Building Tour - Elizabeth Line Transforming London Through Infrastructure and Design
Photo credit: Grimshaw/Hufton+Crow
On 16 April, members of the AIA UK had the opportunity to experience the Elizabeth Line firsthand through an exclusive tour led by representatives from Grimshaw.
The visit began at Grimshaw’s Clerkenwell studio, just moments from Farringdon Station, where Neil McClements and Graham Gibbon presented the design development behind one of Europe’s largest recent infrastructure projects. Since its full integration in 2023, the Elizabeth Line has fundamentally transformed travel across London, connecting Berkshire and Essex through approximately 117 kilometres of railway and 41 stations.
Developed through a collaboration between Grimshaw, AtkinsRéalis, design firm Maynard, and lighting consultants Equation, the project established a comprehensive “line-wide strategy” that unified architecture, interiors, wayfinding, and passenger experience across the network. The Elizabeth Line was recognised with the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize for its outstanding contribution to British architecture.
Neil McClements explained that while the consortium developed the overarching design language and passenger environment, individual stations were designed by a range of architectural practices, each responding uniquely to its urban context at street level. As passengers descend into the stations, however, a consistent architectural identity emerges through the application of unified cladding systems, lighting, signage, and spatial design strategies that conceptually and functionally bind the network together.
Graham Gibbon further contextualised the project by describing the extensive attention given to the design of every component, from the curved glass-fibre reinforced concrete cladding to the integrated technology and illuminated wayfinding totems. The use of consistent line-wide elements enabled efficiencies in manufacturing and construction while ensuring durability, clarity, and visual continuity throughout the system. Importantly, Crossrail’s commitment to full-scale mock-ups and rigorous testing allowed the design team to refine and validate solutions that ultimately contributed to the project’s award-winning outcome.
The signature white cladding, with its softly flared geometries, enhances visibility, improves passenger safety, and creates a calm, cohesive spatial experience. Freestanding totems provide clear and intuitive wayfinding, seamlessly integrating graphics, lighting, and passenger information.
Following the presentation, the group toured Farringdon Station before travelling on the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road Station and back. The journey offered participants the opportunity to experience firsthand the line’s carefully considered architecture, detailing, materiality, and passenger environment. Along the route, Neil and Graham highlighted key design features ranging from integrated artwork and graphics to seating, lighting, and spatial organisation — all conceived as integral components of a unified architectural vision.
The tour provided a valuable insight into how thoughtful, coordinated design at both urban and infrastructural scales can elevate the experience of public transportation while contributing meaningfully to the identity of the city.
Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA
Building Tour - Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities by Hopkins Architects
AIA UK recently welcomed Jonathan Watts, Director at Hopkins Architects, for a presentation on one of the UK's most ambitious academic buildings — the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities at Oxford. The timing was apt: the project had just been confirmed as the largest Passive House certified building in the UK and the first Passive House concert hall in the world.
Funded by a gift from philanthropist Stephen Schwarzman, the Centre consolidates seven of Oxford's humanities faculties — previously scattered across 26 buildings — into a single new quarter on the city's northwest edge. Alongside faculty offices and seven libraries, the building houses a rich programme of public performance venues: a 500-seat concert hall, a 250-seat flexible lecture theatre, a recital hall, and a black box experimental performance lab. Perhaps most significantly, it is the first building Oxford University has ever intentionally designed as a public facility from day one — a deliberate inversion of the inward-looking college typology the University is famous for.
Watts took us through the full arc of the project, from the original 2019 competition through planning submission in March 2022 and breaking ground in January 2023. Much of the early design work, including intensive stakeholder engagement across seven faculties, happened remotely during COVID — a process he described as surprisingly effective. At the heart of the design is a top-lit Great Hall atrium that holds the building together while giving each faculty its own identity and presence onto a shared internal forum. It's clearly well-loved already; Watts noted that finding a seat there since students moved in has become something of a challenge.
The presentation also gave real depth to the technical delivery. Much of the building was prefabricated — 152 individually designed facade panels in Clipsham stone and buff brick — allowing the frame to be topped out by May 2024 at roughly a floor a month. The performance venues use box-in-box acoustic isolation throughout, with the concert hall's 25-tonne roof trusses requiring one of Europe's largest mobile cranes to install.
