Les designers français Jean-Francois Dingjian & Eloi Chafaï de Normal Studio ont récemment dévoilé des images de leur création pour le Oxford Bookstore situé à New Delhi. Avec des choix de couleurs, matières et éléments lumineux et éclectiques, ces derniers invitent à se perdre dans les rayons de la boutique.
This elliptical chapel near Oxford by London studio Niall McLaughlin Architects contains a group of arching timber columns behind its textured stone facade (+ slideshow).
The Bishop Edward King Chapel replaces another smaller chapel at the Ripon Theological College campus and accommodates both students of the college and the local nuns of a small religious order.
Niall McLaughlin Architects was asked to create a building that respects the historic architecture of the campus, which includes a nineteenth century college building and vicarage, and also fits comfortably amongst a grove of mature trees.
For the exterior, the architects sourced a sandy-coloured stone, similar to the limestone walls of the existing college, and used small blocks to create a zigzagging texture around the outside of the ellipse. A wooden roof crowns the structure and integrates a row of clerestory windows that bring light across the ceiling.
Inside, the tree-like timber columns form a second layer behind the walls, enclosing the nave of the chapel and creating an ambulatory around the perimeter. Each column comprises at least three branches, which form a latticed canopy overhead.
Niall McLaughlin told Dezeen: “If you get up very early, at sunrise, the horizontal sun casts a maze of moving shadows of branches, leaves, window mullions and structure onto the ceiling. It is like looking up into trees in a wood.”
A projecting window offers a small seating area on one side of the chapel, where McLaughlin says you can “watch the sunlit fields on the other side of the valley”.
A small rectilinear block accompanies the structure and houses the entrance lobby, a sacristy, storage areas and toilets.
The Bishop Edward King Chapel was one of 52 projects to recently win an RIBA Award.
Other projects by Niall McLaughlin Architects include four mono-pitched extensions to a rural cottage in Ireland.
Photography is by the architects, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a detailed project description from Niall McLaughlin Architects:
Bishop Edward King Chapel
The client brief sought a new chapel for Ripon Theological College, to serve the two interconnected groups resident on the campus in Oxfordshire, the college community and the nuns of a small religious order, the Sisters of Begbroke. The chapel replaces the existing one, designed by George Edmund Street in the late nineteenth century, which had since proved to be too small for the current needs of the college.
The brief asked for a chapel that would accommodate the range of worshipping needs of the two communities in a collegiate seating arrangement, and would be suitable for both communal gatherings and personal prayer. In addition the brief envisioned a separate space for the Sisters to recite their offices, a spacious sacristy, and the necessary ancillary accommodation. Over and above these outline requirements, the brief set out the clients’ aspirations for the chapel, foremost as ‘a place of personal encounter with the numinous’ that would enable the occupants to think creatively about the relationship between space and liturgy. The client summarised their aspirations for the project with Philip Larkin’s words from his poem Church Going, ‘A serious house on serious earth it is… which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in…’.
On the site is an enormous beech tree on the brow of the hill. Facing away from the beech and the college buildings behind, there is ring of mature trees on high ground overlooking the valley that stretches away towards Garsington. This clearing has its own particular character, full of wind and light and the rustling of leaves.
These strengths of the site also presented significant planning constraints. The college’s existing buildings are of considerable historical importance. G.E. Street was a prominent architect of the Victorian Age and both the main college building and vicarage to its south are Grade II* listed.
The site is designated within the Green Belt in the South Oxfordshire Local Plan and is also visible from a considerable distance across the valley to the west. The immediate vicinity of the site is populated with mature trees and has a Tree Preservation Order applied to a group at the eastern boundary. The design needed to integrate with the character of the panorama and preserve the setting of the college campus and the surrounding trees.
The mediation of these interlocked planning sensitivities required extensive consultation with South Oxfordshire District Council, English Heritage and local residents.
The starting point for this project was the hidden word ‘nave’ at the centre of Seamus Heaney poem Lightenings viii. The word describes the central space of a church, but shares the same origin as ‘navis’, a ship, and can also mean the still centre of a turning wheel. From these words, two architectural images emerged. The first is the hollow in the ground as the meeting place of the community, the still centre. The second is the delicate ship-like timber structure that floats above in the tree canopy, the gathering place for light and sound. We enjoyed the geometry of the ellipse.
