Typologies of KnowledgeUniversities and the City: from Islands of Knowledge to Districts of Innovation Katharina Borsi* and Chris Schulte aDepartment of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; bDepartment of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Dr Katharina Borsi Department of Architecture and Built Environment University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD UK Telephone: 0115 95 13172 Email:
[email protected] ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6745-3547 Typologies of KnowledgeUniversities and the City: from Islands of Knowledge to Districts of Innovation We are witnessing a new trend in the design of university buildings and other ‘knowledge typologies’, that is, buildings in which knowledge is produced or disseminated, such as university buildings, research laboratories or libraries. Increasingly, their design inverts the image of the closed ‘ivory tower’ through a layered intersection of inside and outside spaces, seeking to draw the life of the city and the life of the institution closely together. Using London’s ‘Knowledge Quarter’ centred in Bloomsbury, Euston and King’s Cross as a focus, this paper traces a trajectory of typological evolution of university buildings which includes Adams, Holden and Pearson’s ‘ivory tower’ project for a new headquarter of the University of London (1932), of which only Senate House was built; Leslie Martin’s and Trevor Dannatt’s radical restructuring of the Georgian urban structure through the Development Plan of the University of London (1959); Denys Lasdun’s evolution and typological reworking of this plan through the Institute of Education (1970–1976) and the library of SOAS (1970-1973); Colin St John’s Wilson’s British Library (1982 - 1999); and Stanton Williams’ Central St Martins (2008- 2011).