{"id":778607,"date":"2025-03-19T07:19:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T07:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=778607"},"modified":"2025-03-21T18:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T18:19:06","slug":"circling-the-square-david-kohns-gradel-quadrangles-at-new-college-oxford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/buildings\/circling-the-square-david-kohns-gradel-quadrangles-at-new-college-oxford","title":{"rendered":"Circling the square: David Kohn\u2019s Gradel Quadrangles at New College, Oxford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Refuting its name, New College is one of the most ancient and venerable of Oxford\u2019s colleges. Founded by William of \u2006Wykeham in 1379, it occupies a predictably grand huddle of ancient golden-stoned courts, if here bifurcated unusually by a crenellated fragment of Oxford\u2019s original city wall.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The college\u2019s oldest courtyard \u2013 or quad in Oxford-speak \u2013 was a radical departure when completed in 1403. Great Quad was\u00a0 <\/span>the first purpose-designed, all-of-a-piece academic courtyard, combining chapel, great hall and student rooms arranged around it. It set the template for what became the default model for other Oxbridge colleges and universities for centuries.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018It was, typologically, a radical thing to do, putting un-alike building types and uses together in a whole,\u2019 says David Kohn, founding director of David Kohn Architects (DKA), which recently completed its own addition to the College \u2013 the Gradel Quadrangles (named after the main donor) a few hundred yards up the road. It provides a satellite college campus of 94 student rooms, study spaces, offices and performance space, with its own gatehouse and tower, together with classrooms, assembly hall and canteen for New College School.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A walk around the old college campus takes you through the rich historical context into which DKA\u2019s new buildings were required to fit. Garden Quad, a second, late-17th century courtyard, was another architectural first in its time: an \u2018open-ended\u2019 quad with buildings erected on only three of its four sides.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018It was a shift from the enclosed, walled courts of the 14th century, which segregated rowdy students from townsfolk [murders of and by students were not uncommon at the time] \u2013 to a very open gesture, where you can see the town beyond,\u2019 says Kohn. \u2018It coincided with New College inviting townsfolk to take up residence, for a fee. So the building\u2019s form reflects the changing attitude between town and gown. I like the idea that architecture, be it at a glacial pace, can express changes in the society around it.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea helped inform DKA\u2019s design for its latest addition. It sits to the north of the college precincts, in an area of Neogothic and Arts and Crafts villas built for dons around the turn of the 20th century. These are surrounded by large gardens \u2013 a very different environment from the streets tightly lined by college walls and quads to the south.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of the villas on the site is Grade II-listed and the college had tried unsuccessfully several times to get planning permission to demolish an adjacent unlisted villa to redevelop as student housing. \u2018It was the college\u2019s decision to masterplan the site as a whole that unlocked it,\u2019 says Kohn, whose practice won the 2015 competition for the far more ambitious development of a new mini-campus. <\/span><\/p>\n

The scheme consists of three detached buildings: a small single-storey gatehouse; a seven-storey tower with a distinctive curlicue-profiled top; and a sinuous three-storey student housing block, arranged across the site like a deconstructed version of a college. As you approach, the ensemble presents a strikingly playful confection of \u2006forms \u2013 rather Gaud\u00ed-esque,\u00a0 <\/span>with creamy limestone fa\u00e7ades accented decoratively by pink sandstone.<\/span><\/p>\n

The blocks are expressive in plan, too, with the main student housing block curving around a central horseshoe-shaped court, its curving sides creating further implied courtyard spaces between it and the adjacent Victorian college and school buildings that bookend it. It\u2019s as though the glacial evolution of the open-ended quad form \u2013 to stretch the analogy \u2013 has here reached melting point, the open-ended, softly rounded forms reflecting what DKA calls the \u2018fluid, open relationship\u2019 between town and university today.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another key piece in unlocking the site was the realisation that the listing of the villa was specifically attached to its street front and west garden, so building was allowed close to its rear. This freed up space for the relatively bulky horseshoe-shaped block, which sits close to the villa at the rear, as well as against neighbouring buildings. The site was previously occupied in part by a 1970s school addition, which was demolished. The tight junctions would have been awkward with a more orthogonal building but here work comfortably, smoothed out by curved fa\u00e7ades and features. Kohn says the layout was also influenced by an unpublished 1940s Pevsner essay on \u2018picturesque planning\u2019, which \u2018talks of the virtue of narrow spaces\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It means the college has been able to house everything it needed to on the site: \u2018Important, given the arms race between colleges to build new facilities,\u2019 says Kohn.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The pink sandstone arch of the gatehouse-cum-porter\u2019s lodge is heavily corniced and somewhat Classical in form, with a hint of Lutyens\u2019 Delhi about it. It has provoked other comparisons. \u2018There was meant to be a green roof but one don thought it would make it look too Teletubbies-like,\u2019 says Kohn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through the grilled,\u00a0 <\/span>geometrically patterned entrance gates, designed by artist Eva Rothschild, the view is framed to be \u2018scenographic\u2019, says Kohn. The new blocks and Arts and Crafts villa sit beyond a lawn and mature trees retained from the original gardens, like a Repton landscape in miniature. Kohn says: \u2018We worked with the conservation architect Marcus Beale, who was clear from the start that any successful development had to be landscape-led, incorporating the trees.\u2019 This is certainly stagey architecture \u2013 \u2018slightly mannered\u2019, as Kohn describes it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Seen close-up, the quality of the stonework of fa\u00e7ades \u2013 creamy Ancaster limestone flecked with grey and diagonally jointed \u2013 is exceptional, given this was a Design and Build contract. Kohn has nothing but praise for the stone contractor, Grants of Shoreditch. The fa\u00e7ades are dressed in a harder, pinker sandstone, which also forms cornices from which carved gargoyles and grotesques emerge \u2013 carved by stonemason Fergus Wessel working with artist Monster Chetwynd, in a second artist’s commission. \u2018We decided these should depict endangered animals which may become extinct during the lifetime of these buildings,\u2019 says Kohn. One depicts the sleepy head of a golden mole popping out from the stonework, while another, a pangolin, hangs on for dear life at the top of the tower.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The tower\u2019s highly modelled silhouette reflects its extrusion from a trefoil-shaped plan \u2013 a motif of three intersecting circles symbolising the Holy Trinity. DKA took its cue for this from the college\u2019s Perpendicular chapel, where the motif is ubiquitous in the architecture. The shape is also picked up playfully in the designs of door handles and grilles elsewhere in the new buildings.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The tower becomes more transparent the higher up it goes \u2013 \u2018it was important that it didn\u2019t feel defensive\u2019 \u2013 with enlarged windows taking ever more expressive shapes as they go up, one resembling a theatre proscenium. Student rooms, grouped around kitchens, occupy lower floors, while the Gradel Institute of Charity, funded by the main donor too, in a slightly self-rewarding way occupies the upper levels of the tower with the best views for its offices.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Kohn points to how the sun\u2019s progress can be tracked incrementally across the undulating, south-facing fa\u00e7ade of the main horizontal block, a bit like a sundial. \u2018It brings a dynamism to the architecture and makes it look curvier than it is,\u2019 he observes.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A sawtooth pattern of pink stone, nicknamed \u2018the flame cornice\u2019 by DKA, runs across the top of the fa\u00e7ades. Elsewhere, the cornice roller-coasters irregularly up and down over dormer windows, reflecting those of adjacent buildings. The roofs are prominently rounded. Kohn says: \u2018I like how, in the premodern era, roofs were very important parts of fa\u00e7ades.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The structure was changed from steel to timber during the design process, with the highly insulated roof covered in polygonal anodised aluminium tiles, fitted algorithymically together, which give it the appearance of a plump slab of fish, covered in silvery scales.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While the buildings\u2019 forms invoke the aforementioned Tellytubbies and fish-scale metaphors, they also call up a cacophony of architectural echoes: Gaud\u00ed, certainly, but also the forms of \u2006the \u2018other traditions\u2019 of early 20th century modernism before everything went orthogonal \u2013 the flowing, moulded forms of Scharoun and Haring, the organic-expressionist fantasies of Hermann Finsterlin. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I like the open-ended possibilities at the beginning of the 20th century. Lots of architects don\u2019t like Gaud\u00ed and see his work as kitsch. But architecture should be expressive and communicative \u2013 and flirt with form,\u2019 says Kohn. He welcomes different readings of the building, saying: \u2018A building is collaborative, but it\u2019s not so much about co-authors \u2013 as an architect, I don\u2019t want to give up agency \u2013 but about its users and readers. It needs to be open-ended and non-systemic enough to be read in different ways.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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The three storeys of the main block accommodate the majority of the student rooms, grouped around communal kitchens. The curves of the external envelope are still evident, if more subtly, in these spaces. The corridors visibly snake, pivoting off rounded stairwells lit from above by oculi. The shifting geometries allow for a variety of room shapes, including duplexes inspired by those at James Stirling\u2019s Florey building at nearby Queen\u2019s College. <\/span><\/p>\n