To construct an ellipse the stable circle is played against the line, which is about movement back and forth. For us this reflected the idea of exchange between perfect and imperfect at the centre of Christian thought. The movement inherent in the geometry is expressed in the chapel through the perimeter ambulatory. It is possible to walk around the chapel, looking into the brighter space in the centre. The sense of looking into an illuminated clearing goes back to the earliest churches. We made a clearing to gather in the light.
The chapel, seen from the outside, is a single stone enclosure. We have used Clipsham stone which is sympathetic, both in terms of texture and colouration, to the limestone of the existing college. The external walls are of insulated cavity construction, comprising of a curved reinforced blockwork internal leaf and dressed stone outer leaf.
The base of the chapel and the ancillary structures are clad in ashlar stone laid in regular courses. The upper section of the main chapel is dressed in cropped walling stone, laid in a dog-tooth bond to regular courses. The chapel wall is surmounted by a halo of natural stone fins. The fins sit in front of high-performance double glazed units, mounted in concealed metal frames.
The roof of the main chapel and the ancillary block are both of warm deck construction. The chapel roof drains to concealed rainwater pipes running through the cavity of the external wall. Where exposed at clerestory level, the rainwater pipes are clad in aluminium sleeves with a bronze anodised finish and recessed into the stone fins. The roof and the internal frame are self-supporting and act independently from the external walls.
A minimal junction between the roof and the walls expresses this. Externally the roof parapet steps back to diminish its presence above the clerestorey; inside the underside of the roof structure rises up to the outer walls to form the shape of a keel, expressing the floating ‘navis’ of Heaney’s poem.
The internal timber structure is constructed of prefabricated Glulam sections with steel fixings and fully concealed steel base plate connections. The Glulam sections are made up of visual grade spruce laminations treated with a two-part stain system, which gives a light white-washed finish.
The structure of roof and columns express the geometrical construction of the ellipse itself, a ferrying between centre and edge with straight lines that reveals the two stable foci at either end, reflected in the collegiate layout below in the twin focus points of altar and lectern. As you move around the chapel there is an unfolding rhythm interplay between the thicket of columns and the simple elliptical walls beyond. The chapel can be understood as a ship in a bottle, the hidden ‘nave’.
RIBA competition won – July 2009
Planning Consent – June 2010
Construction – July 2011
Practical Completion – February 2013
Construction Cost – 2,034,000
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by Niall McLaughlin Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has been granted planning permission for a school of government and public policy at the University of Oxford, UK.
The £30 million Blavatnik School of Government will be built within the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, masterplanned by architect Rafael Viñoly.
Herzog & de Meuron’s building will appear as stack of discs decreasing in size, unevenly aligned to create overhangs and terraces.
Inside, the building will be arranged like “an auditorium or a concert hall”, say the architects, with interconnected terraces stepping up from the ground floor to the upper levels.
Lower levels will house teaching and public spaces, while the quieter upper levels will be occupied by academics and research programmes. The top level will contain a library overlooking an outdoor terrace.
The building is expected to be completed in 2015.
The school was launched in 2010 with a £75 million donation by American philanthropist Leonard Blavatnik, and offers a one-year master’s degree in Public Policy with a curriculum drawn from across the university.
Herzog & de Meuron was recently chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem and shortlisted for a new headquarters for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden – see all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.
Other projects at the University of Oxford include Zaha Hadid’s under-construction centre for Middle Eastern culture and Rick Mather’s extension to the Ashmolean Museum, completed in 2009.
Image is copyright Herzog & de Meuron Basel.
Here’s some more information from Herzog & de Meuron:
Blavatnik School of Goverment, Oxford, UK
Project 2011 – planned completion 2015
“The Blavatnik School of Government will become a global centre of excellence for the study of government and public policy. The School’s aim is to teach the practice of government and leadership in ways which will strengthen communities, create opportunities and foster cooperation across the world. The School offers Oxford University a new way to contribute to the world.” – Blavatnik School of Government Brochure
Such a vision requires a specific response and building. Our starting point is from the inside, from the heart of the building, the Forum. This space cuts through the school as a vertical public space connecting all the levels and programs together into one whole. Central to a school of government is the idea of openness, communication and transparency, the central forum takes this principle literally by stitching all levels together. In the first instance the Forum provides access between spaces, but more importantly it provides congregation, meeting and social spaces. In our proposal its arrangement is in many ways like that of an auditorium or a concert hall with a series of interconnected terraces that step up from the ground floor all the way to the upper levels of the School. Each terrace could operate as a separate space, for example as a study area or as part of one connected whole volume for a larger presentation. The Forum will be a space that allows and positively encourages communication and discussion, formal and informal, planned and accidental.
