Harlequin Floors at Kingston University in London

The landmark Town House campus of Kingston University has opened to students and the public.

Designed by the recipient of the prestigious 2020 RIBA Gold Medal Grafton Architects, the flagship building serves as a cultural and educational hub for students, staff and the local community. The six-story high Town House has a floor area of 11,500m².

A matrix of interlocking spaces and uses overlap and weave together physically and visually allowing the occupants to see across the building, encouraging collaboration and facilitate learning as a social process.

Housing the main university library and archives alongside a covered courtyard, the Town House features professional-standard dance studios, a performance theatre, adaptable learning spaces as well as two cafes. Constructed by the multi-award-winning contractor Willmott Dixon, Harlequin collaborated on the important £50m project installing specialist learning spaces providing flexible rehearsal studios for the university’s dance courses.

Three spacious new dance studios were created along with a performance teaching space, all equipped to professional standards with fully sprung floors, mirrors and barres.

In the three dance studios, Harlequin supplied and installed a fully floating Harlequin Activity sprung floor topped with either Harlequin Cascade or Harlequin Standfast performance surfaces totalling over 330m². Harlequin ballet barres completed the dance studio facilities.

In the Performance Teaching Space, a Harlequin WoodSpring basket weave sprung floor system with a Harlequin Standfast top surface was supplied and installed to an area of over 180m². A timelapse video shows the installation process: Kingston University Senior Lecturer and Dance Course Leader, Stephen Mason: