Bush House Undercroft

Highlights
• 1,100 m² NIA Undercroft
• 1,305 m² GEA Courtyard
• 115 m² Pavilion
• restaurant and nightclub
• robust raw materials
• 2 sculpture cabinets

Client: King’s College London
Sector: Education/Fit-out/Commercial/Retail/Public Realm/
New Build
Status: Complete
Responsibilities: RIBA Stages 3 to 7

Bush Houses’ Undercroft sits beneath one of the internal courtyards in a space which has been largely redundant since it’s previous uses as the BBC World service canteen, and a bank vault. King’s College’s brief was to bring it back into use, along with the courtyard above, to provide a restaurant facility next door to a nightclub for the Student’s Union.

The design aesthetic embraced the existing concrete materials and played with the layering of eat new finish to tell the story of it’s reinterpretation as an entertainment venue. Above the Undercroft the courtyard was re-laid and a new pavilion was inserted to provide a connection between above, and below, ground. Once again, all materials and finishes were chosen to minimise their embodied carbon and their impact on internal pollution.