University of Greenwich, Mary Seacole Building

The brief for the Academic Building on the Avery Hill Campus of the University of Greenwich was to provide both general access teaching and conference space. The building has been configured to provide four general teaching classrooms for 200 students, a school office for the School of Health and Social Care, a roof level suite of meeting rooms and workspaces for around 100 academic staff belonging to the Departments of Family Care and Mental Health and the Department of Health Development.

This aspect of the programme, to provide open plan staff office space, is perhaps the most innovative, involving trans­ferring academic staff from traditional individual cellular offices elsewhere on the site into a completely new environment. Close working with the users was required to agree how the spaces were subdivided with purpose designed screens and furniture to create and define different layers of personal and group working space within larger open plan areas.