The Blavatnik School of Government will house teaching and academic spaces which are supported by meeting, administration, research and service areas which are all connected by the Forum. At its lower levels, the building houses large public and teaching programs. The upper levels around are occupied by academic and research programs that require a more quiet atmosphere to foster focus and concentration. Crowning the School will be the library research tower which overlooks an outdoor terrace, Library Square to the north, and the whole of Oxford beyond. The School offers a wide range of teaching-space types from small flexible seminar rooms to larger flat floor teaching rooms.
Prominently located at the southwest corner of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) the School will be the first building pedestrians, visitors and students encounter when approaching this quarter from the south. The School has the potential to become a gateway into this new part of the University and a symbol of its development.
The immediate context is a complex situation with the adjacencies of St Paul’s Church and Somerville College to both sides and the Oxford University Press across Walton Street. The concept of the Forum in the interior sets the decisive and room-defining impulse for the entire building. This circular hollow also defines the exterior appearance of the school. Its cylindrical shapes show analogies to government buildings and universities in different places all over the world.
Our proposal of a series of shifted discs, pure geometric circles, is developed from the parameters of the site and plot boundaries. The shifting in floors creates overhangs and covered volumes and reflects the principles of the masterplan massing with the mass of the building moved northwest towards the centre of the ROQ site. The main entrance is located, in a classical manner, in the middle of the Walton Street elevation, centred underneath the main teaching floor of Level 1 whose circular geometry at Library Square is transformed into a rectangular form along Walton Street, resulting in a ‘Sheldonian’ like shape. The introduction of this orthogonal form addresses the historic setting in a classical manner, both continuing the line of the St Paul’s Church portico and echoing the symmetrical entrance of the Oxford University.
With this proposal we aim to provide a project that can act as a focal point both for the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter and the academic activity of the study of government and public policy; a landmark building housing a ground breaking School.
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for Oxford university building appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Zaha Hadid’s planned extension to a centre for studying Middle-Eastern culture at the University of Oxford is set to begin construction later this month (+ slideshow).
Zaha Hadid Architects designed the addition in 2006 for St Antony’s College, one of the seven graduate colleges that comprises the UK’s oldest university. A series of planning and funding issues had delayed construction but the ground breaking is now scheduled for 30 January.
The extension will provide a new library and archive for the Middle East Centre, the college’s facility for the study of humanities and social sciences in the Arab World. Built using stainless steel and glass, the structure will bridge the gap between the centre and a neighbouring college building and will appear from the street as a reflective tunnel suspended in space.
A staircase will wind up between the two storeys of the building to link a large ground floor reading room with a first floor archive dating back to the start of the nineteenth century, as well as a lecture theatre in the basement.
The project forms part of a wider masterplan for St. Antony’s College proposed by architects ADP. Meanwhile, British architect Alison Brooks is currently working on a scheme for a new quadrangle at the university’s Exeter College.
Zaha Hadid has also been in the news recently over a building she designed in China, which has been pirated by a rival developer.
See all our stories about Zaha Hadid »
Here’s a project description from Zaha Hadid Architects:
Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford
The Middle East Centre of St. Antony’s College is the University of Oxford’s centre for interdisciplinary study of the Modern Middle East. The centre was founded in 1957 and it is focused on research on humanities and social sciences with a wide reference to the Arab World and its geographic adjacencies. The Centre’s research core is a specialised library and substantial paper and photographic archive covering material from 1800’s onwards. At present, the Middle East Centre’s Library and Administration facilities are housed in the former Rectory of the Church of SS. Philip and James at 68 Woodstock Road. The archive is housed in the basement of the neighbouring property at 66 Woodstock Road, sharing the building with other facilities and rooms of the college. The Middle East Centre also had 3 workrooms in the same property. To tie in with the St. Antony’s College future plans the Middle East Centre is planning a new Library and Archive to meet the current use for research and academic activities. Construction for the Zaha Hadid Architects designed scheme, situated in the garden plot between 68 and 66-64 Woodstock Road, is due to commence in January 2013. The new building will comply with the College’s vision for growth and add formal coherence to the existing quad, and tie in with the ambitious ADP’s masterplan for St. Antony’s college.
Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image
Architect’s statement
Our approach is to define a series of plateaus and territories where different academic and research affiliations can be apparent from the character of the interior space. Form is driven by a series of tension points spread on a synthetic landscape that blends built and natural elements. The new structure deforms and adapts to this new abstract environment, revealing paths and flows, whilst containing the more introvert aspects of the programme brief. The new bridging form allows for programme connection at different levels, gradating space in relation to the public/ private dichotomy. The intention is to create a suspended structure that allows for the more public aspects of the brief to infiltrate the building and spill into the college’s curtiledge facing the Hilda Bess building. This is a flexible territory where space is layered through contrasting use of built elements and materials.
Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image
The main bridging shell is linked to this open area by a central staircase that lead the user to the centre’s main academic components, the new library and the new archive. The contrast in scale and depth is highlighted by a concave/convex nature of the main reading spaces, where the limited variation of use is complemented by material difference in relation to the public plateau. By lifting the connection between 68 and 66 Woodstock Road, it allows for a more diverse and complex articulation between the interior and exterior and well as the programme brief elements themselves, opening up new public spaces and reconnecting the Middle East Centre with the south boundary of the College through a new organized quad link. By defining the main bridge in terms its flow and dynamism, we allow for the existing structure to be read as separate elements, complementing their current detached character.
Above: long section one – click above for larger image
The building does not aim to impose; but instead the floating nature of the ‘bridge’ is emphasised via the chosen cladding material. The main building body will be clad with stainless steel, which has a light and ephemeral appearance, because the existing context of listed buildings and trees are mirrored in its surface; as are the ever changing light conditions and seasonal changes.
Above: long section two – click above for larger image
The impression of a floating link is further supported through the use of frameless glazing to the base of the stainless steel clad main body. Located here on the ground floor of the Softbridge building is the foyer, which doubles up as a multipurpose space for exhibitions or small events. The expanse of frameless glass towards the landscaped area in front of Woodstock Road encourages to linger, rest and reflect.
Above: long section three – click above for larger image
Viewed from the South where also the entrance is located the building opens itself up towards the internal courtyard, where a new landscaped level connection is being created as the access route between the new Gateway building and the Softbridge building.
The post Zaha Hadid’s Oxford college project
to start on site appeared first on Dezeen.
British architect Alison Brooks has won a competition to design a new quadrangle for a college at the University of Oxford.
The third campus for Exeter College will provide accommodation for 100 students, a lecture hall, classrooms, private study rooms and breakout spaces.
The buildings will be arranged into an S-shaped plan and will fold around two new courtyards with surrounding cloisters.
Pitched roofs with curved edges will wrap over each new block and will be visible behind the retained facades of existing buildings on the site.
The project is scheduled for completion in 2014, when the college is celebrating its 700 year anniversary.
You can see a selection of projects by Alison Brooks Architects here, including a housing development that won the Stirling Prize in 2008.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
Alison Brooks Architects Wins Competition For Exeter College, Oxford
Alison Brooks Architects has won the competition to design a `third quad´ for Exeter College at Oxford University. Located a ten minute walk away from the 700-year old Turl Street campus, the project will form Exeter College’s Third Quadrangle in the heart of Oxford. The new building will combine undergraduate and graduate living accommodation for 100 students, a lecture hall, teaching rooms, social spaces and study facilities.
Click above for larger image
ABA’s scheme is organised around two new courtyards, a 19th C and a 21st C Quad, connected by a 3-dimensional Ambulatory. This is a narrative route that connects the College’s public and courtyard spaces with a series of cloisters, amphitheatre staircases, landings and garden walks – places for gathering and scholarly exchange. A multi-level commons space at the centre of the S-shaped plan is the new Quad’s social heart, opening onto both courtyards at various levels. The over-riding concept of a ‘scholarly home’ is characterised by an all-embracing curved roof, marking the new Quad on Oxford’s skyline while providing unique loft study and living spaces. Alison Brooks Architects was one of five leading architectural practices from the UK and abroad shortlisted for the project, including Eric Parry Architects, Haworth Tompkins, Wright & Wright and Richard Sundberg Architects.
ABA’s consultant team includes Stockley, Max Fordham, Davis Langdon, Richard Griffiths, Dan Pearson, Fetherstonhaugh & Montagu Evans, with the competition organised by Malcolm Reading. The project is scheduled for completion in 2014 to mark Exeter College’s 700th anniversary.
Rick Mather Architects of London have completed an extension to the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at Oxford University in the UK. (more…)
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