© Hufton and Crow.

Our eagerly anticipated Faculty of Arts building opens its doors on Monday 6 December.

The stunning £57.5m eight storey building will be the new home to the departments and research centres currently located in Humanities Building, Millburn House, and Ramphal, with the move of some departments already underway.

We’ll be reuniting previously dispersed academic departments, staff and students within the arts and humanities at Warwick under one roof, with the aim of encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration and teaching excellence.

It will also bring together a diverse and international mix of minds from all walks of life and create the optimum environment for generating a universe of ideas. Not only will the building be an outstanding new centre for teaching and research, but it will offer an interactive hub for engagement, with a new curator appointed to organise events and exhibitions for campus communities and the public.

The Faculty of Arts building now forms part of Warwick’s creative and cultural quarter on campus, along with Warwick Arts Centre.

Features of the new building

It has the principles of collaboration, creativity, inspiration and innovation embedded at its core, with four distinct clusters set around a grand central staircase within a full height atrium.

It offers an antiquities room, new cinema and screening rooms, theatre studios and rehearsal rooms, collaboration spaces, a media lab and edit suite along with multi-purpose events and exhibition spaces.

New artworks have been commissioned for the building including a large-scale ceramics mural, Faith in the Miraculous, by Matthew Raw, previously artist in residence at the V&A, and a specially-commissioned poem by Raymond Antrobus MBE, winner of many prizes including the Ted Hughes award, the Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year in 2019 and, most recently, nominated for the Costa Book Award 2021.

Within the grounds, trees from Delphi will be planted, donated by the Greek Press Association – the trees were grown from saplings from the historic sanctuary of Delphi in Greece and donated in honour of the academic research and public engagement work of Professor Michael Scott of the Department of Classics and Ancient History.

Collaboration

Professor Penny Roberts, Vice-Provost and Chair of the Faculty of Arts explains the purpose and vision behind the building:

“The new Faculty of Arts Building (the FAB) is all about collaboration: between the architects, the contractors, our Estates team and the Arts Faculty in creating a student-focused and community space. While providing a collective home for all the Arts and Humanities disciplines, it is a building for both staff and students as well as for engagement with the wider community. It will facilitate and enrich research and teaching collaboration between disciplines and co-creation with our students, a place for everyone to enjoy and thrive."

Student FAQs

Our Arts and Humanities departments are currently in the process of moving into the Faculty of Arts building.

Who can use the new Faculty of Arts building?

The new Faculty of Arts building is open to use by everyone at the university including students from all departments, not just the Faculty of Arts. Faculty of Arts students from the majority of departments will find their departments are now housed and have dedicated space in the building, but there are also many communal and centrally timetabled teaching spaces that will be open to everyone.

When does the building open?

It opens to staff and students on Monday 6 December. This will be the first day that we have all been able to get into the building, so departmental staff will be unpacking their boxes and finding their way around their new spaces. Students can access the building Monday to Friday between 08.00 and 22.00. Don’t forget your student card as you will need it to access the building after 18.30.

Are we definitely going to be taught in the new Arts building?

The timetable for Terms 2 and 3 is still being agreed so make sure to check your timetable at the beginning of Term 2 to see if any of your teaching has been moved. If the location has the ‘FAB’ prefix, then it is in the new building. Whether you are a Faculty of Arts student or not you may find that you have teaching moved to the new building. Equally not all Faculty of Arts students will have all of their teaching in the new building in Terms 2 and 3, depending on your department, course and chosen modules but there will still be lots of ways you can enjoy the fantastic facilities the building has to offer.

Is there student study/social learning space?

Yes the building has numerous study and social learning spaces for students. This includes dedicated social learning spaces for each of the departments that have moved into the new building as well as more general study and social learning spaces that can be used by students from across the Faculty and university.

Is there a café?

Yes, the café will open in the New Year. In the meantime please bring your own lunch and drinks or use the cafés in buildings nearby.

How do we book rooms for student activities?

Space bookings for Monday to Friday usage will open in Term 2 via the normal procedure for booking Centrally Timetabled Teaching Rooms. Please see the webpages for more information.

The history of the build