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 school extends the university’s presence at the 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 Riddel Hall. TODD Architects developed a building organised around patterns of movement across the campus, with two entrances, one at lower ground level and another meeting pedestrian routes crossing the lawn, to allow students and staff to enter the building from either direction.

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.

Heights are kept below the surrounding tree canopy, while the footprint fragments, working around mature trees to minimise destruction. 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.

Red clay brick and red cast stone echo the masonry of Riddel Hall, while aluminium framing supports floor-to-ceiling glazing that brings daylight into circulation and study spaces. The glazed façades were delivered by specialist contractors Walsin 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.

Enda McGrath, Architectural Project Manager for Schüco Ireland, said, “It was a pleasure for Schüco to support this award-winning project designed by Todd Architects. Using the FWS50 stick curtain wall system with integrated high level fixed glazed louvres to achieve the airflow required to ventilate, along with achieving maximum light coverage to create a light filled interior, was a great opportunity to provide a vibrant educational environment for both students and staff.”