Níall McLaughlin
Architects

BISHOP EDWARD KING CHAPEL SHORTLISTED FOR RIAI GOLD MEDAL 2013-2015

DECEMBER 2024

Bishop Edward King Chapel was shortlisted for the RIAI Gold Medal 2013-2015. Presented by the RIAI since 1934, the Gold medal is the highest honour in Irish Architecture. 

The jury noted: 

This unique project for Ripon Theological College, developed over time from an initial design competition responds to the context of the existing 19th century college campus and surrounding trees and is also grounded in the wider South Oxfordshire landscape, overlooking the valley to the west.

The architect has created an exquisitely detailed nave type space for collegiate gathering, defined by the tracery of a Glulam structure and equipped with a perimeter ambulatory, side chapel and sacristy in which the control of space and light is exemplary.   

Through its refined architecture this chapel becomes truly a spiritual space, an ethereal place set apart in heart of English countryside, and capable of responding to the changing requirements of the College.

The RIAI Gold Medal 2013-2015 was awarded to Donaghy+Dimond Architects for The Model School, Inchicore.

UK’S BEST MODERN CHURCH AWARD

NOVEMBER 2013

The Bishop Edward King Chapel was among the winners of the ‘The UK’s Best Modern Churches’ competition which celebrates the best churches built within the last 50 years, announced at a ceremony held at Lambeth Palace in London. The open competition was run by the National Churches Trust, in association with the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association and the 20th Century Society.

Of the top ten selected winners, the Chapel for Ripon College was the most recent nomination, with eight of the ten built in the late 50s and early 60s. The scheme was described as “a treat to look at” and “architecturally elegant, with a lovely intimate reflective interior.”

Link to Best Modern Churches