MICA is an international award winning architectural practice based in London, Oxford and Edinburgh. We work at all scales and levels, from a regional urban design and landscape level to individual buildings, interiors and furniture with a strong track record in working and resolving complex sites and settings.
Adaptive Reuse and Heritage Expertise
MICA is known for our expertise in adaptive reuse projects, where we transform existing buildings into new functional spaces often preserving the historical and cultural significance of heritage sites while integrating modern design elements and finding the best new use.
Collaborative Approach
Our personal approach has enabled us to create enduring partnerships with our clients stakeholders, and interdisciplinary teams to ensure that projects meet diverse needs and expectations and continue to be valued. This teamwork ethos ensures that our designs are both innovative and practical.
Sustainability and Innovation
MICA is committed to sustainability, incorporating environmentally friendly practices and materials in our designs. We strive to create spaces that are elegant, environmentally responsible and energy-efficient. We adopt a ‘fabric first’ and reuse approach, reducing embodied and active carbon demands, reducing life-cycle carbon demands to a minimum. We facilitate a process with clients to create carbon targets that go beyond current building regulations, whilst also being aligned and deliverable.
Focus on Public Spaces and Community Engagement
Many of our projects are centred around public and community spaces, such as educational institutions, cultural centres, and public infrastructure. We prioritise community engagement and social responsibility to ensure that our designs serve and reflect the needs of the people who use them.
Versatility Across Project Types
MICA has a diverse portfolio that includes cultural, educational, residential, and commercial projects. This versatility allows us to apply our design principles across various types of developments, showcasing our ability to adapt to different contexts and requirements.
Our team at MICA has delivered a wide range of inspirational spaces for education and institutions, from comprehensive campus masterplans; Oxford and Cambridge colleges and university buildings, libraries and auditoria, office and conference environments, student housing and social spaces; as well as museum and gallery educational facilities.
Colleges
Corpus Christi College
Hertford College
Keble College
Jesus College
Mansfield College
Nuffield College
Peking University
Pembroke College
The Queen’s College
Peking University
Oxford Brookes University
Christ’s College, Cambridge
Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge
King’s College London
University of Lancaster
University of Oxford
Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre
St John’s College Cambridge
The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn
Independent Schools
Stowe School
Cheltenham Ladies’ College
Bede’s School
Dragon School
Rambert School
Wellington College
Wellington College International
St Paul’s School
World Class Education
Wellington College International, Pune
Cheng Yu Tung building, Jesus College Oxford
The Queen’s College Oxford, Library
Stowe School Art Gallery
ARCO, Keble College Oxford
We specialise in realising innovative modern architecture within sensitive historic settings including conservation areas or listed settings. We bring a holistic and strategic approach, informed by in-house conservation expertise. We recognise the importance of a strong site narrative and robust set of parameters to underpin a proposal, always on the basis that the setting is improved, and relates to an appropriate historical precedent or interpretation.
Recent projects in Grade I and II Listed settings include the transformation of Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye, Stowe House and Gardens, Goodenough College, Lincoln’s Inn Great Hall and Library, Fairfield Halls in Croydon and numerous projects within the historic Oxford city centre.
East Range featured in English Heritage guidance book
Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye Restored medieval castle and grounds
Corpus Christi College, Oxford New auditorium within scheduled monument bastion walls
Goodenough College, Refurbishment of Post graduate and academic fellows in central Bloomsbury
MICA
Sensitive Historic Settings
Sensitive refurbishment of the Grade II* Lincoln’s Inn Great Hall and Library. New education facilities beneath the East Terrace
MICA offer a specialism in the transformation of existing buildings for public, local authority and education clients. In 2021 we were simultaneously Architect of the Year, Refurbishment Architect of the Year, Building’s Refurbishment Project of the Year and AJ’s Retrofit Project of the Year.
MICA is adept at understanding the potential in existing buildings and adapting the to new uses, capitalising on the existing embodied carbon, and giving it a new lease of life, breathing new life into existing fabric.
