POLL: The Worst Building on Highfield?

We’ve nominated 5 structures that we think were the worst looking, and we need your help to vote on the worst looking one!


We set out on a task to find the ugliest buildings on Highfield Campus, and find out what students’ opinions on the issue. Personally I’m quite proud of our campus with its random rivers and patches of green so this made me a little sad inside.

We’ve nominated 5 structures that we think were the worst looking, and we need your help to vote on the worst looking one!

I had a little look into the design of it all and yes I went all ‘history student’ on you all. Get comfy. The site once housed casualties of the Great War in wooden shacks, doesn’t that make you proud? These were followed by the nice brick buildings, like the library, on the site of  Sir Sidney Kimber’s brickyard, cheers Sid.

The Library

The glorified porter cabins that are the environmental sciences building.  Enough said.

Environmental Sciences & Civil Engineering

Another bit of history here. The rest is designed by a lovely fellow called Sir Basil Spence, now he’s the guy we can blame for the massive grey blocks dotted around our beloved green campus. This Scotsman’s style of architecture was ‘Brutalist’, a type of design famous for its use of concrete, already not sounding good but we’ll persevere, and the theme he went for was maritime. Ok, so we could go a bit arty and totally feel and express the motion of the waves and the power of the ocean, or I guess a sandcastle building would always be a winner. But no. Sir Basil went for beautiful features of the seaside such as oil rigs, and shipping boats. Tasty.

Maths building

The Nuffield Theatre

They’ve tried to modernise campus with a whole load of orange wood, a touch of ikea to brighten up the brutalist architecture.

Life Sciences, the newest building on campus

So what’s worse? Good old Sid’s brickwork from the 1930s? The concrete blocks that bring Scotland south? Or the new Scandinavian style? You can vote below: