Bartlemas Housing

New graduate student accommodation for Oriel College on the site of a former leper colony owned by the College since 1329.

The project is designed to form a boundary and an appropriate setting for the core buildings of the Bartlemas Conservation Area.

Buildings embody high levels of environmental sustainability, following on from MBA's previous student accommodation building for St. Peter's College at St George's Gate in 1994. Bartlemas incorporates:

• Low CO2 in construction
• Closed loop ground source heat pumps
• Use of passive solar heating through orientation, shading and solar chimneys
• Triple glazing to windows
• Bio-diverse green roofs
• Breathing walls of timber frame construction with sheeps wool insulation.

Stone plinths refer to the Oxford tradition. Above, timber frame and timber cladding with varying board dimensions reflect the relationship with Bartlemas Chapel. Roofs are a combination of bio-diverse green roofs and pitched roofs faced with natural stone slates laid traditionally to diminishing courses.

The housing forms an open sided courtyard clustered around a natural watercourse which will be adapted to increase boidiversity. The form relates to the Grade I Listed chapel and the core historic buildings of the Conservation Area. The scheme resulted from a Conservation and Management Plan and dialogue with Oxford City Council’s conservation and planning department and with neighbours, resulting in significant modifications during design development. An exhibition and public consultation of preliminary proposals took place on 15 June 2007. They have since been modified to take account of comments.

To view project information in PDF format, click on the links below:

Employer: Oriel College, Oxford
Construction team:
Marcus Beale Architects
Operon/Genex: environmental consultants
Russ Canning: landscape architects
Charlesworth and Co: Quantity Surveyors

Sector: Residential/Education
Location: Oxford, UK
Proj/Arch: Marcus Beale
Job/Arch: James Donlon
Status: Live
Year: 2004-2008