But, where those are light-filled, these suffer from being somewhat cave-like under the curve of the roof, lit only by a low, horizontal window. In general, though, these are decent, comfortable rooms. Everywhere woodwork is painted in DKA\u2019s signature green. The heating arrives via ground-source heat pumps, delivered through an underfloor system. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Due to the tightness of the site, one wing is split between the college and New College school, its volume filleted down the middle: one side student rooms, one side classrooms, canteen and school hall, the larger spaces raised cleverly, but counterintuitively, to the top of the building. It\u2019s pretty seamless, given the yin and yang contrast between calm academic quad to one side and noisy school playground to the other.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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At basement level sits a new 50-seat chamber concert-like performance space \u2013 a classic box-in-a-box, designed with Charcoalblue \u2013 which audiences can access down from the front quad, the entrance in line of sight from the porter\u2019s lodge. While simply fitted-out, with acoustic spray-finished walls left visible behind oak baffles, the latter are crenellated to recall Oxford\u2019s city walls in the old college: another historical reference snuck in.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Other interior spaces do not feel so resolved, nor so successful. The performance space is approached down a curving stair and through an enfilade of idiosyncratically shaped spaces. A slightly awkward skinny \u2018art gallery\u2019 space feels like a leftover from the imposed geometries, while an octagonal basement lobby seems to have lost its function as the orientation space for which its geometry was intended. It was to have served a lecture theatre sitting under the quad, which was cut from the programme. The quality of the Design and Build-completed interiors is more par-for-the-course, too: odd service junctions, messy exposed ducting and handrails cutting across windows.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Overall, though, this is quite a project: its play with decoration, historical form and iconography takes DKA\u2019s idea of \u2018communicative\u2019 architecture, seen in previous projects such as the Red House and in the Design District, to another scale of complexity and urbanity. Even the distinctive DKA colours that define those projects, a definite \u2018red and green\u2019 period for the practice, are here digested more subtly into pink stone and green sward.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While the use of natural materials such as loadbearing stone fa\u00e7ades and timber roof structure has helped bring the embodied carbon-count down (given the concrete basement and frame), they also contribute to the buildings\u2019 forms \u2013 soft but solid \u2013 which Kohn describes as \u2018permanent but light in character\u2019. Even if you don\u2019t particularly like their unique appearance, they express a gently playful quality that positively animates the streets around.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In places the form-making seems at the expense of the interior spaces, but I like the tale this architecture is telling \u2013 and it clearly had the funding and client to allow it to be so fully told. Interestingly, Kohn mentions that, on the back of this project, Bob Stern has invited him to be the visiting professor of Classical architecture at Yale in spring 2027, coinciding with the first exhibition of Soane\u2019s drawings to be shown there. \u2018I like how Soane plays with Classical architecture, not as a given, but as a text for interpretation,\u2019 says Kohn. One suspects he has taken a similar approach here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Architect\u2019s view<\/h2>\n

The Gradel Quadrangles are a major expansion of one of the University of Oxford\u2019s oldest colleges, designed to address the residential, study and pastoral needs of undergraduates at New College. The project provides 94 student bedrooms, a shared study space and a performance auditorium, alongside facilities for the adjacent New College School, and a landmark tower housing offices for the Gradel Institute of Charity.<\/p>\n

New College Oxford is architecturally significant: the first planned university quadrangle was built here in 1379, as well as the first open-sided quad in the 17th century. We sought to pursue that spirit of innovation \u2013 and the trajectory of buildings gradually embracing the outside world \u2013 with Oxford\u2019s first-ever curved quad. Sinuous elevations frame a series of landscaped spaces and the New College School playground. Departing from the typology\u2019s closed, quasi-monastic origins, the project seeks a more open and welcoming contemporary interpretation that shifts the relationship between university and city.<\/p>\n

Intrinsic to the inspiration of the building was a requirement that it should feel part of the main college, should be built for the long term and be something that is much more than a hall of residence. In response, we have created buildings with a distinct sense of place that are essentially collegiate but very much without precedent in their architecture and material treatment. A key element is a series of artworks made in collaboration with contemporary artists, including stone gargoyles and grotesques, representing the continuation of a creative tradition rooted in New College\u2019s medieval origins.
\nDavid Kohn, director, David Kohn Architects<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Engineer\u2019s view<\/h2>\n

Quads and tiles are both known for being rectangular. New College Oxford\u2019s latest building has reinvented the idea of a quad in a curved plan.<\/p>\n

