The new Library at the University of Roehampton is the centrepiece of an ambitious campus masterplan, characterised by a generous park and garden landscape that makes it unique among London’s universities. The library creates a new identity for the University, addressing the entrance to the campus as well as connecting the Digby Stuart and Southlands Colleges, and facing a new landscape and existing ornamental lake.

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The University’s brief was to provide a library building with gravitas and longevity; a building of books and study, whose design reflects this interest in the serious investigation of learning.

The aspiration was for an enduring architecture, and this is achieved through a clear architectural language; the colonnade activating the landscape and lake, the piano nobile floors and deeply recessed upper storey. This is continued with a simple palette of high quality materials; externally focussed around masonry and reveal, internally a weaving of expressed pre-cast concrete structure and oak linings.

Study spaces within the Library are intended to support a variety of group sizes and work intensities, from individual silent study to medium sized group collaboration, while making use of visual connections to the garden landscape. Internally the building is arranged around large and small atria that allow the spaces to interconnect in a clear, intuitive way. The building also has a ground  floor café that allows for a more relaxed breakout study environment facing onto the landscape and lake.