Student accommodation building for 500 residents, for Northampton College of Advanced Technology, Bunhill Road, Islington, North London. (now demolished).

BUILDING HIGH FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD


Some interesting conclusions can be drawn from the LCC's scheme to build an 18-storey hall of residence for the Northampton College of Advanced Technology, and a new technical college (a separate institution) on a 2 1/2 acre site in Bunhill Row, Finsbury. The site, says the LCC handout, is being quickly surrounded by new office blocks in an area that is short of open space. (on the reasons for this disaster the handout is silent). The model shows the cliff-like faces of the peripheral office blocks overshadowing the site, and hemming it in. By accommodating 500 students and some staff in an 18-storey block, and by placing all the internal circulation and principal rooms at first floor level, the LCC architects have been able to create an invaluable open space, flanked by the lower college buildings on two sides, that is completely open to the public. The warden has a flat on the roof, the seventh floor accommodates the staff, and the students live in study bedrooms, grouped in twelves; each bedroom has a wash-basin unit, and each group shares a bathroom, a shower and two WC.s. The hostel is linked by a bridge to its dining room and the buildings of the technical college are also linked by bridges. The only entrances to the technical college are at first floor level, so that the students will use the open space for recreation but not for circulation. This is the first time that the LCC has taken the welcome step of opening the site of an educational building to the public.

Architects: Hubert Bennett, Architect to the LCC, Michael Powell, Schools Architect, P. K. Nicoll, Group Leader, Ron Herron (project architect).



Architects' Journal, February 18, 1960, p. 276


Northampton College of Advanced Technology expanded rapidly from 1957 with the appointment of Sir James Tait as principal and the political support for technical colleges.


From 1966, the college has been called City University. The Hall of Residence, later known as Northampton Hall, was demolished in 1998.