Celebrating 50 years of the Locksbrook Campus building
Bath Spa University's Locksbrook campus celebrates fifty years of its main building.
Now BSU's School of Art & Design, the building that houses the Locksbrook campus was once a furniture factory for the Herman Miller company. Built in 1976-1977, it was used as such until 2015, when Herman Miller opened a larger factory in Melksham. Our team worked alongside Grimshaw Architects, the minds behind the original design, to adapt the former factory into a higher education space.
To mark the fifty years of the building, Bath Spa University hosted an exhibition throughout September 2026 showcasing the past use of the factory, its early designs and construction works, and the life of its employees. It is remarkable to see how flexible the building was, from its movable parts to its interchangeable panels across the facades. It is this very flexibility that allowed us to turn the factory into a school of design while retaining its striking features.
The programme of exhibitions and events around the building's anniversary will go on into the new year. You can learn more about the various events on Bath Spa University's website and dive into our work on this iconic structure here.
Cover photograph courtesy of Chris Wakefield
