A contextual design of high quality materials and a rich new landscape
A low carbon design
Providing 1,035 study bedrooms across 12 stepped landscape buildings
A new community nursery
A new welcome building and sense of arrival
An 11.9% increase in site-wide bio-diversity
193 new trees and a 22% increase in canopy cover to the woodland site
A rich variety of spaces and landscapes for socialising and study
A sense of place
Woodland setting
The redevelopment of the Clive Booth Student Village (CBSV) is an exciting opportunity to create a unique ‘living and learning’ environment for Oxford Brookes University (OBU) students within a verdant woodland setting close to the main campus and Headington Hill Park.
The design features twelve sensitively designed buildings that cascade through the wooded slopes between existing and new tree canopies. Landscape and building are closely related with the site arrangement: fenestration is informed by the existing trees and views to the site from both the city and adjoining vantage points. The topography of the hillside from plateaux to slopes provides opportunities to respond to the gradient. The buildings overlook
external sloped gardens and frame new ‘outdoor rooms.’ New routes provide greater connectivity to the whole site that respond to the topography and deliver an open space at the heart of the scheme. New tree planting across the site enhances the setting to offer a beautiful and high quality campus community that embraces its existing woodland and brings people close to nature.
Above. Masterplan diagram of Clive Booth Student Villiage Proposals Opposite. Bird’s eye view from north east
Living and Learning
Our design delivers a healthy, connected community, a ‘village’ that engages with the natural surroundings providing a healthy and vibrant setting in which to live and study. The arrangement of the buildings, how they interact with the landscape, how the students and staff can move around them and how the spaces created foster the best possible environments for study and living are prioritised in how this village community has been developed.
Sketch view of town house courtyard
Generous and optimal living
The development provides 1,035 new student rooms in buildings containing flats of up to 10 residents. Designed inside-out and outside-in with a focus on provision of the best possible student bedroom, natural lighting, maximisation of available space and configuration. Building orientation, privacy and frontages have been particularly prominent considerations in this approach.
The standard student room is provided at 12.5m2 overall including the provision of an en-suite shower room. The en-suite shower rooms will be provided as pre-fabricated pods which will maximise the efficiency and quality of the provision, while ensuring optimal logistics and working conditions during construction.
The kitchen and living rooms spaces have been located in the plans to give life to the corners of the blocks as well as at key moments along the buildings length. They overlook the primary circulation routes and key external social spaces to provide a sense of natural security and engagement with the village community.
Typical kitchen view
Typical kitchen/ living space arrangement
Kitchen / Living Space
Ensuite study bedroom
Ensuite study bedroom
Ensuite study bedroom
Ensuite study bedroom
Staircase landing window seat with a view
High Quality Design
Clive Booth Student Villiage
The buildings are, in the majority, four or five storeys high, stepping with the slope of the hillside in response to the varied underlying topography. A plinth to each building traces the slope; importantly this also provides base treatment that is common to each building, with variation occurring above. Careful consideration of building massing sees a prominent articulation of building entrances, aiding wayfinding, and kitchens that enjoy frontages and access to external space.
The material expression is one of carefully designed brick that takes its influences from the buildings in the vicinity, blending different brick tones for different buildings with the consistent plinth detail to unify them. The variation in brick is significant in both long-distant and close-quarter views proving clear separation and distinction.
Glazing and fenestration is influenced by the naturalised woodland landscape with distinction at base, middle and canopy level. Window sizes and glazed configurations vary at each of the 3-levels, maintaining and optimising daylighting to all bedrooms.
Upper floor: CANOPY ZONE bedroom view
Ground floor: BASE ZONE bedroom view
Central floors: TRUNK ZONE
Sketch view of Arrival Plaza including the Welcome Building
Townhouses
The townhouses are located to the east of the site and provide self-contained accommodation. Each house will typically be home to 8 or 10 students and arranged over three storeys. The layout provides a living room/ kitchen facility at ground floor that runs from the front to the back of the house delivering good levels of daylight and natural ventilation to the space. The upper floors of the townhouses each contain four en-suite bedrooms of a similar design to those found in the flats. The flats work as pairs with each pair stepping down the slope in partnership with the terraces. These terraces sit at the centre of the layout with the sheltered front doors and living room windows addressing the space.
