Due to its success and strong reputation, the Management School at the University of Liverpool is attracting increasing numbers of students and has increased its capacity to allow additional students to attend.

Architects, Austin-Smith:Lord developed a design to achieve this through reorganising and extending the existing facilities.

The new design aims to embrace modern methods of teaching in a state of the art facility that encourages collaborative and social learning.  The accommodation also includes a case pit for debate and discussion and a trading floor.

Lead architect, Adam Sunderland of Austin-Smith:Lord commented: The University of Liverpool has a distinguished architectural history. The best buildings on the campus are confident expressions of their age. The pieces form a coherent whole by respecting the context. The vision for the new extension as the third component in the evolution of the Management School is to modernise, raise the profile and rebrand to meet market expectations.”

The new extension, which is a highly sustainable, BREEAM Very Good building, is set back from the street, behind a formal landscaped zone, consistent with the character of the campus. A green wall has been incorporated into the south west corner of the building at ground floor level to create a south facing courtyard.

The pavilion extension is linked by a double height glass box to the existing building. The scale and proportions of the cladding module pick up on the grain and verticality of the existing building. The cladding is subdivided vertically into floor zones and accommodation zones. Joints are staggered between the zones and windows are placed as required in the accommodation zone.

Larger volumes such as the atrium are expressed by spanning windows across two accommodation zones and the floor zone, which in these areas, is set back from the glazing.

This structured and flexible approach enables the fenestration pattern to be determined by the needs of the spaces animating the simple pavilion form.