London School of Economics The LSE’s New Academic Building is their flagship and the start of a programme of estate renewal. The former Public Trustee Office, built in 1916, has been transformed into a state-of-the-art teaching and learning facility with related research and administrative offices. Seven floors hang from an 18-metre truss. Our engineering designs evolved from the need to provide a 400 seat lecture theatre in the basement. The column-free space at ground level rests on elegant curved precast concrete beams forming the roof of the lecture theatre below. We collaborated with Grimshaw on the £30m project through a design competition and then joined up with Osborne for the final design and construction. < back         © Alan Baxter & Associates LLP 2007