Chronicle April 2016

5 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

the first cloisters, the Chapel, the Lodge, Big School (the Library and Old Library), and New Buildings (Mac’s). Now, over 130 years after it was first conceived, a new development unveiled this month by the School will complete ‘Simeon’s dream’. ‘This is a game-changer for the School’, said the Warden. ‘At a stroke, it will transform the academic life of St Edward’s, creating contemporary and versatile spaces to reflect today’s teaching and learning practices.’ ‘The School is growing’, explained the Bursar, Stephen Withers Green, ‘and we, like Simeon, need to prepare. The development will provide a purpose-built Library, a spacious and flexible university- style Academic Centre, and, in its final phase, a striking new Hall (working title: the Velodrome) with room for 1,000 people.’ Nicola Hunter, Deputy Head Academic and the School’s architecture expert, added, ‘This development not only completes the south-east corner of Simeon’s Quad but also provides a new, attractive mini-quad beyond. It is always a challenge to add new buildings to historic ones, and we have given the design a great deal of thought. The architect, Nick Hardy (TSH Architects), has taken some of the gothic revival features of

the original buildings, such as high-pitched roofs, the cloister and the colour scheme, and re-invented them. We wanted the new buildings to be ‘architecturally well-mannered’ in relation to the rest of the School, but we were determined to avoid pastiche – so the new buildings are unashamedly contemporary, using materials such as concrete and glass to echo and complement their surroundings, but with the thread of red brick giving unity to the composition. We are delighted with the proposals, described as ‘architecture of the highest order’ by the Oxford Design Review Panel, one of the bodies we consulted.’

A planning application for the new development will be submitted to Oxford City Council within the next few weeks. It is hoped that construction will begin in 2018, with phase 1, the Academic Centre, to be complete by 2020.

Descriptions of the School’s early years are taken from A New History of St Edward’s School, Oxford, 1863-2013, by Malcolm Oxley, available (£25) from the OSE Office (01865 319362).

The new Library and Academic Centre

The new Hall: the Velodrome