好色先生TV

Will Alsop's latest building is not one of his trademark blobs. Bizarrely, it鈥檚 a four-square box, seven storeys high. A pretty basic box at that, with a flat window wall on one side and the other three sides sheathed in profiled aluminium roofing and tiny punched-through windows.

But the building does have a prominent feature. This is the large, irregular eruption of shiny steel tubing, like the remains of a Brillo pad after the cat has had its way with it. It stands on a fifth-floor terrace, where it waves provocatively at commuters on the busy New Cross Road.

These two elements make up the new Ben Pimlott 好色先生TV at the University of London鈥檚 Goldsmiths College. Located in down-at-heel New Cross in south-east London, and set back behind a diverse cluster of historic buildings and prefab huts, the plain box would merge into its undistinguished setting were it not for the squiggle.

The sculptural roof-top ornament hints at the building鈥檚 main function, which is to house the college鈥檚 visual arts department. This is famous as an incubator for young British artists: five Turner Prize winners are former alumni, including Damien Hirst. The building also contains the departments of psychology and computing. Although not natural bedfellows, the three disciplines aim to cross-fertilise analytical psychology, IT, visual arts and cultural theory in multidisciplinary research.

In terms of accommodation, the three departments bring together art studios, neuroscience laboratories, multimedia computer suites and a tiered lecture theatre. As designed by Alsop & Partners, the rectilinear building is loose enough in fit for these diverse facilities to co-exist happily with little overall differentiation between the floors, except that the top two floors of studios come with a generous 4.5 m of headroom. All floors are raised access, which allows the easier rearrangement of IT cabling and air-conditioning ducting. Opaque cladding over the south, east and west elevations shield all seven floors from sunlight 鈥� which can be disruptive to artists and computer operators alike 鈥� while the window wall on the north side provides ample daylight.

The building is as tough as it is basic. The art studios come with exposed concrete floor slabs as ceilings, plywood partitions and chipboard raised floor panels. 鈥淵ou could throw a bucket of paint at it,鈥� says Alsop, perhaps talking from his personal experience of teaching sculpture at St Martin鈥檚 School of Art. 鈥淵ou might not like it, but I do.鈥�

An industrial aesthetic pervades the interior and exterior of the 3600 m² building, with robust, durable finishes reflecting its tight higher-education budget of 拢6.7m. Nevertheless, it does come with a few inspiring touches. As well as the rooftop squiggle, these include a fire-escape staircase cantilevered from the south side that will throw shifting zig-zag shadows on the aluminium cladding. The north-facing window wall also offers a mesmerising panorama of central London, with St Paul鈥檚 Cathedral taking a prominent place on the skyline. And in visually linking south-east London with the rest of the capital, it shares a similar outlook to the practice鈥檚 Stirling Prize-winning Peckham Library, which stands just one mile further west.

Project team

client Goldsmiths College, University of London
architect Alsop & Partners
project manager Buro Four
structural engineer Adams Kara Taylor
services engineer Roger Preston & Partners
quantity surveyor Davis Langdon
design-and-build contractor ISG InteriorExterior