On Passive House, the ambition was initially framed as designing to "Passive House principles" rather than pushing for full certification — a deliberate choice that kept stakeholders from getting risk-averse too early. The outcome, a weighted average U-value of 0.12 W/m²K and airtightness of 0.66, more than vindicates the approach.
For AIA UK members, the project speaks to so much that is front of mind right now: managing complex multi-stakeholder briefs, meeting high-performance sustainability targets, and leveraging prefabrication to deliver on demanding programmes. The public programme opens in April 2026 — well worth putting on the radar for a visit.
Written by Taylor Rogers, AIA
Building Tour - Urbanest Battersea, A New Benchmark for Passivhaus Student Living in London
Photo credit AHMM
On 9 October, we had the opportunity to tour Urbanest Battersea in person. Urbanest positions itself as London’s leading student accommodation provider, with nine distinctive properties across central London. With 853 student beds distributed across buildings reaching up to 19 storeys, Urbanest Battersea is also Europe’s largest student accommodation development constructed to Passivhaus standards. Having previously toured Urbanest City by Hopkins Architects in June, I can say without reservation that Urbanest’s approach meaningfully redefines contemporary student housing.
The student rooms are well considered, each incorporating a bed, built-in desk and chair, wardrobe, and a private shower room. Comfort cooling and heating are provided alongside an air-filtration system and augmented acoustic dampening. Clusters of rooms share fully furnished communal kitchens with generous dining areas. Public amenities are extensive and of a notably high standard, including a gym, cinema room, rooftop terraces offering expansive city views, and a variety of communal study spaces. Attention to detail and finishes is consistently strong throughout.
Designed by AHHM, Urbanest Battersea recently became the UK’s largest certified Passivhaus development after passing a demanding series of airtightness tests. Located on the south side of Battersea Park Road, opposite the emerging Battersea Power Station district, the scheme comprises three student residential buildings and a dedicated commercial building, forming a highly sustainable and thoughtfully articulated ensemble.
Three of the four buildings are connected by a shared podium, with heights ranging from 11 to 19 storeys and creating a dynamic skyline. Our guide, Flora Genel, explained that the staggered building heights and stepping massing are deliberately arranged to frame key views, while the podium unifies the scheme around landscaped courtyard gardens. She also highlighted the glazed terracotta façades—rendered in a vibrant palette of red, green, and blue—which reference the area’s industrial heritage as well as the surrounding brickwork, local flora, and sky.
The design, like many contemporary student residential schemes, encourages social interaction. The three interconnected residential cores (colour-coded to match the terracotta façades) converge at podium level. This area also accommodates a public house, café, and an Enterprise Business Unit (EBU), which offers a flexible community hub for cultural events and workspace. The combination of a socially oriented design strategy, careful materiality, low-energy performance, and exemplary Passivhaus credentials—in addition to outstanding living and amenity spaces—positions Urbanest Battersea as a standout model for student accommodation in London.
Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA
Photo credit AHMM
Design District, Greenwich Peninsula: A Curated Chorus of Creativity
Attendees gather for the tour of the Design District Masterplan. Photo by Hannah Corlett
To mark the start of the second half of 2025, the AIA UK enjoyed an insightful visit to the Design District on Greenwich Peninsula, East London. Held on 3 July, the tour was led by Hannah Corlett—founder of HNNA and master planner of the district alongside Alex Howard of the Design District management team.
Situated within the larger Greenwich Peninsula Masterplan, the Design District represents a bold experiment in curated urbanism. Developed by Knight Dragon and built by Ardmore, the project brings together 16 distinct buildings designed by eight architectural practices each tasked with creating a pair of structures described by Corlett as "brother and sister buildings" or "cousins." The aim: to foster a dynamic community of artists and creatives, with spaces that support both individual work and collective exchange.
Organised as a series of four courtyards and bisected by a central boulevard aligned with the Millennium Dome, the masterplan places emphasis on permeability, informal public space, and architectural diversity. Each architect was given two plots of similar size and brief but was asked to design without knowing the direction others were taking. The result is a strikingly diverse composition that feels, like the work of many hands over decades achieved all at once.
The tour, accompanied by Alex Howard, offered exclusive access to several buildings, showcasing the breadth of internal spatial strategies and design responses across the development. From material palettes to spatial typologies, the variation among the buildings reflects the richness of their authors’ approaches.
