WEST COURT, JESUS COLLEGE WINS RIBA AWARDS
MAY 2018
We are delighted that our project West Court for Jesus College Cambridge has won an RIBA Regional Award and Tom McGlynn was awarded the RIBA East Project Architect of the Year. The project design includes the refurbishment and extension of the Grade II listed Webb Building with new café pavilion and basement bar, and the remodelling and extension of the 1970’s Rank Building fronting Jesus Lane.
The judges commented “This extension to Jesus College manages the difficult trick of feeling entirely old fashioned in its use of hand crafted materials … while remaining entirely modern in its loose geometry, use of daylight and simplicity of forms. Jesus College now offers a sequence of rational, thoughtful spaces that seems inevitable, but we know took a great deal of architectural skill and determination to deliver”
AN OXFORD OUTING
DECEMBER 2017
Last month NMLA’s Balliol College team went on a celebratory excursion to Oxford to mark an important project milestone. We visited selected buildings by the office and by others, called at the site to observe demolition-in-progress, and finally hid from the rain for festive beverages.
All aboard the 9 o’clock train from London Marylebone. The sky is grey and the clouds are heavy.
One hour later, two taxis crawl up the hill to Ripon College. Ten excited people are deposited on its driveway.
We enter the chapel. Two people to pull the entrance door wide. Eyes up; iPhones out; pause to pose for photo.
Outside, driver’s thumbs drum-drumming against the steering wheel. Doors open; it’s time to go. Heart FM for the drive into town.
Students mill around Somerville College. Camouflaged amongst them we enter NMLA’s housing block. Up the stair tower, peeking into bedrooms and kitchens, we debate the merits of bathroom pods.
Herzog and de Meuron’s Blavatnik School of Government stands next to Somerville, glittering. Like magpies we are drawn through its doors.
On the roof terrace Oxford is laid out beneath us, dreaming spires etc., but next: lunch.
Heavier and happier, we walk to Worcester College’s Nazrin Shah Building. Heads pressed to the glass we stare greedily inside.
Later, eleven sets of PPE are donned and rainclouds assemble as we tour the site. Mud, glorious mud. Three years till ribbon-cutting.
The rain starts, the pub beckons. Cheers to Balliol!