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Design students at the University of Plymouth transformed the ground-floor atrium of the Roland Levinsky Building into a pop-up-style reception and café area. The intervention combined a café inside a converted shipping container, informal seating and café tables, and a bold geometric luxury vinyl tile (LVT) floor. Its purpose was to bring activity back to an underused atrium and make it a destination for students, academics, staff and visitors.
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What the University of Plymouth students created
The project took place in the ground-floor atrium of the Roland Levinsky Building, home to the University of Plymouth’s School of Art, Design and Architecture. Rather than treating the atrium as merely a route between rooms, the brief recast it as a social and arrival space: somewhere people could stop, meet, work informally or wait for an appointment.
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The finished arrangement had three clearly identifiable parts:
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- A pop-up-style café: a converted shipping container formed the compact service point.
- Informal furniture: relaxed seating and café tables supported different lengths and types of stay.
- A graphic floor: commercial LVT was laid in an abstract geometric composition that visually organised the large floor plate.
GH Commercial’s project case study describes the design as being inspired by fragments of broken glass. TheStocklists, in a trade feature published and updated on 20 March 2021, provides the clearest account of the completed layout and identifies the flooring styles used. Together, those accounts show a project that used a small number of strong moves—container, furniture and floor—to give the atrium a new identity.
Why the atrium needed a new role
The stated brief was to restore activity to the atrium and create a destination for the university community. That distinction matters. A circulation area can be busy without being useful as a place to stay; a destination needs reasons to enter, remain and return.
The proposed café supplied a practical reason to visit. Seating and café tables made the space usable beyond the moment of purchase. The floor treatment then helped those functions read as one coherent interior instead of a café placed randomly in a large institutional hall.
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The brief also called for a space capable of supporting a mix of activities throughout the day. The available project coverage does not list a timetable or provide measured observations of how the area was used. It does, however, explain the design intent: a flexible social setting serving students, academics, staff and visitors rather than a single department or event.
How the design elements work together
The container café as an anchor
Using a converted shipping container gave the café a recognisable, almost object-like presence. In a large atrium, a compact volume can act as an anchor around which people orient themselves. It also fits the pop-up idea: the café reads as an inserted element rather than a permanent build-out that consumes the whole room.
The sources do not state the container’s dimensions, services, construction specification or whether it could be moved after installation. Those details should not be assumed from the description alone. What is established is its role as the café housing within the completed breakout area.
Seating for different patterns of stay
Relaxed seating and café tables provided more than one posture and social arrangement. Lounge-style furniture can support conversation or a longer pause, while tables are better suited to eating, informal study or short meetings. This mix is consistent with the brief’s requirement to accommodate activity across the day, although no post-occupancy survey confirms which groups used which settings.
The project coverage does not name furniture manufacturers, capacities or accessibility clearances. Consequently, the furniture should be understood as a planning strategy, not as a documented performance specification.
A floor that gives the open plan structure
The geometric floor was not described as decoration applied after the layout was complete. TheStocklists says colour was used to break up areas and highlight access routes. That makes the floor part of the wayfinding system: colour fields can distinguish the café zone, seating areas and paths through the atrium without building permanent partitions.
GH Commercial characterises the visual concept as fragments of broken glass and says colour and texture were used to bring visual comfort. The resulting language suits a building associated with creative courses while giving the floor enough contrast to be read at atrium scale.
Which flooring was specified?
The floor used commercial luxury vinyl tile. TheStocklists identifies three Moduleo 55 styles: Desert Crayola, Desert Stone and Impressive Shades. The article describes them as being arranged in an abstract geometric layout rather than installed as a single repeated plank or stone pattern.
| Flooring detail | What the project coverage establishes | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Material | Commercial LVT | Exact thickness, wear layer, backing and installation system |
| Named styles | Moduleo 55 Desert Crayola, Desert Stone and Impressive Shades | Quantities, batch numbers or current product availability |
| Layout | Abstract geometric arrangement with colour blocking | Drawing, dimensions, pattern repeat or installation waste |
| Intended contribution | Break up areas, highlight access routes and add visual comfort | Measured wayfinding or user-satisfaction results |
LVT is a plausible choice for a busy institutional interior because it can be specified in coordinated colours and laid in custom patterns. That is a material-level observation, not evidence that this particular floor has a documented service life or maintenance result. The published project accounts do not report cleaning data, repairs, replacement cycles or a comparison with alternative floor finishes.
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How student participation shaped the brief
Student involvement was an explicit part of the project brief. TheStocklists quotes Jonathan Forster, identified as award leader of the Spatial and Interior Design degree courses: “With a brief to reflect the creative nature of the course housed in the building, I thought it was important to engage the key users – the students themselves – in the creation of the space so that we created a design that felt right from their perspective.”
That statement describes participation as a design requirement, not simply as a theme applied to the finished room. In practical terms, it links the users of the building with decisions about atmosphere, identity and how the atrium should function. The available coverage does not provide a full record of workshops, consultation sessions, votes or the names of every student involved, so the precise participation method cannot be reconstructed.
