Kendrew Quadrangle
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Peter Durant (website) Download Original
Student accommodation block arranged around three sides of an open quadrangle
The four storey building forms a south facing courtyard around a historic beech tree.
Communal and academic facilities, including an events room, law library, archive, teaching rooms and a gym occupy the ground floor. On the upper floors there are approximately 80 student rooms with en-suite shower pods and 6 small flats for college fellows.
The student rooms are divided by a series of parallel concrete fin walls, which are expressed by wooden boxes arranged around the central courtyard. A café is at the heart of the scheme within a double height glass box.
The schemes sustainability strategy includes active measures such as a biomass boiler, ground source heat-pumps, and solar panels, as well as passive measures such as air-tightness and insulation.
The building envelope is complicated and airtight, so pre-fabrication was considered for most parts of the elevations and the en-suite shower pods.
Data
- Begun: Apr 2008
- Completed: Jun 2010
- Floor area: 6,000m2
- Sectors: Education, Residential
- Total cost: £35M
- Address: St John’s College, St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JP, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: MJP Architects
- Project architects: David Rose, Tony Pryor
- Client: St John's College, Oxford
- Main contractor: Kingerlee
- Structural engineer: Price & Myers Geometrics
- Services engineer: Michael Popper Associates
- Landscape architect: Camlins
- Art Consultant: Modus Operandi
- Acoustic engineer: Arup Acoustics
- Quantity surveyor: Northcroft
