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Completion date: September 2011 Building type: Student accommodation Location: Oxford Owner / Client: Somerville College and The University of Oxford Architect: Niall McLaughlin Architects Structural Engineer: Price & Myers Main Contractor / Builder: Laing O’Rourke Joinery Company: Birmingham Veneers Timber Supplier: Glemere Timber Company Ltd Specialist timber advice: BM TRADA Timber elements: Bay windows, stair tower Timber Species: FSC-approved American oak and European oak
Pre-assembled bay windows A quick construction programme and the need to be sensitive to the quiet environment appropriate for study indicated that prefabrication would be the preferred construction method. Working closely with the contractor, the architect devised a way of prefabricating the main structure, the oak student room windows and the stair towers, while prefabricated pods were used for the en-suite bathrooms. This ensured that the new buildings were delivered on time, to the highest quality and with minimal disruption to the college.
Section through bay window. Drawing Niall McLaughlin Architects
The architect had consulted students on the design of the rooms and had heard complaints that openable windows tended to disturb papers lying on the desk. As a result the bay windows have fixed double-glazed units on three sides. Room ventilation is provided by two full-height slot vents only 100mm wide, set on each side of the bay window and fitted with hinged oak shutters. From the outside the vents create a ‘shadow gap’ between the bay window and the brick façade. The contrast between the brick facade and the projecting bay windows enliven the extreme oblique views of the building, which will be seen when visitors pass along the narrow laneway, once complete. The stair towers close vistas and mark entrances; they extend upwards by an extra storey to give access to the roof, so that the photo-voltaic and solar thermal panels fixed there can be maintained. The towers are largely glazed, with deep oak mullions, flitched to the steel frame. They are designed to create variety as visitors pass along the new laneway; from one view it is all glass, from another it is all timber reveals. Lit up at night, the glazed towers act as lanterns to the narrow street below.
The student room bay windows were prefabricated in the workshop of Birmingham Veneers. Each bay window consists of a highly insulated timber stud sub-frame completely fitted out with internal and external finishes and components, including oak bench, oak desk, lighting, glazing, plasterboard and skim, oak veneer finishes and externally, 20mm solid oak rainscreen cladding panels on battens. The ventilation slots at each side were also prefabricated and fixed to the bay window. Only the bay window roof was left unfinished; this allowed it to be fixed back to the downstand beam of the concrete floor structure after being craned into position. At its base the bay window rests on a concrete slab cantilevered from the main study bedroom floor. BM TRADA advised on choice of timber and detailing at junctions to accommodate movement and to control moisture, while achieving air-tightness.
Supporting services To download the complete TRADA case study, including construction details, visit the ‘Wood Information’ area at www.trada.co.uk. Select ‘Publications’, and select ‘Case Studies’.
Somerville College , Oxford, Oxfords hire
Student Accommodati on
Project informatio
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Completion date:
Introduction
September 2011
The design and layout of the new student accommodation end and overlook for Somerville College a new laneway to the north was determined which connects by its setting within Woodstock Road the to Walton complex ancient Street. lanes and boundaries of the University. The University of Oxford has been One remarkable developing the Radcliffe opportunity of this project Observatory Quarter was to create one on the site of the whole side of a new old Radcliffe Infirmary; street. The architect the development will divided the student contain faculty buildings accommodation for Humanities and into two long narrow Social Sciences. buildings, creating Somerville College occupies a space between Main contractor the whole southern them which makes a new / Laing O'Rourke boundary of the northern entrance Ltd builder: site and when the into Somerville College, old hospital buildings were knocked linking its garden down they exposed Joinery company: quadrangle to a the north-facing long framed view Birmingham Veneers flank wall of the of the college. This Radcliffe Observatory. wall, exposed for Timber supplier: The architect has the first time, was Glemere Timber described the design completely blank; the proximity of the street as of older hospital Company Ltd ‘conceived in the buildings meant that the college terms of Pevsner’s had previously faced Specialist timber analysis of the picturesque, their buildings away TRADA Technology episodic setting from the infirmary. advice: of Queen’s Lane in Oxford. Building By exchanging land elements are used with the university, to frame and terminate the college had just Timber element(s): short vistas. As you enough space to Bay windows, stair move along the build a long, tower narrow development street you reach Timber species: of student rooms small public squares at the end against FSC approved American the blank wall. of each vista, from each square new vistas oak, European oak open up. This allowed The parcel of land us to interweave Awards: new and old buildings ceded by the university RIBA Award 2012, in a way - at 6m wide by 175m that creates lots long - was just wide of small dramas as you move Winner enough to accommodate through the city’. a long thin development, three storeys high, housing a single Brick Award 2012, row of student rooms and a connecting passageway Winner behind. It was not possible to make individual entrances into the AIA Award 2012, new building from the north; (the student Winner rooms will, in time, connect back into the existing buildings in Somerville College as the phased development of the project progresses). As a result, the rooms are reached by tall staircase towers set at each Case Study | Somerville College, Oxford, Oxfordshire Building type:
Location:
Architect:
Owner / Client:
Structural engineer:
Student accommodatio
Oxford, Oxfordshire
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Niall McLaughlin Architects
Somerville College and the University of Oxford
Price & Myers
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