Architecture Room at this Year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
April 2022
Níall McLaughlin and artist Rana Begum will co-curate the architecture room at this year’s Royal
Academy Summer Exhibition. Celebrated British sculptor Alison Wilding RA will co-ordinate the 254th exhibtion.
This year Wilding will explore the theme of Climate. “The theme of Summer Exhibition 2022 is
CLIMATE in all its manifestations. Whether it presents as crisis or opportunity, nightmare or
memories, or simply our everyday experience of weather, - CLIMATE is a huge all-embracing and
urgent subject.”
The Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show which has
taken place every year without interruption since 1769. The members of the Summer Exhibition
Committee serve in rotation, ensuring that every year the exhibition has a distinctive character, with
each Royal Academician responsible for a particular gallery space. Works from all over the world are
judged democratically on merit and the final selection is made during the eight-day hang within the
galleries.
Catherine Hughes Building Planning Approval
May 2017
Our new student accommodation scheme for Somerville College, has been awarded planning approval unanimously by Oxford City Council. The project, known as the Catherine Hughes Building, will provide 68 bedrooms, allowing the College to accommodate all their undergraduates on site. This is our third building for Somerville College, further to our work on the ROQ student housing and the extension to the Philip Dowson designed Wolfson building.
The new building has a frontage on to Walton Street, with a Graduate Reading Room at ground floor level. The use of red brick will reflect the neighbouring buildings, with articulated brickwork elements around generous windows to provide a rhythm to the façade. Framed setbacks at third floor level allow the new building to align with key levels on the adjacent Penrose Building and to provide variety to the roof line. Internally, bedrooms are arranged in to clusters with kitchens and circulation spaces utilising direct and borrowed natural light and forming focal points for social activity.
Enabling works, involving the demolition of existing buildings, are due to commence in the next few months, with the main construction expected to start on site at the beginning of 2018.