Kensington transformation

Last updated 10 July 2026

The vision is to unify our community into two dynamic campuses that foster creativity, innovation and meaningful cross-college interdisciplinary collaboration among staff and students. We will create flexible spaces for making, teaching, research and community engagement, whilst honouring our commitment to student and staff experience and the historical significance of the campuses throughout and beyond the refurbishment process.

If you have any queries or require further information, please contact the College at info@rca.ac.uk.

Future programme locations

Are we vacating White City in 2027?

At the end of Academic Year 206/27, we expect to end our lease of our White City campus and become a two campus university based in Kensington and Battersea.

Currently, and for the duration of Academic Year 2025/26 and Academic Year 2026/27, the RCA will be delivering our programmes and research activity across our three campuses located in Kensington, Battersea and White City.

What campus will my programme be located in during Academic Year 2026/27?

We have updated our campus arrangements for after the completion of Academic Year 2026/27 and will now be vacating our White City campus, becoming a two campus university based in Kensington and Battersea from August 2027, rather than April 2027 as previously stated on our website.

School of Architecture programmes will be delivered at the Kensington campus.
School of Arts & Humanities programmes will be delivered at the Battersea campus except our History of Design programme which will be delivered at the Kensington campus.
In the School of Design, our Fashion, Textiles, Design Futures, MRes Healthcare & Design and MPhil/PhD Design programmes will be delivered at the Kensington campus. The Innovation Design Engineering and Design Products programmes will be delivered at the Battersea campus. Our Service Design programme will be delivered at the Battersea campus.
School of Communication Master's programmes will be delivered at the White City for the duration of Academic Year 2026/27.
Graduate Diploma will be delivered at the White City for the duration of Academic Year 2026/27.

Kensington works

What works are taking place in Kensington and why?

We are embarking upon a series of refurbishment works at our Kensington campus.

These involve making essential repairs to some areas of our much-loved heritage buildings and improving our facilities for future generations of RCA students and staff.

What kind of disruption can we expect during the works in Darwin?

During our programme, we can expect some noise disruption and alternative access routes within our Kensington campus.

We will strive to minimise disruption to our students where possible and all building and refurbishment activities undertaken are discussed and planned in advance with programme teams and RCASU.

We will fully communicate with our students as we progress through our programme and will endeavour to do any noisy work outside of normal working hours.

Throughout the year we’ll be keeping our community fully up to date with any changes and listening to your feedback.