Spotlight on UCL teaching spaces: update from across campus

As students in London, you'll be only too aware of the cost of living space.

London is said to be the third most expensive city in the world to live in. But it's not just living space that's costly, it's teaching space too.

We are spending in excess of £1bn over the next ten years on building and refurbishing our campus ­- major works, such as the Wilkins Lower Refectory, are already starting to take shape and we have already delivered a number of new student hubs. In addition, many of the major redevelopment projects include new teaching spaces. 

Already this year, you may have been taught in rooms that are overcrowded, over-used and far from your other lectures and seminars. We recognise how frustrating this is.

Learning experience

Our top priority is improving your learning experience. The fitness for purpose of your seminar rooms and lecture theatres - and the quality of the room facilities - are an important part of that experience; whereabouts on the campus you are taught is another, as is continuity of rooms, where appropriate. 

We are working hard to improve things. As a short-term measure, we've opened a temporary teaching block in the South Quad with a 100-seat lecture theatre and two 40-seat seminar rooms. We have also leased further teaching spaces and are working hard with your academic departments to try to ensure that class sizes match room sizes to avoid over-crowding.

This academic year, we will be making some changes to processes to fix some of the problems that you may have experienced in 2015-16 session. We are acutely aware of the challenges we face with the teaching estate. Please bear with us as we improve things for you and the whole UCL community.