RIBA East Award Winner

May 2022

Magdalene College Library has been awarded a RIBA East Award. The New College Library for Magdalene College contains a study space and library, archive and picture gallery. Our scheme appears as an arrangement of simple brick volumes which echo the typical gabled architecture of the existing College. The main library is a suite of interconnecting rooms lined with bookcases, reading desks and galleries, arranged on a tartan grid between interconnecting passageways. Three main reading rooms organise the principal circulation route through the library from the three-storey entrance hall, to a double-height central reading room and up to a long single-height room overlooking the garden.

The RIBA judges commented "A brief to create a college library with a lifespan of 400 years – to replace a library gifted to Magdalene by Samuel Pepys 300 years previously – is no small task. Niall McLaughlin Architects have certainly risen to the challenge with this deft and inspiring temple to learning."

Niall McLaughlin Appointed Professor of Architectural Practice

October 2015

Niall has been appointed Professor of Architectural Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Niall has been teaching at the Bartlett for 25 years and alongside his new role will continue to teach on the MArch Architecture Unit 17 with Michiko Sumi and Yeoryia Manolopoulou, as well as continuing to develop his design research folio in building design, material behaviours, building use, cultural meaning and user experience.

Professor Bob Sheil, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture said ‘Níall takes up this new role as one of our most admired and influential design tutors. Throughout his time at the school his profile as a skilled and significant practitioner has grown to international status and throughout this period we have witnessed his considerable investment in architectural research both through UCL and Níall McLaughlin Architects.’