University of West London Main Entrance

The new St Mary’s Road entrance gives the University of West London a more welcoming and distinctive front door to its Ealing campus – transforming an underperforming threshold into a place to arrive, meet and connect.

Our design extends the existing reception out towards the street, creating a lighter, more generous arrival that better reflects the quality and ambition of the campus beyond. More than simply a new entrance, the intervention creates a considered transition between the busy St Mary’s Road frontage and the heart of the University, giving students, staff and visitors space to arrive, orientate and gather before moving further into the campus.

Combining a new reception extension with improvements to the existing façade and landscape, the design gives the University a stronger identity on St Mary’s Road while responding sensitively to the character of the locally listed building and its conservation-area setting.

Sitting directly on St Mary’s Road and leading towards the University’s main heartspace, the entrance occupies a small but strategically important part of the campus.

We saw an opportunity to make this space work much harder.

Rather than simply refurbishing the reception that was already there, our design brings it forward into a new extension, unlocking the former reception as a café and informal social space. In doing so, we were able to create a much richer sequence of arrival: from the street and landscaped frontage, through a generous new threshold and reception, and onwards into the heart of the University.

Repositioning the entrance also helped resolve some of the practical challenges of the existing building. Moving it away from the direct alignment of the heartspace corridor reduces the wind-tunnel effect previously experienced in reception, while clearer sightlines and a reception desk positioned directly ahead make arrival more intuitive.

The architecture helps tie this journey together. Curved elements within the extension take their cues from both the existing building and the University’s established heartspace, creating a contemporary new identity that feels connected to the wider campus rather than simply added onto it.

It shows how architectural thinking at an estate level can identify where intervention will have the greatest influence – using targeted investment to improve experience, unlock existing space and strengthen the relationship between buildings, people and place.

A relatively small intervention has transformed the way the University meets the city.

Where the previous entrance felt compressed and recessive, the new frontage establishes a clear focal point along St Mary’s Road and gives the University a more confident presence within its neighbourhood. Planting, integrated seating and a more generous external threshold soften the transition from a heavily trafficked urban street, creating a moment to pause before entering the campus.

That sense of transition continues inside. Generous glazing and rooflights draw daylight deep into the new reception and existing building, while circular rooflights mark key moments within the space. Views through the entrance allow students and visitors to understand where they are going before they have fully entered, making the journey into the campus feel natural and intuitive.

But perhaps the biggest change is what the project unlocks beyond the entrance itself. By freeing up the former reception for café and informal social space, activity can spill further towards the front of the building – creating another place for students to meet, sit and spend time.

The result is a front door that does much more than manage arrival. It extends the life and energy of the campus right to the street.

The project demonstrates how thoughtful intervention can give an existing building a new lease of life without losing the character that makes it distinctive.

Rather than replacing the established frontage, the design introduces a carefully scaled single-storey addition that complements the locally significant 1950s building while allowing it to perform better for the University today.

Passive design measures are embedded throughout the approach. Extensive glazing and rooflights maximise natural daylight, while the overhanging canopy provides solar shading and the reconfigured entrance helps address the draughts associated with the previous layout.

The material palette combines durable stone, timber and recyclable aluminium, alongside recycled steel within the roof structure and lower-carbon concrete incorporating GGBS.

Landscape has also been brought much closer to the experience of arrival. New planting softens what was previously a predominantly hard, grey frontage, while a biodiverse green roof, raised planters and a climbing green wall introduce new habitat opportunities within a constrained urban site. The green wall gives new purpose to the existing curved southern elevation, turning a previously blank façade into a distinctive feature of the University’s new identity.

The St Mary’s Road entrance demonstrates how architecture can influence an estate far beyond the immediate footprint of a project.

For universities and colleges, improving an estate does not always require major capital intervention. Understanding where change can have the greatest effect can help institutions make more informed decisions about where to invest – improving student experience, strengthening identity, unlocking underused space and reducing the environmental impact of existing assets.

At UWL, rethinking one strategically important part of the campus has changed the experience of arrival, created new social space and established a stronger relationship between the University and the city around it.

It is an approach that brings strategic estate thinking and architecture together: understanding the wider challenge first, then using design precisely where it can make the greatest difference.