We are equally comfortable working with historic and modern building fabric: we replaced a dingy undercroft with generous social dining space at Centre Point in London’s Soho. Our work for the East Ham Civic Centre created a new sixth form college within a former technical college, bringing unexpected flexibility to the historic asset. Our deep energy retrofit approach allows existing buildings to become more efficient, and operate long into the future.
Research study into deep retrofit and mixed-use development of stranded assets within various building types across the City of London
Adaptive Re-use
The closure of the road beneath the iconic Listed Centre Point complex has provided a unique opportunity to animate the St Giles area with new spaces for restaurants and shops behind continuous glazed frontages.
Newham Sixth Form College, East Ham
Project Feasibility Studies
The following pages contain individual write-ups of the detailed analysis which has been undertaken for each of the defined Holborn Links Estate project initiatives.
Adaptive Re-use
Holborn Masterplan estate consists of 37,000sqm of retail, office, leisure, educational and residential space in 60 properties across approximately 3.3 acres in the in the heart of London’s ‘Midtown’ business district.
The extensive estate and building stock has varied but generally low EPC rating – a variety of measures from leaving space empty, redevelopment and reclassification following MICA strategy.
Our focus has been to determine assessments of the business case and further developed options. For each of the options we have completed a SWOT analysis, defined the existing tenancy position and risks to undertake the project and included scheme appraisal commentary.
Our masterplan prepared a framework to maximise the potential of these buildings after years of under-investment and neglect, so they make the contribution they should to the area as whole. Across a number of buildings, cores have been remodelled and new MEP integrated into the complex structure to maximise efficiency. The new reconfigured spaces offer flexible retail and commercial use within the restored and improved building fabric.
We conclude each project feasibility study assessment of the available options to enable discussion between Tristan Capital Partners Edmond De Rothschild REIM as to the individual project development route.
Physical accessibility often poses a challenge within heritage contexts. We have enhanced accessibility in these settings for various purposes, consistently delivering solutions in the simplest and most appropriate manner, while respecting the significance of the environment.
At Lincoln’s Inn, we achieved creating full access to 95% of the grade I listed library by strategically locating a single new lift and making ingenious adjustments to the existing fabric, including rotating a spiral stone staircase to improve headroom and create new links.
Access improvement strategy across Nuffield College’s internal and external spaces. The changes are part of a holistic plan to upgrade key areas of the College, increase accessibility and improve legibility.
Hertford College library will be extended and connected to the existing building with essential level access across all floors.
MICA
Accessibility
The link connects the existing library to the new extension via the altered stone spiral staircase at Lincoln’s Inn
In line with MICA’s commitment to creating enduring and uplifting environments which prioritise wellbeing and minimise environmental impact, we offer an integrated service encompassing architecture, sustainability, environmental engineering and design. This comprehensive in-house approach allows us to harness maximum synergies and efficiencies from the outset. By linking sustainability with wellbeing, we treat architecture, environmental engineering and design as a singular holistic entity, delivering tangible benefits to our clients.
Cities
Thinking strategically about how we live
Streets
Promoting vibrant, diverse and healthy public spaces
Buildings
Delivering high performance, low energy regenerative design solutions
Paths
Creating opportunities for people and communities
Spaces
Parts
Creating healthy and uplifting environments
Putting it all together
supports the United Nations
MICA’s Holistic Environmental Strategy has been developed to align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Regenerative Design
To develop a comprehensive decarbonisation strategy, we surveyed over 65 buildings across the estate to determine the area’s fabric type, heating, and hot water systems. Strategic investments in the college’s site-wide infrastructure include new low-carbon solutions, improved visitor access, and the creation of a series of new character areas to improve daily life at the college.
Boarding House Plant Day House Plant
To Chapel and East and West Towers
Wellington College, Berkshire
Wellington College, Berkshire
Woodland Quad new student accommodation and biodiverse landscape to support students health and wellbeing
Our passion for masterplanning, taking the long-term view, and looking beyond the immediate site boundary, has enabled us to unlock challenging and sensitive planning issues, achieving consents, and delivering projects with a sense of legacy and longevity.
