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."

Tintagel Competition Shortlist

September 2015

Niall McLaughlin Architects are one of six shortlisted for the Tintagel Castle Bridge competition run by Malcolm Reading. The new footbridge will link the ruins of the 13th-century coastal castle, the mythical home of King Arthur, and the nearby headland. The winning scheme will stand 28 metres higher than the current crossing and spanning more than 70 metres. Also on the shortlist are Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes, Marks Barfield Architects, Ney & Partners Civil Engineers, RFR and Jean-Francois Blassel Architecte and Wilkinson Eyre. The competition jury which is chaired by Allies and Morrison partner Graham Morrison said ‘The competition’s first stage attracted high-level interest from around the world and we were delighted with the response. In choosing the shortlist we looked for designers likely to produce a range of imaginative ways of making a beautiful and economic structure that is right for this very particular setting”.