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."

St Cross Ground Breaking

February 2015

Building has started on our project for St. Cross College in Oxford. It will accommodate a library, seminar rooms and 53 post-graduate rooms just behind St. Giles. Soon after excavation started, we uncovered the shrouded remains of a woman buried in 1642 during the English Civil War. Oxford Archaeologists dated her from the coins that had been placed on her eyes. After a pause to remove the remains, the builders have started foundations around the historic walls. Completion is expected by May 2016.

A Ground Breaking Ceremony was held on the site on 27th February. Practical Completion of the building is anticipated in May 2016. You can follow progress on site by accessing the contractor’s webcam here (un:stcrosscollege; pw:oxford)