Our successful masterplans, additions and interventions can be seen at Keble, Mansfield, Pembroke, and Jesus Colleges and the celebrated Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford. We are currently collaborating with the highly-ranked independent schools such as Stowe, Cheltenham Ladies’ College, St. Bede’s School and Wellington School.
MICA have developed an approach with Jesus College that embeds future environmental targets, aligns with the college’s vision, and extends its legacy into the 21st century. The masterplan process began by defining a brief and identifying key questions, needs, and priorities for the college. The first major phase is now complete: The Cheng Yu Tung Building, a mixed-use development featuring retail spaces, academic facilities, and upper-floor accommodation.
Working model of Stowe School used to communicate masterplan proposal to the school committee and stakeholders
An appraisal of existing site wide properties to create framework for future growth at Cheltenham Ladies’ College
MICA
MICA has twenty years of experience at Stowe School, from estates masterplanning to delivery o new boarding houses, an art school and refurbished gallery within the Grade I listed House
To support and inform Wellington College’s decision making process, a 25 year estate development strategy was prepared by MICA to identify and explore potential development sites.
Our team has completed and is currently developing multiple high-level energy strategies for educational clients and institutions in recent years, including the University of East Anglia, Cambridge University, Wellington College, Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. We work with important stakeholders iteratively, quickly, and efficiently to test and present different scenarios. At its conclusion, the outcomes are deliverable, practical, and supported by identified funding mechanisms.
We work collaboratively to develop and deliver decarbonisation pathways to net zero carbon emissions by:
1. Reducing energy by improving the building fabric.
2. Reducing energy with efficient building services (without fossil fuel).
3. Generating energy with onsite renewables.
4. Offsetting carbon if required.
The scenarios are mapped in a timeline above with present day (2023) at the top, and 2048, deadline for net zero greenhouse gas emissions at the bottom. The left column represents new build projects, the middle column contains refurbishments, and the right column contains renewable energy installations.
At Christ’s Cambridge we developed a cohesive vision that provides a pathway towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2048, with a 30% reduction by 2030. Combined with a bespoke building by building, retrofit strategy we were able to plot a strategy and a programme showing which buildings to upgrade. The plan was adopted in autumn 2023 and the first three phases of work are underway.
We work at the cutting edge of learning, and our design team promotes robust, multi-purpose spaces where ‘form follows pedagogy’, creating environments where research and teaching drive real change.
Our emphasis on critical thinking and creative problemsolving, along with extensive client engagement, has allowed the creation of dynamic and flexible buildings that blur the boundaries of learning and social spaces. By defining spaces and paths, we create environments enhanced by use, amenity, aspect and interest. These types of welcoming, pleasurable spaces encourage deep emotional attachments for students.
A multi-level space for knowledge exchange Jesus College
Science lab spaces within refurbished college Newham Sixth Form College
Flexible engaging classroom space Wellington College International, Pune Lecture Theatre Human Rights Institute, Mansfield College
MICA
Pedagogical Spaces
Lyric Hammersmith Teaching Theatre
Flexible studios for dance and performances, with ocular rooflight
Our team has a wealth of experience working with some of the UK’s most exciting and acclaimed museums, galleries, and producing theatres in the cultural and arts sectors, as well as with listed buildings. The broad range of projects includes redevelopments at the Horniman, Ashmolean, National Maritime Museums, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and the Towner for Eastbourne Borough Council.
MICA’s redevelopment of the Fairfield Halls is the first completed stage of a new cultural quarter in Croydon’s town centre – a major milestone in the town’s ongoing redevelopment.
Southbank Centre, London
Hay Castle Regeneration: Consultation during project development stages, outreach and community programs throughout construction, and now, since opening, dozens of events and offerings to the local rural community.
MICA
Cultural Regeneration
Ashmolean Museum Oxford. Masterplan, conservation and extension to the oldest museum in the UK.
We have extensive experience working with performing arts buildings across all scales, and specialist skills and experience working with local and national theatre institutions. Our work ranges from cultural strategic planning and brief definition to detailed technical design and delivery.