Social space
View D - Visualisation of Building 4A as seen from the arrivals court
Generous and varied social spaces are provided centrally on the site, addressing a communal court and a new entrance pavilion serving the new and existing CBSV accommodation. The welcome pavilion will house the sites administration facilities along with some additional social spaces at the upper level. A new OBU nursery will occupy a similar location to its current one. The facility will be accompanied by a dedicated and private landscape area that will provide outside play area for the children.
An environmental exemplar
View
This will be an exemplary project for sustainability and low energy use, with industry-leading standards in building performance and operational energy through conformance with Passivhaus and BREEAM design principles. The building forms and material choices are carefully considered to optimise the embodied carbon of the construction project, with future-proof buildings that will have long-lasting adaptability for evolving student needs.
The windows have been sized to maximise daylight into the rooms whilst protecting from excessive solar gain.
Construction materials will be selected based upon the guiding principles set out in the BRE Green Guide to Specification selection.
Extensive on site renewables
Fabric first approach to sustainability
U values of 0.15 W/m2K
A carbon reduction that exceeds the 40% requirement of OCC
High levels of air tightness
Site wide air source heating strategy
Blue roof drainage systems
Clive Booth Student Villiage
View from St Mary’s - Proposed massing
View from JGW Allotments - Proposed
View from St Mary’s - Sketch of proposed massing
Massing has been influenced by the in-depth analysis undertaken of the views from the wider city. The buildings emerge out of the trees and sit confidently within the green backdrop not as a mass of building but as distinct elements. Across the width of the site the different buildings layer up to create an interesting juxtaposition of units interspersed with tree banks and a varied roof line.
Map of Oxford shoing key view cones, NTS
Rich Materiality
Clive Booth Student Villiage
John Garne Way Allotment
Pullen’s Lane Allotment
Cuckoo Lane
Graphic palette of brick colour and tone for Clive Booth Student Village - refer visual on opposite page
3-d visual showing deployment of brick tones and colours across the site
We have selected four brick tones that we feel can work together and complement the tones found on the hillside. The idea is to have coloured mortar to the plinth level that is matched to the brickwork. The upper levels will have a lighter mortar colour similar to how the many red brick buildings on the hillside have been constructed.
Above: Indicative palette of brick colour and tone for Clive Booth Student Village
B4
B3
B2
B1
Landscape Character
Woodland Glade
Woodland Edge
Woodland Glade
Terraced Gardens
Gardens
John Garne Arrival
Pullens Lane Allotments
Headington Hill Link Cuckoo Lane
John Garne Way
Primary pedestrian route from campus
Arrival Glade
Woodland Courts
The design seeks to create a range of multi-functional spaces of different scale that respond to the site and integrate with the mature landscape setting. These spaces will offer the chance for outdoor study and socialising. Development has been arranged around retained groups of mature trees or positioned to allow views and interaction with the wooded setting. The spaces will support engagement and enhance and sustain the vitality of the University community and provide students, and staff with opportunities to share spaces, experiences and exchange knowledge creating a campus that people love that has universal appeal making it the first choice of accommodation in the City.
Pullens Lane
John Garne Arrival Plaza
Primary cycle route to campus
Mark Tugwell, Deputy Director of Estates at Oxford Brookes University, said:
“The transformation of the Clive Booth Student Village site is providing high-quality rooms and social spaces for our students within a picturesque setting near to our Headington Campus.”
Oxford Brookes’ students made the new Fir and Damson buildings their home at the start of the 2024/25 academic year, following the earlier opening of the Elm Building in January 2024.
MICA designed the internal fit-out, to create sustainable furniture for students, including 80 benches and tables for communal kitchen areas, where every tabletop and bench seat are made from 100% recycled materials, using plastic from domestic fridges, and fabricated locally by RAW.
Clive Booth Student Villiage
The Clive Booth Student Village
Great care has been taken in the design and approach of the replanned Clive Booth Student Village. The design has been informed by iterative engagement and consultation with the Oxford Brookes community and with a wide range of external stakeholders and neighbours resulting in both a high quality and a contextual response
The holistic approach that has been taken delivers many far reaching, complimentary improvements to the site including:
Improved student experience and facilities
Enhanced student safety and wellbeing
Transformed energy and carbon performance of the campus
Rich biodiversity across the site
A stronger relationship between building and landscape, inside and outside
