Níall McLaughlin
Architects

BALLIOL FACADE TRIP

APRIL 2017

We are working on new student residential buildings for Balliol College, Oxford. As part of the detailed design development we have been working with a façade sub-contractor based in Belgium, and recently made a visit to their manufacturing factories. The itinerary for the day – a design workshop, a factory tour and a review of samples. Lots of coffee after an early Eurostar, and a good lunch.

There had been several similar design workshops before; where gathered around the meeting table, sketches were scattered as we questioned the architectural intent and the construction details equally. Brick samples sat in front of us, books piled up with precedents opened, past project drawings and models pulled out for reference. How to compose the language to create a calm and unified façade across the site. The engineers, the architects, the craftsmen who will build the façade.

These sorts of discussion are an aspect of everyday practice, and incredibly valuable part of the process – marrying the conversations of design aspiration with the actual making of. The bricks and mortar that see the architecture delivered from the paper to the physical form.

STIRLING PRIZE SHORTLIST MEDIA COVERAGE

SEPTEMBER 2013

In a conversation on BBC Radio 4‘s Front Row, journalist and broadcaster Tom Dyckhoff has described this year’s Stirling Prize shortlist as representing “a completely new outlook on architecture…the voice of a new generation.”  Together with architect and chair of the judges Philip Gumunchidan, the two critics reflected on what the shortlist says about the state of British architecture and the growing appetite for commissioning innovative contemporary buildings. During the broadcast, Front Row’s John Wilson described the chapel as an “absolutely stunningly beautiful” geometric structure.

To listen to the conversation in full visit:

Link to the BBC Radio 4

For other media coverage on the Bishop Edward King Chapel’s shortlisting for the Stirling Prize visit:

Link to BBC News
Link to the Evening Standard 
Link to the The Guardian