We bring extensive practical experience in recreating, remodelling and repositioning existing theatres including our recent refurbishment of the 1,800 seat Fairfield Halls Concert Hall, the redevelopment of the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, our designs for 1,320 seats for the Brewhouse in Taunton and our strategy for the 2,700 seat Royal Festival Hall as part of our Southbank Masterplan, and current works on The Maltings Theatre, Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith
The Maltings Theatre, Berwick, appointed 2023
Dragon Music School, nearing completion
Rambert School, Weston studio
MICA
Performing Arts
The Fairfield Halls
MICA has been designing workspaces for over 30 years, from our office building for the Times newspaper on the Strand completed in 1991 (rated the best in London at the time by BREEAM), to recent office space for the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn (BREEAM Excellent), and technology start-up spaces for Oxford Sciences Innovation. We bring our expertise in adapting existing buildings, beginning with our own office conversion from a tailor’s hall, dance studio and billiards hall on Camden High Street in 1995, to commercial interiors within refurbished buildings across London’s Midtown District, including Norfolk House, completed in 2023. Now, we are re-evaluating the familiar tropes of workspaces to better design places of work that are flexible, healthy, and promote wellbeing in light of the shifts to working cultures brought on by the pandemic.
Lincoln’s Inn library extension offices
Welcoming entrance space for office tenants
East Ham civic campus, new build office Lightfilled, open plan office space with visual connections across levels
MICA’s Camden office garden terrace
MICA
Work Space
Adding 60% additional lettable space to the same existing building footprint. Exemplary class A commercial space, mixed with A1 and Inn gateway facilities.
Through capitalising on reuse opportunities with existing buildings, such as empty retail stores and office buildings that are typically well-positioned within their cities, architects have greater opportunities to bring health and wellness services closer to the communities in which they serve.
We have worked in academic and industry fields to create spaces for interactive digital hubs, medical and health centers, research and enterprise work spaces, all of which feed into our ever-evolving bank of knowledge on education space design. We are equipped with the tools to collaborate with educators and re-think the types of spaces that encourage creative learning and critical thinking.
The Prideaux project for King’s College London includes new build and refurbishment projects across the campus providing 15,000m2 of clinical simulation, a student hub, flexible teaching classrooms, cafe and library.
The H B Allen Centre provides a large, flexible workspace for the Oxford Robotics Institute, that promotes technological research development by researchers, engineers and students who are driven to change what robots can do for us.
MICA
Life Sciences
FORA Queen Street will provide Oxford with a high quality and muchneeded office space in the heart of the City Centre. The scheme addresses and transforms a challenging building providing 7500sqm of high-quality commercial and retail space, and health sciences spaces within a shell that has sat largely empty, with some parts vacant for over 10 years.
Creating successful retail and leisure spaces require careful design and a consideration of context, scale, quantum together with an understanding of current retail trends and tenant’s requirements. MICA draw on extensive knowledge and experience of delivering successful retail and leisure developments to ensure that our clients can make informed choices and that, together, we produce vibrant and transformative schemes.
We understand the logistics of: building-in flexibility, capacity in servicing, efficient and clever planning, to maximise front of house, without compromising the back of house. We appreciate the importance of maximising frontage, welcoming interior fit-out, and getting the best presence and orientation, whether for visibility and prominence and / or outdoor seating areas on street or on elevated terraces with appropriate shelter from the elements.
St Mary’s Fields, Ashford. A rich mix of uses and building typologies tuned to the local market to regenerate the town centre
Southbank Centre. A vibrant layered site with shops, cultural venues and restaurants
Refurbished shop front bay, entrance and signage study
High Streets
Cheng Yu Tung building mixed use development, on Oxfords high street provides retail on ground an basement levels with academic use above.
MICA’s team brings extensive experience building new homes for students in sensitive environments. We have completed more than 550 homes for students in England in the last few years, with a further 1,912 in development: as a result we have a strong sense of 21st century young people and their values.
Cheng Yu Tung Building, Jesus College Oxford 68 en-suite rooms
Clive Booth Student Village, Oxford Brookes 1,035 undergraduate rooms
Stowe School, Buckinghamshire 212 rooms
Pembroke College, Oxford 77 graduate study bedrooms, 8 studio flats
Hands Building, Mansfield College Oxford 73 en-suite rooms
Living and Learning
For MICA, each project is a blank page: we realise that our clients’ needs vary and therefore we are good listeners and work collaboratively to envision high quality residences to create the foundation environment for learning. We place the experience of the students at the heart of the project.
We design to Passivhaus principles, carefully controlling solar gains and preventing overheating, while providing ideal ventilation, for student homes that provide optimal study spaces.
Living and Learning
Cheng Yu Tung, Jesus College
MICA seamlessly integrates landscape design with architectural and urban planning, creating cohesive, resilient environments that enhance both built and natural spaces. Our work encompasses all scales, from strategic landscape and city planning, to urban squares, streets, courtyards, roof terraces and gardens.
Our landscapes are inspiring and relaxing spaces to dwell and pass through, enhancing the wellbeing of all. Increasing biodiversity is at the centre of our designs in addition to innovative floodable landscapes and the intelligent management of water.
Landscaping creates new outdoor spaces for the students and visitors of Mansfield College, Oxford
Urban Greening Factor study for LLDC
Corpus Christi College gardens were reconfigured as a series of interconnecting courtyards and roof terraces stepping up to a roof garden with wonderful views of Oxford’s dreaming spires
MICA
Learning Landscapes
A public realm scheme to rejuvenate the central circulation route or ‘spine’ which runs through the centre of Lancaster University Bailrigg campus. The site wide phased strategy developed in collaboration with Grants Associates creates a necklace of new public spaces providing a variety of environments from formal courtyards to green areas. The balance will be felt to be on the side of space, rather than spine and the landscape strategy knits those spaces together with their surrounding buildings.
MICA strategically develop masterplan projects and deliver high value for our clients and their users. We analyse and develop masterplans that contribute to the location, redevelop and work in all scales. Whether working strategically with TFL on transport led development, developing a masterplan for 2,000 new residential units in Croydon or on the edge of towns with the 10,000 new homes masterplan for Harlow. The designs offer a sensitive and measured response which are intimately connected to its place and its landscape. We have learned how to develop on the edge and bring identity, uniqueness that and enhancement to these settings.
Prime Passivhaus accommodation HSBC Business School, Peking University The new Foxcombe Hall campus benefits from a quiet, rural setting that specifically suits postgraduate study.
Clive Booth Student Village for Oxford Brookes University Phase 1 complete delivering 500 student rooms.
Clive Booth Student Village for Oxford Brookes University delivers a healthy, connected community, a ‘village’ that engages with the natural surroundings providing a healthy and vibrant setting for over 1,000 students to live and study
MICA
Developing on the Edge
Harlow masterplan. A sensitive and measured response intimately connected to its place and its landscape heritage.
From our London office, we have infrastructure in place to work across the world and have previously established local project teams for international cultural and education projects. We have established working relationships with reliable architect practices, and look forward to making new connections in the future. Our office employs a diverse group of individuals from around the world, with registered architects across five different countries.
In addition to MICA’s strategic masterplanning for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, our team is working in Pune, India to deliver a major new college complex for Wellington College International, and also early-stage education college projects in the Middle East, southeast Asia, North America, and Nigeria.
United States of America
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
New York Public Library
New York Natural History Museum
Peabody Essex Museum, Boston
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Far East + Oceania
Manila Mayoral Delegation Museum of Western Australia, Perth
Wellington College International, Pune
Internationally in the UK Olympicopolis, London Peking University, Oxford
International Projects
Completed first phase, WCI Pune
MICA’s experienced team manage the processes required to successfully fulfil our clients requirements. We use proven and well-practiced procedures, instinct based on extensive project experience, all married with clear communication skills and openness. We establish a clear consultation programme and matrix from the outset to ensure that the many and varied discussions are held with the right people and in the right order to inform the design.
