On Stranmillis Road, a crisp white tower rose in the 1960s. Manchester firm Cruickshank & Seward drew it in 1960; by 1965 the reinforced-concrete frame wore an Antrim limestone skin, and in 1966 the doors finally opened.
It took its name from Sir Eric Ashby — the reforming vice-chancellor who led Queen’s through a building boom and, fittingly, performed the opening ceremony.
Since then the Ashby has been an engine-room of the university: eleven storeys of labs, lecture theatres and research groups, home to Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and EEECS, with the Advanced Micro-Engineering Centre perched on the 10th floor.
A major £26 million refurbishment between 2010–2013 polished (but didn’t tame) its modernist lines; in 2018 it was graded B+ as one of Northern Ireland’s best large in-situ concrete buildings — a true South Belfast landmark.
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