St Hilda’s College, Oxford releases concept designs for Redefining St Hilda’s invited competition

St Hilda’s College released today [January 28, 2016] images of the shortlisted concept designs produced by the five award-winning design teams competing to win the Redefining St Hilda’s invited design competition.

The £10m+ front-of-house development project, which is linked to the College 125th anniversary campaign, will improve and increase the amount of accommodation for students and Fellows, as well as providing new social and teaching spaces, a new Middle Common Room, Porters’ Lodge and entrance.

St Hilda’s College Principal, Professor Sir Gordon Duff, said:

‘These five teams have produced wonderful images and models to help us conceptualise their proposals. The brief was demanding and each team has responded with a different analysis of priorities and design opportunities. We very much look forward to the detailed assessment.

‘We are keenly aware of the legacy we give to future generations as well as the opportunity to enhance Oxford itself. This initiative is all about reimagining this beautiful site and creating an academic environment which is pleasing and satisfying to use, and which enables the College to flourish over the next hundred years.’

Competition organiser, Malcolm Reading, of Malcolm Reading Consultants, said:

‘The College can now review and debate five distinct concept designs from a superb shortlist. Each takes a different approach in celebrating the new gateway to the riverside site, combining this with a sequence of academic and residential accommodation that will give St Hilda’s an assured new building. The submissions sparkle with enthusiasm and ideas, which are passionately argued and beautifully presented.’

Announced in October 2015, the shortlisted teams are (in alphabetical order):

• 6a architects
• DRDH Architects
• Gort Scott
• Hall McKnight
• Tim Ronalds Architects

At the invited competition’s first stage, nineteen practices were invited to submit an Expression of Interest for the College, whose alumnae include The Economist’s Editor-in-Chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes; novelist, Barbara Pym; crime writer, Val McDermid; biographer and President of Wolfson College, Oxford, Professor Dame Hermione Lee; former United Nations’ Goodwill Ambassador and International Olympics Committee representative, HRH Princess Haya bint Hussein; and news presenter, Zeinab Badawi, BBC World News.

An exhibition of the concept designs will be held at the College for invited guests and stakeholders from February 1-12, 2016, with jury interviews taking place the following month and the winner announcement expected in late March 2016.

St Hilda’s College was one of the original group of five women’s colleges founded at Oxford at the end of the nineteenth century. Since 2008, it has selected its undergraduates and graduates without regard to gender. St Hilda’s now has one of the highest proportions of international undergraduate students of any college within the University.