The next chapter in 448 years of architectural history
CLIENT: JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD
INDUSTRY: EDUCATION
FORMAT: PRINT, DIGITAL
MY ROLE: INTERVIEW & COPYWRITING
In the city of dreaming spires, there’s no such things as ‘just’ a building.
Here, the architectural is personal.
That’s why, when it came to its Northgate House development in the centre of Oxford, Jesus College wanted to o get its communications right.
To help its alumni feel involved in the process and reassured that the College they remember was being preserved, Jesus College commissioned a feature about the development for its annual alumni magazine.
I conducted an interview with MICA architects, along with background research on the project, to write a feature that would give alumni an insight into the strategic and architectural thinking behind the College’s most significant development in three decades.
Read the full article below.
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
MICA ARCHITECTS DISCUSS THE NORTHGATE SITE
As the College continues with its plans for Northgate site – the most significant enhancement the city centre site has seen in three decades – we talked with Director Stuart Cade and Senior Associate Mandy Franz, who will be leading the project at MICA Architects, the firm commissioned to take on the development.
MICA Architects, formerly Rick Mather Associates, has a long history of designing high-quality academic and collegiate buildings in Oxford. Their projects include the new Ashmolean Museum building and an award-winning new library extension for The Queen’s College, as well as numerous projects with Keble College.
This heritage, along with the firm’s experience with large, mixed-use developments, made them the ideal choice for the Northgate project. The project will begin with the demolition of the existing Northgate building down to ground level to make way for a new development, the College’s Fourth Quad, which will incorporate retail space, academic facilities and accommodation.
For MICA Architects, the challenge of creating one building which could meet so many different needs was one they relished. Not only will the new site continue to incorporate retail spaces targeted at independent retailers and intended to help regenerate Cornmarket Street, it will also include 68 graduate rooms and four Fellows’ sets, outdoor space and a flexible area for gatherings, exhibitions and performances.
OPENING NEW DOORS
Stuart Cade, one of MICA’s two directors, explains that reframing the Northgate site as another entrance for the College on Market Street was key to their proposal. Where the building is currently perceived as the back of College, MICA ‘wanted to give Jesus College a presence and a frontage, turning the back of the College into an entrance to be proud of’. This chimes with our vision for the site as a public gateway for the College, opening it up and making it more accessible, both physically and virtually.
Central to this will be the impressive Gatehouse, a tall structure incorporating a street-level entrance to the new Fourth Quad with a function room at the top. The entrance will give much-needed disabled access to parts of the College which were not previously accessible as well as leading to flexible spaces which will be used for access and outreach. The Tower Room is set to be a modern reinterpretation of a Tudor gatehouse room, with wood panelling, a carefully designed ceiling and large windows. Not only will the vast windows make the most of spectacular views across Jesus College’s existing buildings, the Radcliffe Camera and Christ Church Meadow, they will also give a sense of openness and transparency when seen from the street below.
BUILDING ON TRADITION
The thought of looking out over this quintessential Oxford view from such a thoroughly modern building only serves to reinforce how carefully MICA Architects have had to balance the historic and the modern in the conception of the new development. Stuart Cade points out that their aim has always been to create “a twenty-first century addition to a sixteenth-century college […] building sensitively but without pastiche”.
Mandy Franz, Senior Associate on the project, describes how elements of the existing college architecture will be carried through into the new site to create a modern building which feels very much part of Jesus College. “The recesses and string coursing above the new windows and the bronze metal edging will all echo the distinctive windows of the older College buildings. We’re also building in Clipsham stone, matching the materials used in the new building with those used in the rest of the College.”
“It will be a public gateway for the College, opening it up both physically and virtually.”
Stuart Cade, Director of MICA
This sensitive approach has met with wholehearted approval from Historic England, which considers the proposed building to be ‘a well-designed and careful contemporary response to its context’. The organisation, which exists to protect England’s historical buildings and monuments, is supporting the planning application for the Northgate site.
HONOURING THE PAST AND EMBRACING THE FUTURE
Careful historical research and sensitive design which allows existing structures, like the Fellows’ Library, to shine are central to MICA Architects’ proposed design. But, with the Northgate development, Jesus College is also planning and building for the future. Desirable new graduate accommodation will form a significant part of the development, in line with the College’s aim to increase graduate student numbers. Future students will enjoy new teaching rooms, spaces for academic study and collaboration, a café, and a second-floor roof garden which will form the centre of Fourth Quad.
The innovative new Digital Hub will be used to promote interdisciplinary learning and research, bringing students and academics together. This flexible Hub will be the largest single space in the College: a place for the whole College to gather. Designed to incorporate digital media displays and projection, the Digital Hub will be used for performances, films, talks and exhibitions, as well as welcoming school groups as part of the College’s ongoing access and outreach programme.
The Northgate site will provide the location for which the College’s undergraduate, graduate and Fellowship communities will convene, bringing together the best ideas in intersecting research areas from various elements of the College and of the University. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a number of very successful models for such spaces, where the best researchers are given time, space and the structure to share, exchange and evaluate their work.
This exciting development has an important role to play in the future of the College, helping us to achieve our ambition of providing ‘an outstanding and transformative educational experience for students and supporting excellence in research and scholarship’. There are many opportunities for alumni to be involved with this landmark project, including opportunities to support academics in sharing their research as described above. The College hopes to make a substantial start on the redevelopment.
