Dennis Sciama Building, University of Portsmouth

The Dennis Sciama Building provides a new social hub for Portsmouth University’s north campus. The ground floor accommodates all catering for students and staff. The top floor, which has a terrace and views to the south, houses the internationally important Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, with two general teaching floors below. The design is a carefully proportioned response to the listed 19th century cottages to the south and the large-scale modern university buildings to the north and west. As with all our education buildings, we worked hard to ensure that as many teaching and social spaces as possible are naturally lit and ventilated, and used central voids to pull air through the building and expel it at high level.