Post Occupancy Evaluation Workshop - Student Feedback informs future designs
carbon
Operational carbon
Adaptability to Passivhaus performance
Ease of maintenance and durability
Low-embodied Carbon Reduction
3D virtual reality used to illustrate proposed designs to clients and stakeholders
Embodied carbon
Operational carbon
Adaptability to Passivhaus performance
Ease of maintenance and durability
3D printed model elements allow discussion of complex connections
Our team brings strong experience of working within complex urban sites that require the intelligent insertion of infill buildings to improve and enhance existing fabric. We specialise in solving complex problems and getting more than was ever expected out of the site. We use the briefing process to understand not only the physical constraints and requirements but also the logistical considerations.
Our work with complex buildings, new and old, and with multiple users has made us adept at designing out logistical conflicts so that the delivery and operation run smoothly and allow spaces and users to move seamlessly around.
IMages of MICA team onsite, inspecting construction process throughout
MICA
Complex Sites
Acland House retained during construction of The H B Allen Centre
Our team has been fortunate to work extensively in the historic city of Oxford for nearly 30 years, and are proud of a 100% planning and listed building record. Our work has been recognised by 40 awards across 30 projects and we have actively promoted and supported high quality design in our active membership of the Oxford Preservation Trust and the Civic Society.
We continue to support the local economy, sponsorship and employment and in 2017 opened our studio in Oxford to better support our work and clients. Our historic record of repeat clients over 15-20 years reinforces the belief that our clients hold in us, having proved our worth and being asked back again.
Keble College Education 1992-2019
Masterplan Museum 1999 - 2013
New Museum Museum 1999 - 2009
College Library Conservation + Extension 2021 - Ongoing
Egypt
2009
College Internal and External Works 2021 - Ongoing
Nuffield
Corpus Christi College New Auditorium 2005 - 09
Geoffrey Arthur Buildings Pembroke College 2023
Keble College Arco Education 1992-1995
Sloane Robinson Education 1996-2002
Ashmolean
Galleries Museum
- 2011 Randolph Gallery Conservation
The H B Allen Centre Education 2008 - 2018
The Queen’s College New Library 2006 - 2017
The Queen’s College Refurbishment 2006 - 2017
Ashmolean
Ashmolean
The Office Group / Fora Commercial Retrofit 2022 - Ongoing
Mansfield College East Range 2014 - 2017
Clive Booth Student Village Oxford Brookes Uni - onsite
Cheng Yu Tung building Jesus College 2022
Hands building Mansfield College 2017 Optimising the site
Jesus College Masterplan Masterplan 2017 - Ongoing
Hertford
MICA is a studio of around 30 staff, 22 of whom are RIBA Chartered Architects. We use a broad studio organisation, with teams working in a collaborative and interlinked way. The two Directors—Stuart and Gavin—take on the role of Quality Assurance Director for each project, and work closely with the Associates who run the project on a day-to-day.
MICA is proud to announce our recent certification as a Benefit Corporation, enshrining our commitment to benefit society and the environment which has given us the opportunity to reflect on our processes and to look to the future with a tangible way of measuring and ensuring our continued accountability.
Lilian Swanson Bids + PR Manager
James Roach Senior Associate
Mandy Franz Associate Director
Gavin Miller Director
Jonathan Evans Architect
Jessie Turnbull Senior Associate
Victoria Timberlake Associate
Paul Mullin Associate Director
Stuart Cade Director MICA
Diverse Skilled Team
Affiliations
Practice Partners W Programme
Paradigm Network
Social Mobility Fund
Architects Declare signatory
Advocates of London Energy transformation Initiative (LETI)
Advocates of RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge
NLA Partners
Accreditations
RIBA Chartered Practice
ARB Accredited Architects
RIBA Specialist Conservation Architect
Certified Passivhaus Designer
LEED Building Design and Construction
Accredited Professional
UKAS ISO 9001, 14001, 45001
B Corp
As a practice we have developed forward looking models across multiple sectors: cultural, transport, civic, and in education. MICA continuously evaluates and researches best practice and future trends across all areas of work, education and learning practices. Our wide-ranging services include masterplanning, architecture, interior design, graphics, modern methods of construction, regenerative and circular economy, net zero carbon design, healthy streets, regeneration and planning. Our full services provided are listed below:
