Winchester Road Development
2022
Current
Through their collective ownership of the site, the client has come together as a collaboration between Hertford College, the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA), Kellogg College and Reuben College to develop a proposal to create a vibrant community of academic, residential and student facilities for graduates, staff and the wider community.
The proposed development will provide six new graduate accommodation buildings as well as converting the existing villas at 43-45 Banbury Road into student rooms. Also proposed are a range of common use and social spaces contained within the Hertford College Pavilion, and new departmental buildings for the South-east Asian Studies Centre (SASC). The proposed buildings will be set within an extensive series of reinvigorated garden spaces designed by Kim Wilkie.
The project is a rare opportunity to enhance the provision on the site with a scheme that is heavily inspired and enriched by the neighbouring North Oxford Victorian Suburb Conservation Area’s residential context. The proposed development provides the Colleges with a valuable chance to unify a varied set of buildings and functions through the implementation of a landscape- led scheme.
Buildings are arranged across the site sympathetic to the scale and characteristics of the existing context of tall brick villas and mature trees. The proposed blocks have been carefully placed to frame these assets in a manner that continues the historic concept of ‘villas and gardens’, with each accommodation building positioned behind a pair of existing villas.
Where buildings are located along the street frontages, their scale and positioning references the rhythm of villas in the neighbourhood. Their orientation aligns with the street, and their footprints complete the perimeter of the site while allowing for visual connections into the centre of the site through gaps.
The proposal seeks to retain the majority of the site’s large mature specimen trees, and enhance their setting. This is proposed through the removal of low quality tree planting and the formation of new landscapes. A series of garden courts, lawns and squares provide a verdant block interior, around which new trees and buildings are arranged.
The programme further influences the positioning of buildings within the site boundary to establish key adjacencies. Academic uses are located towards the south of the site, in close proximity to the existing faculty buildings along Bevington Road.