URS Building, including the paved surface of Chancellors Way and raised edges of the ornamental pool, University of Reading

URS Building, University of Reading

This university faculty building was constructed between 1970 and 1972 by the architects Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis. It was built to house the Faculty of Urban and Regional Studies, including the College of Estate Management and its postal course administration and printing facilities.

The building is composed of an exposed reinforced concrete frame finished in ochre-coloured cement. The frame is infilled with pre-cast concrete cladding panels of brown Thames Valley aggregate, aluminium panels, and aluminium windows. The low-pitched roofs are covered with aluminium sheet.

The building forms the south side of an open space, with Whiteknights House to the west, the Humanities and Social Studies Faculty to the north, and the Library to the east. It has a long, narrow footprint running broadly east to west, comprising four floors plus a basement and a partial fifth floor containing a plant room. The principal internal circulation space is a 120-metre-long top-lit spine running the length of the building. Lecture theatres and teaching spaces project irregularly from this spine, and to the north they project over a wide double-height, brick-paved pedestrian walkway known as Chancellor's Way.

The circulation spine comprises a double corridor sandwiching a central core of staircases, lobbies, lifts and light-wells. Lecture theatres and tutors' rooms are located at first-floor level with seminar and teaching rooms above. The ground floor is reserved for the printing and administration of the College of Estate Management's postal courses. Alterations have been limited to minor internal rearrangements of partitions and a small ground-floor infill extension.

The building's elevations are formed of irregular projections that break up its length with vertical and horizontal cut-aways to admit daylight into the corridors. The exposed structural frame creates a strong bay rhythm. The joints of post and beam are exaggeratedly expressed, with fork-ended beams resting on or supporting the shouldered ends of columns, giving a playful emphasis to the building's rational construction. The beams are post-tensioned for large spans and cantilevers. The most dramatic projection is to the north, over Chancellor's Way, where the supporting structural columns form a colonnade. The principal entrances are arranged along the north elevation. The two end elevations to east and west give the appearance that the building has been sliced like a stick of rock to reveal the cross-section of the structure. To the east there is a service tower; to the west, the central spine advances forward at first, second and third floor, projecting out over a square ornamental pool.

The building's roofs are visible as shallow mono-pitch gable ends from the east and west; built-in box gutters terminate in projecting spouts. The proportions and glazing pattern of the windows vary depending on the rooms they serve, with some forming shallow oriels.

Chancellor's Way is paved with brown brick paviours and steps up near the building, forming a continuous shallow podium along its length. The paviours wrap around the side of the building and form a raised edge to the square pool beneath the projecting end.

Internally, the building's structure is exposed, with beams tapering in depth and forking as the engineering requires. The top-lit stairwells and light-wells are enclosed in timber and glass screens with fin-like vertical mullions, creating a sense of structural transparency. The wells have pitched glass lanterns over them, with one exception which is open to the sky. The dog-leg stairs are self-supporting, with balustrades of painted tubular steel and timber panel. Internal walls are of painted concrete block, with doors mainly flush-panel or having two glazed panels, although some are later replacements. The two first-floor raked lecture theatres are double-height spaces, as is the printing room on the ground floor. Timber and glass screens create a partition between the printing room and the offices at first and second floors, allowing light and views to travel through the space.

The expressed structure is typical of HKPA's work, recalling their interest in oriental timber construction. Here, the trabeated post-and-lintel aesthetic is translated to reinforced concrete and amplified to a monumental scale, creating a distinctive and extrovert aesthetic. The building is didactic in nature, demonstrating how structural loads are transmitted—appropriate given that Construction Management was amongst the courses taught here. The timber detailing is consistent with HKPA's style and redolent of simple Japanese-inspired design.