This ambitious and well-orchestrated masterplan reveals how coordinated architectural diversity, paired with thoughtful public realm integration, can yield a vibrant, coherent new piece of city where community and creativity are given the space to thrive.
Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA
Urbanest City Tour: Reimagining Mixed-Use in the Heart of London
Student Common Room. Photo by Katharine Storr
On Thursday, 12 June 2025, we had the opportunity to visit Urbanest City at 35 Vine Street, London EC3N—a recipient of the AIA UK Design Award in the Professional – Large Projects category. Designed by Hopkins Architects in collaboration with Apt, the project delivers a compelling mixed-use scheme that injects new life into the City of London.
This 11-storey development introduces a unique urban typology, combining 656 high-quality student residences with flexible office space, an incubator for start-ups, and a cultural venue anchored by a museum that houses a striking segment of the Roman City Wall. It’s an ambitious and thoughtful intervention in a location more traditionally associated with finance and commerce.
Photo by Will Scott
Urbanest City challenges conventional land-use expectations in the Square Mile. At first glance, one might question the viability of student accommodation in such a premium commercial location. Yet, its presence is both bold and welcome infusing the area with activity and vitality beyond traditional office hours. This shift toward a more integrated urban fabric signals a progressive evolution in city planning.
The student housing component is particularly impressive: contemporary, well-appointed interiors are complemented by a range of communal amenities, including two top-floor common rooms that offer expansive views across the London skyline. These spaces are designed to foster community while providing respite from the intensity of city life.
On the south side of the site, a separate building houses eleven floors of flexible workspaces designed to accommodate a range of tenants. The double-height reception offers informal meeting areas and connects directly to improved public realm along Vine Street and Jewry Street, enhancing the pedestrian experience.
Perhaps most unexpectedly, the project also incorporates a cultural programme. A publicly accessible exhibition space and museum entered either through a street-level café or a dedicated entrance featuring a restored and prominently displayed section of London’s ancient Roman City Wall. This integration of heritage within a contemporary setting is both educational and evocative, grounding the new development in the deep history of its site.
The student accommodation we toured bears little resemblance to the student housing of decades past. Urbanest City exemplifies how thoughtful design, and mixed-use programming can elevate urban living, creating layered, dynamic environments that serve a diverse community and enrich the city as a whole.
Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA
View from the Café over the Roman City Wall. Photo by Katharine Storr
A Model of Climate-Responsive Design: College Amadou Hampâté Bâ
College Amadou Hampâté Bâ by Article 25 Photo Credit: Toby Pear
On 29 May, we had the privilege of virtually touring the College Amadou Hampâté Bâ recipient of both the Professional - Medium Projects and Exemplary Performance in Sustainability categories at the 2024 AIA UK Excellence in Design Awards. Located in Niamey, the capital of Niger, the school is a low-carbon, passively ventilated campus designed by Article 25, a UK-based humanitarian architectural NGO named after Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The college name honours the legacy of Amadou Hampâté Bâ, the renowned Malian writer, historian, and ethnologist.
Situated north of central Niamey where monthly high temperatures range from 32°C in January to a blistering 41°C in April, the project responds elegantly to one of the harshest climates in the Sahel. In this context, where both resources and infrastructure are limited, the architecture stands as a transformative and inspiring model of sustainable design.
What immediately distinguishes the project is its use of local materials, particularly the reddish laterite stone quarried from the surrounding earth. This material, with its significant thermal mass, moderates internal temperatures by absorbing and slowly releasing heat. The design further reduces solar gain while enhancing natural ventilation, removing the need for costly and energy-intensive mechanical systems—a critical consideration in such an environment.
The classroom roofs are constructed using compressed earth brick vaults, over which lightweight "flying" metal roofs are suspended. These angled metal canopies create a narrowed opening at one end, encouraging air to be drawn through the roof cavity and promoting passive cooling. The metal roofs also shield the vaults from heavy seasonal rains, contributing both to durability and thermal performance.
Together, the rough-hewn laterite facades, vaulted earthen roofs, and soaring metal canopies create a poetic architectural language—one that embodies environmental sensitivity, material honesty, and cultural respect. The result is a masterclass in climate-responsive architecture that sets a powerful precedent for sustainable design in extreme climates.
Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA