University College London had identified the need to expand and relocate the Eastman Dental Institute from outdated facilities at Grays Inn Road into a refurbished space within the Rockefeller Building in Bloomsbury. The Listed building, designed by Paul Waterhouse and originally opened in 1907, was the original home of the University’s Medical School and Nurses Home. It too required considerable technical and interior upgrades to bring it up to the standards required of contemporary medical education. After refurbishment, the EDI has become the dominant occupier of the building, which it shares with the Medical School, Cancer Institute Pathology, and the Institute of Women’s Health.

The project required significant re-configuration and refurbishment of a large part of the building, across five floors with associated technical modifications with major service upgrades and a new roof plant. The result is a fresh facility that can meet the specifications of a cutting-edge dental school, as is expected by the teaching staff and students at UCL.

Accommodation on the first floor includes a new EDI student hub, a space for private research, collaboration, and social discussion, as well as a suite of clinical teaching classrooms, a working dental surgery with associated patient waiting facilities, and dental patient chairs with integrated servicing. Large dental teaching rooms including clinical skills laboratories and simulator units are provided on the first and fourth floors. These areas offer hands on experience using dental models, with a high-tech system of digital interconnectivity with live dental surgeries all over the world. Academic and administrative offices also occupy the third and fourth floors; updated open plan areas and meeting rooms for technical, research and teaching staff.

The project has also provided updated and relocated laboratory space for the Cancer Institute Pathology department, and new clinical skills classrooms and a student hub for the Medical School.