Queen’s Business School

Queen’s Business School, completed by TODD Architects in 2023, is a careful addition to a woodland campus setting in Belfast. Set beside Riddel Hall and its grounds, the building gathers teaching, study and social spaces around a central atrium, reflecting a growing emphasis on collaborative learning environments.

Photos
Donal McCann

Completed in 2023, Queen’s Business School has since established itself as a central component of Queen’s University Belfast’s academic life.

Designed by TODD Architects, the facility extends the School’s presence at the wooded Riddel Hall estate, providing a purpose-built environment for postgraduate teaching.

The scheme used Schüco façade system FWS 60, Schüco ASS 80 FD.HI bi-fold system and Schüco door system ADS 70 HD.

Located on the southern edge of the 13 acre campus, and surrounded by mature woodland, the site required a careful response to topography, tree retention and the setting of the listed building. In response, TODD Architects developed a building organised around patterns of movement across the campus. Two entrances, one at lower ground level and another meeting pedestrian routes crossing the lawn, allow students and staff to enter the building from different directions.

Heights are kept below the surrounding tree canopy, while the footprint fragments to minimise the removal of mature trees. By stepping with the natural topography, the scheme settles into the landscape and preserves views towards the listed building, ensuring the new structure sits comfortably within the wider campus.

These routes converge at a triple-height atrium that has become the hub’s main social space. Top-lit and animated by views into surrounding woodland, the atrium accommodates the reception, cafe seating and informal study areas. From the atrium, a staircase leads to the upper ground floor, where study booths overlook a landscaped courtyard.

Circulation spaces widen and fold into a sequence of breakout areas, reflecting the original ambition to treat the ‘inbetween’ spaces of the building as places for informal learning rather than simply corridors.

Red clay brick and red cast stone echo the masonry of Riddel Hall, while bronze-toned aluminium framing supports extensive floor-to-ceiling glazing that brings daylight deep into circulation and study spaces. The glazed façades were delivered by specialist façade contractor Alucraft using systems developed by Schüco. A mullion–transom curtain wall system was employed to create large areas of glazing with a flush external appearance, while accommodating ventilation louvres and integrated escape doors within the façade. At ground level, bi-folding glazed doors allow the café space to open directly onto external terraces.

Timber-lined elements, including study booths and the central staircase, introduce warmth while helping to define more intimate zones within the open plan study areas.