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 for 31 student rooms to be used by graduate students of Oriel College. It is designed to form a boundary and an appropriate setting for the core buildings of the Bartlemas Conservation Area.

The buildings embody high levels of environmental sustainability including:

• 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.

The housing forms an open sided courtyard clustered around a natural watercourse which will be adapted to increase boidiversity. The forms relate to the Grade I Listed chapel and the core historic buildings of the Conservation Area. Stone plinths support walls of timber frame and timber cladding. Above are bio-diverse green roofs and pitched roofs faced with natural stone slates laid traditionally to diminishing courses.

The scheme is based on several years of research and consultation including the perparation of a Conservation and Management Plan, extensive dialogue with Oxford City Council’s conservation and planning department and with neighbours, a planning application in 2008 and an appeal in 2009. All of this has informed the design which aims to create an appropriate development in a much loved and highly sensitive historic context.

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

Related project:
Bartlemas Conservation Plan

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: 2004-2009