Early explorations in the design centred around building a curved roof over the curved quad \u2013 a loadbearing vaulted roof, made of Catalan tiles cemented together with plaster of Paris. This way of building, used by Gaud\u00ed and Gustavino, creates elegant, efficient structures, whose funicular shape is loaded compression; a vault can be vanishingly thin as a result. Sadly, the skills to build these roofs are also vanishingly rare and not practical to use on such a scale as the Gradel Quadrangles.<\/p>\n

Looking for alternatives, sprayed concrete seemed possible but, with a large basement, we had enough concrete in the scheme already, where it was really needed. So we started wondering whether our vaulted roof could be made in timber. We worked a few options using diagrids and CLT shells but the one that won out was simple curved laminated timber ribs skinned in OSB and planks. What was exciting was that the original craftsmanship envisaged in the tile layers making the vaults became digital craftsmanship, the timbers slotting together into shaped rebates with no need for steel connectors.<\/p>\n

The project concluded eight years after it began with the idea of tiles again, this time not to hold up the curved roof but to clad it. Working with the architects and contractors, we developed a method to clad the roof with 5,000 or so aluminium tiles of different shapes, devising a way to lay them out over the irregular surface with installers using their phones to map the positions with an augmented reality app.<\/p>\n

The other curves of the building are rendered in structure: the concrete frame cradles the curved floor plates and the stone walls, made in Ancaster limestone, dovetail together like the stones in a lighthouse wall.
\nTim Lucas, partner, Price & Myers<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Client\u2019s view<\/h2>\n

When David Kohn Architects won the competition to design a new development at New College back in 2015, my predecessor described it as a highly significant project that would \u2018release the potential of an important central Oxford site whilst at the same time creating a piece of striking architecture that will match the quality of the rest of the college \u2013 both timeless and sensitive to the environs\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Gradel Quadrangles are an outstanding fulfilment of that ambition, and allow us to address the residential, study and pastoral needs of our undergraduates. Many more of them can now live in college, with a level of comfort and facilities unparalleled by other new builds. Our auditorium \u2013 the New Space \u2013 is a hugely valuable addition, bearing in mind our very strong musical tradition. The new buildings for New College School work extremely well, and it is wonderful to see the school\u2019s young pupils enjoying the building together.<\/p>\n

Our brief demanded a sensitive solution to a very challenging design problem: reconciling exciting and innovative architecture within a particular Edwardian streetscape; the southernmost part of north Oxford. David Kohn\u2019s decision to embrace the quadrangle typology \u2013 drawing upon the rich architectural history here at New College but to create something entirely fresh \u2013 has given us a range of outstanding new facilities and a building that, like the original New College buildings, will hopefully stand for centuries.<\/p>\n

When you walk into the Gradel Quadrangles, the first thing you see is a contemporary statue of our founder, William of Wykeham. He was an innovator, and David Kohn has emulated his spirit in a remarkable way. There is a truly collegiate sense of place but in a highly original form. Most important of all, our students just love living there.
\nMiles Young, warden, New College, Oxford<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Working detail<\/h2>\n

The parapet of the Main Quad building brings together many of the construction systems in the project. Vertically, the self-load-bearing stone fa\u00e7ade, of 70mm-thick buff weatherbed Ancaster limestone from Lincolnshire, is topped off with contrasting pink Stoneraise blocks from Cumbria to create the \u2018flame\u2019 cornice. This fa\u00e7ade, beautifully built by Grants of Shoreditch, is laterally braced by ties to the concrete frame.<\/p>\n

This in turn supports a prefabricated timber roof structure made in Switzerland by Blumer Lehmann. The design of this element was carried out during construction in collaboration with structural engineers Price & Myers and earned the project an Institute of \u2006Civil Engineers\u2019 Carbon Champion Award.<\/p>\n

The roof is topped with anodised aluminium polygonal tiles that were set out by the structural engineers using an algorithm that tessellated three, four, five, six and seven-sided tiles to cover the unique geometry of the roof with minimal joints.<\/p>\n

Projecting from the parapet is a bear gargoyle, one of 24 that represent the contemporary animal kingdom under threat from the climate crisis. These include a pangolin, golden mole, toucan, elephant and bushbaby, chosen in consultation with the professor of evolutionary biology at New College, Ashleigh Griffin, and suggestions from Katherine Rundell, author of The Golden Mole and Other Vanishing Treasure.<\/p>\n

