ST ANTONY’S COLLEGE
Client: St Antony’s College
Location: Oxford, UK
In 2005 Lee/Fitzgerand was shortlisted to submit design proposals for a new accommodation and administrative building at St Antony’s College, Oxford.
The design solution breaks the mass of the new building into constituent parts dictated by site and brief. The building is composed around a central gate tower in the Oxford tradition, giving the College a civic presence that it currently lacks. Study bedrooms are accommodated in a monolithic block raised up on columns whose strong presence completes the nascent quad at the heart of the campus. The accommodation block is fronted by a transparent circulation and service zone that brushes against the existing tree canopy, giving those inside a direct relationship with nature and the changing seasons, and allowing glimpses of the life of the building from the street. The ground floor breaks free from the orthogonal planning above to define a series of circulation routes through the College and distinct outdoor spaces. A colonnade facing the quad provides a ceremonial route between the existing buildings on the campus.