspire, and to be true to what it means to be a civic university in the heart of London.

Peter Brathwaite

Welcoming London in

The redeveloped Quad and the Bush House courtyard will further open up our campus. King’s will welcome local communities to participate in activities across our campus, while supporting them in challenging disadvantage and inequality through research, teaching and service activities in collaboration with residents, local authorities, schools, businesses, civil society organisations and community groups.

These wonderful spaces will offer an extraordinary platform for the public to explore and understand King’s research and enable game-changing engagement with the key challenges of our time.

Alison Duthie

The Visible Skin exhibition, held earlier this year, was an early opportunity for King’s to engage with the wider public within the new Strand Aldwych. The exhibition showcased the work of artist Peter Brathwaite in collaboration with King’s Renaissance Skin research project (Faculty of Arts & Humanities) and was seen by thousands of pedestrians on the Strand during its extended run.

Visible Skin originated in opera singer and BBC broadcaster Peter’s response to the #GettyMuseumChallenge: restaging famous paintings with everyday household objects. Peter focused specifically on Black portraiture, using items from his family’s past, and from his cultural heritage in Barbados and Britain. Working with colleagues from King’s Culture, 11 photographs from this series were shown in windows across Strand Campus between September 2021 and February 2022. The exhibition is still available to view online. The launch of the Visible Skin exhibition also took place as part of a special Q&A event with Peter Brathwaite and Farah Karim-Cooper, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at King’s and Co-Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Alison Duthie, Director of Programming, King’s Culture & Strand Aldwych explains, ‘Visible Skin is an early example of the new opportunities that the Strand-Aldwych pedestrianisation will offer to King’s students, academics and staff to engage and collaborate with local communities in this next stage of the university’s evolution. These wonderful spaces will offer an extraordinary platform for the public to explore and understand King’s research and enable game-changing engagement with the key challenges of our time.’

The success of Visible Skin has demonstrated the benefits to King’s and our local communities of the current redevelopment. If you’re looking for an excuse to visit and see the changes happening at Strand Campus for yourself, do keep an on our events page – we’d love to see you soon.