The new Faculty of Arts building (an insight)

Hi everyone. Rather excitingly, I was allowed to go on a tour of the new Faculty of Arts building on Friday! It did mean I had to get up at the earliest time I had in weeks, but it was definitely worth it. Throughout this blog post I am going to discuss some of the most exciting aspects of the tour, and I will attach a few photos of how the building is currently looking. A quick disclaimer that the building is still under construction and, following its current roadmap, is anticipated to finish completion in Term 1 of the next academic year. But as we were bitterly reminded yesterday evening, sometimes roadmaps can be delayed (thanks Boris).

Whenever it is completed, it is sure to be a fantastic space for the entire student and staff population here at Warwick to enjoy and utilise, becoming a new home for seven different departments. If you’re curious as to how the final design will look, I will also try and attach a link to the digital fly-through:

Faculty of Arts Building: Fly-through video and models (warwick.ac.uk)

The new Faculty of Arts building sets out three main aims as to what it will offer to both students and staff at Warwick:

1. To unite all Faculty of Arts departments under one roof.

2. To create teaching, study, café and exhibition spaces available to the whole Warwick community.
3. Become a hub both for public engagement in the arts and humanities and for nurturing cultural value.

Immediately, as you enter the building, you recognise that the design revolves around creating a community space that is able to accommodate the demands of many different departments. The main ‘atrium’ area, although difficult to visualise entirely at the moment, has the potential to be a really incredible space. The layered seating is designed to form an almost amphitheatre style arena, with a view from the bottom floor straight up to the top, floor eight. On the bottom floor there are also some very cleverly designed lecture theatres, designed so encourage both group and individual study and a host of black box studio spaces. I was told that the bottom floor also has the potential to be turned entirely into one large performance space, perfect for promenade or site-specific performance.

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As you move up the floors, you begin to see the full versatility of the building, its ability to cater to the demands of multiple different departments and their individual requirements . Although we couldn’t access the entirety of the cinema spaces, you can see below the other rooms that will be available for Film Studies students to use, the hole in the wall will be a slot for projectors.

One of the most impressive rooms we viewed on the tour was quite near the top. As we went further up, the more construction work was being completed. I don’t like to exaggerate, but I did take my life in my hands to deliver this content to you (only joking, it was all extremely safe, I had to wear a high-vis jacket, hard hat, appropriate shoes and gloves). As you can see in the image below, one room backs out onto a large balcony space that overlooks all of central campus. Everyone on the tour was taken aback at how incredible this space was. Clearly, I was that taken aback that it inhibited my ability to take good photos. I promise it looks good in real life. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see for yourself…

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So there we are. A whistle-stop tour (or insight) into the new Faculty of Arts building! Like I said at the beginning, if you’re curious as to what the final building will (hopefully) look like then check out the digital fly-through linked at the top. I, for one, cannot wait to move in and start taking advantage of all the incredible opportunities the new Faculty of Arts building will offer, and just to begin enjoying the space!

Any questions, just message me, and I’ll try and answer them to the best of my knowledge.

Until next time,

Louis.