The building

The UCL Academy is housed in brand-new, purpose-built accommodation on Adelaide Road in Swiss Cottage, North London.

The building is specifically designed to support the curriculum and pastoral structures that the school offers.

The Academy’s facilities include:

• State-of-the-art science laboratories and a science demonstration theatre for interactive lectures, experiments and talks by visiting academics from UCL;
• An engineering science suite, which will include workshops and technology and science labs (for electronics and for engineering physics) designed to give students the experience of ‘being engineers’;
• Suites of rooms for art, music and drama, including highly-equipped performance spaces;
• ‘House’ spaces, providing comfortable, welcoming places for students to eat together, and to use for informal study during breaks and before and after school.

Much of a student’s learning at the UCL Academy takes place in Superstudios – large teaching areas which have been specifically designed to provide the best possible facilities for students to use for:

• Classroom group learning
• Project-based work and pair work
• Work in small and large groups
• Individual, independent study
• Discussions and presentations

Take a look below at the initial plans for the building, designed by Penoyre & Prasad: