Listed building was one of earliest to have steel frame

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from Gower Street

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from Gower Street

Ian Ritchie Architects has landed the £35 million refurbishment of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s building in Bloomsbury.

The practice was picked to upgrade 20,000sq m of research laboratories, education and support spaces in the college’s grade II-listed Keppel Street building.

This building, designed by Percy Richard Morley Horder and Verner Rees after a competition and opened in 1929, was one of the earliest steel-framed buildings. Its Portland stone facades are decorated with gilded bronze insects and animals involved in transmitting disease.

The project is anticipated to take five years and won’t require planning permission.

LSHTM is one of the world’s leading centres for research and postgraduate education in public and global health.

Ian Ritchie completed a new-build lab, the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, half a mile away in Fitzrovia last year.