Member Article

UEL and Birkbeck, University of London unveil new £33 million campus

University Square Stratford, which was officially opened by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, is a £33 million state-of-the-art campus in East London

University Square, situated at the heart of Stratford’s cultural quarter, is a unique collaboration between the University of East London (UEL) and Birkbeck, University of London.

The campus offers an alternative model of higher education, with flexible part- and full-time, day and evening study opportunities to meet the growing aspirations of the people of East London.

Designed by Make architects and built by contractor VolkerFitzpatrick in association with AWW architects, the five-floor campus comprises 8,600 square metres of flexible teaching and performance space, as well as academic and administrative offices, orientated around a large, light-filled atrium.

Its features include more than 700 square metres of solar panels, rooftop habitats to increase biodiversity, three rooftop bat boxes, rainwater harvesting, and a garden at ground level.

Professor John Joughin, vice-chancellor of UEL, said: “University Square Stratford is truly transformational. It is already encouraging access and progression into higher education and better meeting the growing aspirations of the people of east London, who are now able to enhance their employment prospects by gaining university qualifications and learning new skills. In a sense part of that transformation of London is all around us – quite simply the east of London is becoming the centre of London.”

The Master of Birkbeck, Professor David Latchman CBE, said: “190 years on [since Birkbeck was founded], people, governments and others have accepted the importance of widening participation and lifelong learning.

“The challenge for Birkbeck is to continue to be innovative, continue to do things in the tradition of George Birkbeck and that is why we started to think a few years ago about coming to east London.

“It became very clear as soon as we started to think about it that UEL was the key educational institution here and we could do nothing else but collaborate with UEL. “

We have had a magnificent relationship with them, teaching in their premises until this magnificent new building is open, and now working jointly with that building.“

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .