{"id":740462,"date":"2024-05-16T08:25:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T07:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=740462"},"modified":"2024-05-20T12:41:33","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T11:41:33","slug":"nex-and-donald-insall-refurbish-george-gilbert-scott-designed-library-in-oxford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/buildings\/nex-and-donald-insall-refurbish-george-gilbert-scott-designed-library-in-oxford","title":{"rendered":"Nex and Donald Insall refurbish George Gilbert Scott-designed library in Oxford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nex was invited to participate in a design contest to oversee the library refurbishment in 2019 and teamed up with Donald Insall Associates to win the competition. Their four years of collaboration has seen Nex lead and coordinate the overall design and new additions, while Donald Insall Associates has overseen the repair of the historic fabric and design for the new roofs, as well as providing heritage advice and advocacy.<\/p>\n

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The Grade II-listed Library, constructed in 1857 by George Gilbert Scott in Neogothic style, sits in a sensitive site overlooking the Rector\u2019s Garden and next to the 17th-century walls of Convocation House, the Grade I-listed historic court room of the Bodleian Library.<\/p>\n

The library, formed of a two-storey range with adjoining lower annexe in an L-shaped layout, had become increasingly cramped over recent years,\u00a0 unable to meet students\u2019 needs and with its fabric in urgent need of conservation.<\/p>\n

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The project\u2019s priority was to create additional study space for students, alongside improvements to circulation, accessibility, environmental performance, and services.<\/p>\n

Key interventions include a new entrance sited in a single-storey link block, incorporating WC and locker facilities, as well as clerestory windows and a timber balcony, both replacing unsympathetic 1950s additions.<\/p>\n

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The modern fixtures and fittings that have been added include finely crafted oak joinery, into which new services have been cleverly integrated, including heating, lighting, storage and acoustic insulation as well as means of escape. The latter includes a timber box on the first floor that forms a \u2018pop up\u2019 protective fire compartment.<\/p>\n

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Architect\u2019s view<\/h3>\n

The key to unlocking the tight spaces of the existing building and improving accessibility is a discreet single-storey structure, tucked between the library and the party wall of Convocation House. Easily overlooked, the \u2018link block\u2019 had been much-altered over the past two centuries, and was most recently used as a garden store and strongroom. Nex saw this as a pivotal opportunity: using the space alongside a gap between the Bodleian\u2019s buttresses to create a new entrance to both wings of the library and inserting a new staircase and lift that make the library fully accessible for the first time. Great care was taken to integrate this new element within the library\u2019s historic fabric \u2013 the only external clue to its presence is a crisply executed cast-iron cladding, inspired by Scott\u2019s leadwork on the college chapel campanile, and almost but not quite touching the Bodleian wall. This arrival space works hard \u2013 a new lift shaft is nestled behind an existing stair turret, and new rooflights bring toplight in while also revealing unexpected views of the building\u2019s exterior, the neighbouring Bodleian and the sky overhead.<\/p>\n

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The library\u2019s new main entrance replaces a door that had opened directly into the reading rooms and resulted in disruption to those trying to study, as well as significant heat loss. Framed by a new arch carved of Clipsham stone to echo the surrounding historic masonry, the new entrance incorporates a draught lobby with WC and locker facilities. A secondary entrance at the north end of the annexe enhances flexible movement through the building and provides an emergency exit.<\/p>\n

Within the library, Nex and Donald Insall Associates have carefully balanced the retention and repair of historic fabric with thoughtfully considered new interventions. With no construction drawings to work from, a thorough investigation of the building\u2019s fabric and study of Scott\u2019s wider works informed Nex\u2019s design. New clerestory windows within a replacement roof, for instance, are an interpretation of Scott\u2019s design approach to admitting daylight based on the ticket hall at St Pancras. They replace a series of unsympathetic rooflights inserted in the 1950s. Elsewhere, steel beams added in the 19th\u00a0century to reinforce the range floor have been replaced with a new hidden structure, allowing the original ceiling design to be fully revealed once again.<\/p>\n

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In the annexe, a 1950s mezzanine floor bisected Scott\u2019s Gothic tracery, resulting in an uninviting lower level. Here Nex lowered the ground floor level to improve the space\u2019s proportions, restored the windows to their full height, and replaced the full-width mezzanine with a finely crafted and sculptural timber balcony. This 14m cantilevered structure extends like a bookshelf balcony to exactly half the width of the room \u2013 a daring structural intervention that sits comfortably within its Victorian context, revealing the dramatic full height of the space, and providing valuable added study spaces for students.<\/p>\n

A series of new fixtures and fittings shows the careful fusion of old and new, and an emphasis on craftsmanship that continues the architectural tradition of Scott and his peers. The extensive use of oak joinery is evocative of traditional library spaces, yet with a distinctly contemporary character, for instance, in the main range where cluttering bookshelves were replaced with new desks and under-desk book storage. The joinery also fully integrates all new services such as heating, lighting, storage and acoustic insulation, and a pair of secret doors into two compact behind-the-scenes spaces. A new timber box on the first floor is a \u2018pop-up\u2019 fire compartment that can protect people in the event of an emergency. Careful programming and off-site construction \u2013 including the use of prefabricated hardwood panels on the lift shaft and partial pre-construction of the mezzanine \u2013 helped reduce construction time on site and disruption to students.<\/p>\n

The library\u2019s restored windows contain stained-glass roundels, designed and donated to the college by two of its most famous alumni: Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris \u2013 an irony given Morris\u2019s later opposition to Scott\u2019s work. Nevertheless, their pioneering glass craftsmanship finds new echoes: for instance, in new light fittings that use different types of glass to create different atmospheric effects, and in specially commissioned dichroic glass fins placed in the rooflight of the new circulation spaces.
\nAlan Dempsey, director, Nex<\/em><\/p>\n

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Engineer’s view<\/h3>\n

We have tried to minimise the structural interventions.<\/p>\n

The new mezzanine was conceived more as a piece of furniture than a change to the structure. An existing steel and concrete mezzanine, added to the original Gilbert Scott building in the 1960s was removed. The new mezzanine floor is entirely timber. The desk itself is structural using the table top, the desk front and the mezzanine floor as a kind of timber C channel spanning 14m without steel or a column. We were also able to remove existing steel beams that appear to have been added to correct an initial design error in the main tangle by making the existing floor a stressed skin with ply deck.<\/p>\n

All in all we have removed steel from the building rendering this for recycling and kept all of the new interventions as very low carbon timber.
\nSteve Webb, director, Webb Yates Engineers<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Project data<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 Start on site<\/strong> 2021
\n\u00a0 Completion date<\/strong> October 2023
\n\u00a0 Gross internal floor area<\/strong> 472m2<\/sup>
\n\u00a0 Construction cost<\/strong> Undisclosed
\n\u00a0 Architect<\/strong> Nex
\n\u00a0 Conservation architect<\/strong> Donald Insall Associates
\n\u00a0 Client<\/strong> Exeter College, University of Oxford
\n\u00a0 Structural engineer<\/strong> Webb Yates
\n\u00a0 M&E consultant<\/strong> Lawrence Owen
\n\u00a0 Main contractor<\/strong> Beard Construction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nex was invited to participate in a design contest to oversee the library refurbishment in 2019 and teamed up with Donald Insall Associates to win the competition. Their four years of collaboration has seen Nex lead and coordinate the overall design and new additions, while Donald Insall Associates has overseen the repair of the historic …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32845,"featured_media":740642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[706],"tags":[2706,2309,1726,1738],"yoast_head":"\nNex and Donald Insall refurbish George Gilbert Scott-designed library in Oxford<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The refurbishment of Exeter College Library combines sensitive restoration with modern additions, including a new entrance\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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