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University College London, England

Steel window profiles from Crittall Windows have been used extensively on a new build and refurbishment programme at University College London. Architects, Short and Associates, have designed a brand new building in Taviton Street to house the Slavonic Studies and East European School (SSEES), which was affiliated to UCL in 1999. The new premises for the school also include the transformation of the upper floors of the existing Examination Halls by architects HLM Design, a location shared with the Department of Anthropology.

Steel was chosen to meet with planning requirements and to complement the surrounding buildings in the area. Taviton Street contains several listed Georgian terraces and is also in the Bloomsbury conservation area. For the refurbishment stage of the project, Crittall supplied its Corporate 2000 profiles. These profiles enable large expanses of glass to be accommodated without the intrusion of unsightly transomes and mullions. With the friction stays concealed within the frame sections, the result is an elegant simplicity, with fewer sealed joints for a smoother appearance. The strength of the steel is assured, and its very low co-efficient of expansion reduces thermal movement and the risk of perimeter sealant failure, thus ensuring long-term durability.

The Corporate 2000 range was also specified by Short and Associates for the exterior of the new building, but it is the interior that employs glass as a design medium in its own right. Internally, the use of Crittall W20 profiles for a magnificent six-storey high atrium enables the single glazed glass to be perceived as a focal point of the overall design. The profiles allow light to pervade throughout the central core of the structure, contributing to Short's environmental strategy, which is genuinely unique. The building is naturally ventilated all year round and passively cooled during the summer months. It engages downdraught cooling via a central light well through peak periods of summer temperatures, and is the first known application in the world of this low-energy environmental strategy in a city centre.

With the work now completed, UCL has utilised the last vacant site within its campus, and with the help of the architects involved, has managed to create a new building that is sympathetic to its environment yet contemporary in design, and which complements the refurbishment of the adjacent Exam Halls.

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University College London, England

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