Somerville College Student Accommodation in Oxford was awarded a certificate of commendation for the RIAI Silver Medal for housing 2011-2012. The award is to encourage excellence of design in housing by giving public recognition to architects responsible for buildings of exceptional merit. It is awarded five years after the competition so the building can be evaluated in a mature setting.
Information on the award can be found here.
Under the tile ‘Happy Ending’, Jan-Carlos Kucharek has reviewed the Chapel for Ripon Theological College in Oxfordshire. The article reflects on the conversations with the client to develop the design, together with the stories and architectural precedents that worked together to inform the building’s final form. Kucharek writes, “…there’s no questioning the positive effect of McLaughlin’s £2.6m chapel on the picturesque Ripon College, both functionally and aesthetically.” He goes on to describe the elliptical form, accessed on the diagonal between the long and short axes, as “a master stroke.”