Studio Egret West picked to lead design of major cancer research campus

The east London-based studio will lead a multidisciplinary team to develop a comprehensive design framework for The Institute of Cancer Research’s (ICR) new Sutton campus.

The proposed centre for the 115-year-old charity will sit in a cluster of existing health and science institutions in Sutton, just west of Croydon, alongside The London Cancer Hub’s plans for more than 9.3ha of research labs, offices, accommodation and leisure facilities in an area with ambitions to become a world-leading ‘oncology district’.

Studio Egret West won the project via a competitive tender process. The practice will lead a design team including Buro Happold, Hoare Lee, Elliot Wood, Mott MacDonald, Etude, Greengage, NTR Planning and Project Four to develop the design framework.

Studio Egret West said it had also been asked to look at the ICR’s other sites in Chelsea and Pollard’s Wood ‘to ensure a strategic, joined-up approach is taken’.

Founding director David West said the practice would aim to create ‘a thriving place that is as globally recognised and renowned as the research institute itself’.

He added: ‘Our approach will be to unravel the intertwined campus components, make a diagnosis of the challenges and opportunities, then craft targeted interventions and phase their treatment in the most effective way.’

Kristian Helin, chief executive of the ICR, said the Sutton campus had ‘tremendous potential’, saying: ‘We want to enhance it to help us attract the best and brightest to work and study at the ICR.’

Simon Francis, director of estates and facilities at the charity, said: ‘Every square metre [of the campus] needs to contribute to the ICR’s mission to bring wellness, nature and environmental and financial sustainability to the fore.’

The Institute of Cancer Research was founded in 1909 as The Cancer Hospital Research Institute in Chelsea, and provided the first convincing evidence that DNA damage is the basic cause of cancer, laying the foundation for the now universally accepted idea that cancer is a genetic disease.