TheStocklists also attributes the abstract floor concept to Jordan Chidgey, a member of the project design team: “I took the brief quite literally, with the idea of the breakout space inspired by shards of broken and fragmented glass.” The quote explains the origin of the floor’s irregular geometry without claiming that the pattern literally reproduces broken glass.
What the project says about design education
The University of Plymouth’s interior design student-project information presents a programme built around live briefs and real-client projects. It says students develop design processes, computer-aided design and communication methods. That is useful context for understanding why a functioning university interior could become a learning opportunity: students had to translate an idea into a space with circulation, furniture, materials and a public-facing identity.
It is important to keep the disciplines separate. The atrium project is attributed in the project coverage to interior design students. The University’s architecture-studios information describes architecture facilities and dedicated studio desk space in the Roland Levinsky Building, but it does not independently identify architecture students as the designers of this café and breakout area.
The project therefore illustrates a particular kind of live learning: a design intervention situated in the students’ own academic environment and intended for a broad campus audience. It should not be presented as proof that every student project at the university follows the same process or receives the same construction support.
Reading the design through five practical criteria
Flexibility of use
The combination of a service point, relaxed seating and café tables supports multiple kinds of occupation. A person can buy a drink, sit briefly, meet someone or work informally. The open arrangement also avoids locking the atrium into a single event format. No published source gives a furniture plan or a capacity figure, so the degree of flexibility is qualitative rather than measured.
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Colour-blocked LVT was reported as a way to highlight access routes and divide areas. In an open atrium, this can provide visual cues without full-height walls. The evidence supports the intended wayfinding role; it does not establish how quickly visitors found the café or whether navigation improved after the redesign.
Visual identity
The broken-glass concept, contrasting floor styles and container café create a strong visual signature. That identity reflects the creative character of the School of Art, Design and Architecture more directly than a neutral carpet or an undifferentiated hard floor would. This is an interpretation of the described design language, not a claim that the university measured brand recognition.
Durability and maintenance
Commercial LVT is specified here, but the sources do not publish the selected products’ technical data for this installation, cleaning regime or replacement history. Anyone adapting the idea for another public building would need to verify the wear layer, slip performance, fire classification, acoustic behaviour, subfloor preparation and maintenance instructions for the exact product and traffic level.
Relationship to the building
The intervention responds to a large institutional atrium without disguising its setting. A movable-looking container, café furniture and a graphic floor insert a smaller social scale into the building. The result is neither a conventional café fit-out nor a purely sculptural installation; it is a hybrid reception, refreshment and breakout environment.
What is documented—and what remains unknown
The strongest evidence is descriptive. GH Commercial’s account is a supplier-authored case study, while TheStocklists is trade coverage. Neither source supplies independent post-occupancy findings. Readers should therefore separate the project’s goals from demonstrated outcomes.
| Documented | Not published in the available coverage |
|---|---|
| Location in the Roland Levinsky Building atrium | Project completion date |
| Reception and café brief | Budget or procurement route |
| Converted-container café, seating and café tables | Floor area and exact quantities |
| Geometric commercial LVT and named styles | Footfall, satisfaction or other performance statistics |
| Student participation as an explicit aim | Independent post-occupancy evaluation |
| Broken-glass inspiration for the abstract floor | Complete list of student designers and consultation records |
There is consequently no reliable basis for saying that the redesign increased attendance by a particular percentage, reduced congestion, improved grades or delivered a quantified financial return. The available accounts explain what was intended and what was installed, not how the space performed over time.
Why the Plymouth example is useful to designers
The project offers a compact lesson in making an institutional interior feel purposeful. It starts with a behavioural brief—restore activity and create a destination—then uses three coordinated interventions to support it. The café supplies a reason to arrive; furniture supports staying; the floor communicates zones and identity.
It also demonstrates the value of involving users when the space is part of an educational community. Students were not only the audience for a finished design. According to Forster’s statement, they were engaged in creating a space that would feel right from their perspective. That approach can reveal cultural expectations that a purely technical brief might miss, even though this project’s published sources do not document the consultation mechanics.
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For designers considering a similar conversion, the transferable principle is not to copy a shipping container or a particular colour palette. It is to align the operational anchor, seating mix and surface treatment with the behaviours the brief needs to encourage, then test accessibility, servicing, acoustics, fire safety and maintenance as separate technical requirements.
The bottom line on the pop-style activity space
Plymouth’s design students turned a ground-floor atrium into a recognisable social destination by combining a converted-container café, informal seating and a geometric LVT floor. The named Moduleo 55 styles—Desert Crayola, Desert Stone and Impressive Shades—gave the floor a colour-blocked identity inspired by fragmented glass. The project is well documented as a design concept and completed arrangement, while claims about increased use or user satisfaction remain unproven because no independent outcome data has been published.
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