Key details
Date
- 23 May 2022
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 1 minute
The opening of our new campus marks a critical in the RCA’s transformation into a dynamic, STEAM-focused university enabling our community of postgraduate students to tackle pressing global challenges – by bringing together diverse disciplines in one unique space.
With funding from the government and from donors including the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Spiegel Family Fund, we are providing four extra storeys of studio space for our students, new homes for our research centres and InnovationRCA, and advanced facilities including a robotics hangar and a unique purpose-built space for our sculpture students.
Explore some of our new spaces below.
Rausing Research & Innovation Building
The Rausing Research & Innovation Building will house eight floors of dedicated independent and confidential research space for areas such as materials science, soft robotics, advanced manufacturing, intelligent mobility, and AR and VR visualisation.
Four floors of studios and workshops
The new Studio Building will provide studios and workshops across four floors for our students. With our MA Sculpture to be housed in the purpose-built Linbury Sculpture Studio, and our MA Contemporary Art Practice in the new Spiegel Design Studio. There will also be dedicated spaces for Moving Image and the School of Design.
These new spaces have been designed for creative transfer and collaboration and will also accommodate temporary exhibitions and large-scale works.
The Hangar
A focal point for interactions with the public for RCA artists and makers, this 350 sqm multifunctional covered activity space or 'street' lies at the heart of the new campus. Vast doors at each end of the space will enable the installation of large complex pieces and open up the campus to local communities via its walkways.
Robotics Hangar
This smaller hangar and gallery will provide space for the RCA’s vision for collaboration on the design of AI and robotics. The space will allow for research testing and assembly areas for disciplines like intelligent mobility, design engineering, sculpture and robotics, with aerial and aquatic robotics.
New homes for our Research Centres and InnovationRCA
The new campus will provide new spaces for knowledge exchange and creative collaboration for our research centres. including our Intelligent Mobility Design Centre (IMDC), Computer Science Research Centre, Materials Science Research Centre and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design.
Our in-house incubator, InnovationRCA has already moved into it's new space where they will be able to expand their incubator programme, doubling the number of supported start-up businesses – and allowing our culture of creative entrepreneurship to flourish.