Firm to design college campus that’s part of a wider £500m mixed-use scheme

Atkins has landed the design role on a £250m college campus in west London, Building can reveal.

West London College has drafted in Atkins to design it a college in Hammersmith and Fulham, as part of a wider £500m mixed-use project that will include homes.

The firm saw off competition from rivals including Arup with Perkins+Will to win the college job through a Homes and Communities Agency framework.

The ‘education quarter’ will also include space for an Institute of Technology and a free school. Atkins said it would additionally help the college create a specialist centre for construction, engineering, digital media, creativity and technology, and “maximise the use of technology to support new ways of learning”.

Atkins is also masterplanning the overall scheme.

Philip Watson, Atkins design director, said: “This project has huge potential to create a new, world-class education destination in west London that will help provide the skilled workforce London needs.

“Our aim is to provide a range of modern, innovative spaces that are hugely flexible so that the users of the Education Quarter can adapt their teaching methods to the skills that businesses need.”

The firm noted said spaces in the college would be “designed to encourage collaboration, innovation and creativity, drawing inspiration from Google, one of the college’s partners, and their offices and ways of working”.