Client: Ravensbourne College / Greenwich Peninsula Regeneration Limited
Ravensbourne College provides specialist educational courses closely linked to the needs of the developing creative industries sector, including broadcast technology, fashion and interior design. It has approximately 1,350 full time equivalent students but its campus in Chislehurst, Kent, was ageing and no longer able to provide a good quality environment for its students and staff. In addition, its location made access to the emerging creative industries hubs in Central and East London difficul
Gerald Eve LLP was instructed jointly by the College and Greenwich Peninsula Regeneration Limited to consider the potential for developing a new building for the College to relocate to, in a prestigious location adjacent to The O2, opposite the entrance to North Greenwich Underground Station. This followed from Gerald Eve LLP’s long term strategic involvement with the overall development of Greenwich Peninsula, having secured outline planning permission for this new urban quarter.
This area was allocated in the approved masterplan for commercial uses, primarily offices with some retail. Gerald Eve LLP led discussions with both the London Borough of Greenwich and the Greater London Authority to establish the acceptability of education as an alternative land use on this site, and to establish the College’s relationship with the approved masterplan for the Peninsula. In parallel with this, as part of our long term strategic role, we negotiated mechanisms with the authorities by which the previously committed commercial floorspace could be redistributed elsewhere on the Peninsula ensuring that the expected level of development can be delivered in the long term.
After completing this exercise we coordinated the preparation and submission of a planning application for the new college building – a striking contemporary design by Foreign Office Architects. Planning permission was subsequently granted by the London Borough of Greenwich.
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