Union House and Stephen Perse Foundation up for RICS Awards

Two LSI projects in the running for a 2018 RICS East of England Award.

Two LSI projects have been shortlisted at the 2018 RICS East of England Awards.

Our project to refurbish Union House at the University of East Anglia has been shortlisted in the Regeneration and the Tourism & Leisure categories, whilst our Stephen Perse Foundation Senior School project has been shortlisted in the Community Benefit and Design through Innovation categories.

The winners of each category will be announced at the 2018 RICS East of England Awards event at The Apex in Bury St Edmunds on Thursday the 10th May. LSI have previously won the 2017 RICS Community Benefit and Project of the Year categories for our Arthur Rank Hospice project in Cambridge, and is a previous winner of the RICS National Design Through Innovation category for our Crome Court student residences scheme at UEA.

UEA Union House

The project to regenerate Union House creates a new gateway into the campus from University Drive. The project involved a complete renovation of the central social space, and reworking of the first floor to provide a range of flexible meeting spaces, a graduate centre, social spaces, teaching and seminar spaces.

The project has been very positively received by Student Union management, staff and students.  The café space at level 0 has become hugely popular.  Central social spaces, the LCR and the Hive, have been revitalised with the Hive becoming a thriving ‘marketplace’ environment. The route through the centre of the building has become a key link within the campus, and has seen a dramatic increase in footfall.

The Union House project has been followed by re-fresh of Denys Lasdun’s 1960’s lecture theatres and associated foyer areas, and a further scheme to refurbish the UEA Library. As a collective, these projects have opened up a key processional route through the campus, connecting student accommodation to Union House, and Union House to the library and lecture theatres beyond.

Stephen Perse Foundation

LSI Architects Stephen Perse Foundation RICS Awards

The recently completed Stephen Perse Foundation Senior School project provided the Stephen Perse Foundation the additional space in the form of a new teaching block comprising 10 flexible teaching rooms, a sports hall with roof mounted Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) above and learning resource spaces for social or quiet study. The new senior school seeks to better reflect and enhance the foundations core values and innovative approach to learning and provides sustainable new facilities to support the school’s excellent teaching and learning for the next generation of pupils.

At ground floor the building incorporates a new double-height entrance and reception space. A flexible activity space creates a new multi-functional heart to the school, opening out beneath a double-height canopy. The four-court sports hall, alongside changing rooms and support facilities is sunk into a basement level. The upper two storeys of the building house a number of teaching, informal learning and social spaces, which at second floor, open out onto the MUGA.