John Pardey Architects won an RIBA competition to provide six new ‘School Centres’ at Basil Spence’s listed campus to accommodate a reorganisation of the university faculty structure.
Our designs are an architectural response to the heavy, monumental and earthbound language of the existing Spence buildings – using lightweight, elegant and floating elements to create a complementary language without recourse to pastiche.
Sussex Institute
The first centre, the post-graduate Sussex Institute, creates a new double height foyer, conceived as a folded, aluminium-clad plane – which is lined internally in cedar boarding. This forms a ‘gateway’ into the school and links directly to a new steel-framed loggia structure that wraps around two sides of a semi-enclosed court that connects two blocks that together house the new Institute.
| Client | University of Sussex |
| Status | Completed (2006) |
| Contract value | £780,000 |
| GIA m2 | 160 m2 |
| Structural engineer | Barton Engineers |
| M&E consultant | GTA Consulting Engineers |