The animal forms were created by artist Monster Chetwynd in collaboration with stonemason Fergus Wessel.
\nDavid Kohn, director, David Kohn Architects<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Project data<\/h2>\n

Start on site<\/b>\u00a0\u200aOctober 2021
\nCompletion<\/b>\u00a0\u200aApril 2024
\nGross internal floor area<\/b>\u00a0\u200a5,639m2<\/sup>
\nConstruction cost<\/b>\u00a0\u200a\u00a354.5 million
\nConstruction cost per m2<\/sup><\/b>\u00a0\u00a39,670
\nArchitect<\/b>\u00a0David Kohn Architects
\nExecutive architect<\/strong> Purcell
\nConservation architect<\/strong> Marcus Beale Architects
\nClient<\/b>\u00a0New College Oxford
\nStructural engineer<\/b>\u00a0\u200aPrice & Myers
\nM&E consultant<\/b>\u00a0Skelly & Couch
\nQuantity surveyor<\/b>\u00a0Arcadis
\nProject manager<\/b>\u00a0Ridge
\nPrincipal designer<\/b>\u00a0Oxford Architects
\nApproved building inspector<\/b>\u00a0Oxford City Council
\nLandscape design<\/b>\u00a0Todd Longstaffe-Gowan
\nGate artist<\/b>\u00a0Eva Rothschild
\nGrotesques\/gargoyles artist<\/b>\u00a0Monster Chetwynd
\nStonemason<\/b>\u00a0Fergus Wessel
\nPlanning consultant<\/b>\u00a0Bidwells
\nTheatre consultant<\/b>\u00a0Charcoalblue
\nStone fa\u00e7ade contractor<\/b>\u00a0Grants of Shoredtich
\nTimber roof specialist<\/b>\u00a0Blumer Lehmann
\nGate fabricator<\/b>\u00a0The White Wall Company
\nMain contractor<\/b>\u00a0Sir Robert McAlpine
\nCAD software used<\/b>\u00a0Vectorworks<\/p>\n

Sustainability data<\/h2>\n

Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >2%<\/strong>\u00a0Not supplied
\nPercentage of floor area with daylight factor >5%<\/strong>\u00a0Not supplied
\nOn-site energy generation<\/strong>\u00a0Nil
\nHeating and hot water load (predicted)<\/strong>\u00a0MQ*: 116.92 kWh\/m2<\/sup>\/yr , NCS: 54.31 kWh\/m2<\/sup>\/yr\u00a0, NWH: 181.14 kWh\/m2<\/sup>\/yr
\nTotal energy load (predicted)<\/strong>\u00a0MQ: 128.4 kWh\/m2<\/sup>\/yr, NCS: 40.01 kWh\/m2<\/sup>\/yr, NWH: 189.83 kWh\/m2<\/sup>\/yr
\nCarbon emissions (all) (predicted)<\/strong>\u00a0MQ: 35.2 kgCO2\/m2<\/sup>, NCS: 16.3 kgCO2\/m2<\/sup>, NWH: 45.2 kgCO2\/m2<\/sup>
\nAnnual mains water consumption<\/strong>\u00a0Not supplied
\nAirtightness at 50Pa (actual)<\/strong>\u00a0MQ: 2.12 m3<\/sup>\/hr\/m2<\/sup>, NCS: 2.73 m3<\/sup>\/hr\/m2<\/sup>, NWH: 2.89 m3<\/sup>\/hr\/m2<\/sup>
\nOverall thermal bridging heat transfer coefficient (Y-value)<\/strong>\u00a0Not supplied
\nOverall area-weighted U-value<\/strong>\u00a0Not supplied
\nEmbodied \/ whole-life carbon<\/strong>\u00a0Not supplied
\nPredicted design life<\/strong>\u00a0100 years
\n*MQ (Main Quad), NCS (New College School), NWH (New Warham House)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Refuting its name, New College is one of the most ancient and venerable of Oxford\u2019s colleges. Founded by William of \u2006Wykeham in 1379, it occupies a predictably grand huddle of ancient golden-stoned courts, if here bifurcated unusually by a crenellated fragment of Oxford\u2019s original city wall.\u00a0 The college\u2019s oldest courtyard \u2013 or quad in Oxford-speak …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32845,"featured_media":778750,"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":[2834,4568,1983,1950],"yoast_head":"\nCircling the square: David Kohn\u2019s Gradel Quadrangles at New College, Oxford<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Kohn Architects has created a striking, sinuous addition that plays innovatively with materials, building techniques and architectural forms\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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