Staff offices located in the Virginia Woolf Building of King’s College London (KCL), will be moved to the top two floors of Bush House South East Wing (SE) among other locations.
The lease for the Virginia Woolf Building (VWB) will end in autumn 2025.
KCL announced in October that 700 staff members from Arts & Humanities, Social Science & Public Policy and Law, as well as other professional areas, would need to be relocated as part of a series of wider changes.
VWB currently houses the Liberal Arts common room as well as study and social spaces for students of Modern Languages.
The seventh and eighth floors of Bush House SE are permanently closing for students on 6 February. When asked by Roar, almost 75% of students said they use the student spaces on these floors at least 2 or 3 times a week.
Third-year students Laura and Alexia described the change as “heartbreaking and shocking”. The Meadow on Floor 8 and the Lower Loft on Floor 7 are popular spaces for socialising and studying.
The Media Suite and the Shack Cafe in Bush House SE will remain open.
The KCL Student Union (KCLSU) hub on the seventh floor of Bush House SE will move to K0.28 and K0.30 in the King’s Building, where KCLSU staff members will share a space with the Language Resources Centre. Until now, the latter was located on Floor -1 of the King’s Building.
The redevelopment of Bush House is part of the Campus Futures programme which aims to enhance the student and staff experience by modernising the university’s spaces to provide improved informal and social areas for students.
The refit of Bush House South West Wing (SW) which includes building a lecture theatre with a 360-degree screen setup, called the King’s Agora, also forms part of Campus Futures. The refurbishment is set to be completed by September 2027.
“The focus is always on Bush House but the main campus has been around since 1829, we can’t neglect it,” said NMES masters student Emily-Jayne. She added: “PhilBar needs to return!” The Philosophy Bar, located in the Philosophy Building, shut in 2020. It used to be “one of KCL’s hidden gems,” according to students back then.
Former exhibition and event spaces, the Arcade and the Exchange, have now been converted into informal study spaces.
The KCLSU offices and the Language Resources Centre are moving to previous informal learning spaces – K0.28 and K0.30.
