Set around the historic house, The Platanes, and a landscaped courtyard with balancing pond, King’s College London’s new BREEAM-Outstanding student residential development in Champion Hill, South London, provides 740 sustainable bedrooms which were occupied by students in the autumn term last year.  The new buildings are varied in their architectural detailing and are set out around the edge of the grounds to provide a leafy landscaped courtyard in the centre around the retained old mature trees. The scheme is anchored by the historic house, The Platanes, a former “large upper-middle class suburban mansion with virtually intact interior”.  While the wings provide additional student bedrooms, the original central building provides social and other student facilities, retaining and restoring the historic detailing while using contemporary furnishings.

The Platanes was built in 1882 by George Egmont Bieber, a merchant who was part of the German community that had become established in this part of the Dulwich Estate, then a fashionable London suburb, and was sold in 1890 to another German, Herman Kleinwort of the banking family. In 1910 Kleinwort donated the property to King’s College Hospital and it became a student hall of residence for the hospital’s medical school in 1913 and then in 1923 for King’s College. Wings were added in 1923-25 and the site was extended after the Second World War by acquisition of an adjacent property, after which a major redevelopment of the site was carried out in the 1970’s with buildings which had little architectural merit.  These have now been demolished and the College has built a student residential scheme of high quality and environmental standards, retaining and refurbishing The Platanes and, in doing so, providing a living, social and study environment fit for a world-class university.