Slavonic Studies

At the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, the thermal mass of brickwork plays an important role

Completed this year at a cost of £10m, SSEES has a total floor area of 3,437m2 over seven-storeys, including a research library and a unique book collection

Images from ssees.ucl.ac.uk

A glass atrium rising through the building forms part of the cooling system along with perimeter stacks, roof mounted chimneys, an ingenious architrave for exhausting air from the stair zone and a magnificent brick elevation

Image and text from: Brick Development Association

The massive cavity brickwork of the facade consists of an outer 215mm thick solid brick wall, tied across a 100mm cavity to an inner 215mm solid brick wall that is fair-faced to capitalise on the thermal mass of the construction

Image and text from: Brick Development Association

At 32m long, the brickwork of the main facade is low absorption, machine-made bricks laid in a relatively soft (1:2:9) lime mortar designed to cope with changes in temperature and moisture without the need for movement joints

Image and text from: Brick Development Association

Professor Alan Short, principal of Short and Associates, likens the building to a small urban palace. ‘We looked at Gaudi but also at late Romanesque and medieval European churches. Being Bloomsbury, we could have designed in a Georgian idiom but instead have created a kind of palazzo that expresses the dynamism of SSEES’

Image and text from: Brick Development Association

Intensifying this grandeur are outsized, asymmetric soldier arches – some three courses deep – that oversail reveals by up to 600mm and recall monumental Roman brick architecture. Clear references to both Gaudi and Moorish Spain can be seen in the wonderful stair hall