Kings College Kitchen Refit

Ian Caldwell, Director of Estates at King's College London, has recently had the job of spending £40 million on a refurbishment for the university's main campus, including a huge renovation of the kitchen and catering facilities. He talks to University Business about the surprises involved.

King's College London has recently completed refurbishment work on its campus at the Strand. The multi-million-pound renovation project included moving the main kitchen into an underground space previously used for teaching, and installing a finishing kitchen on the ground floor to supply a new refectory for students and a host of rooms suitable for conferences and entertaining. The huge project started in 2004, taking two and a half years to complete, but the results are impressive and have won King's a prestigious Green Gown Award for sustainable construction.

How did you secure funding for such a large project?
A substantial amount came from the Higher Education Council for England and there were several other grants that we put together into the one project. We gained some grants for creating disability access. The upper offices are research offices so we had external grants for those. The rest of the money came from King's College's own pocket.

How did you decide which areas to prioritise?
The cost consultant PCM Claris would report on the options about where to put the budget if things were getting expensive. But the project board really made the decisions on that. For Kings', the kitchen was essential: it's one of the key elements of the new social spaces. It's part of the long-term strategy to focus on social spaces, with a centralised kitchen downstairs and a finishing kitchen on the main floor.

What was your main aim for King's catering department?
We wanted to put catering in a more central location on campus one adjacent to teaching spaces and other function rooms. Obviously, we wanted to provide decent catering to staff and students. It's a competitive market so you need to be providing decent facilities. Also, all the social areas are wireless so they can double up as study areas when they're not busy at lunchtime or whenever.

Which architects did you use?
The design team, which took care of architecture and structural considerations, was Building Design Partnership. PCM Claris was the cost consultant, the project manager was Gardiner Theobald and Tricon worked out the strategy for the kitchen and serveries and specified the equipment. Our chosen firms seemed most appropriate because they had experience in a university environment, so brought a good balance between the commercial world and understanding that of universities.

What measures did you take to make your kitchen greener?
The entire project won an award for being green. We had big, tall spaces to work with, so we ripped out floors to reinstate the original volume. This meant we could reduce the amount of air-conditioning. Had we stuck to the floor level that was already there we'd have needed more air-conditioning. We are certainly taking the idea of sustainable building very seriously now you have to. It's easier with new buildings and common sense given the energy bills we have.

How has this affected the building's efficiency?
We expect an energy saving of 830kw hours, which is 383 tonnes of CO2 or a saving of £77,000 per annum. We saved on capital this way as there was less air-con equipment to buy.

How has the refurbishment affected your business?
You can't book a room now! It's gone down very well. The teaching rooms are in high demand. Conferences are doing well and we have even had a few weddings in the chapel with the reception in nearby spaces. Renovating our catering facilities has improved our standing and given us the facilities us to cater more events.

Now that the refit is complete, what are the biggest challenges faced by King's?
We've four other campuses and have projects on each of them. Plus there's the master plan to refurbish the whole campus. That will include the top three floors of the building at the Strand, which in terms of impact and occupancy will be slightly more intrusive. This should be finished at the end of the year and hopefully our experience so far stands us in good stead with it.