Abercrombie Building, Oxford Brookes University. Design Engine Architects

ABERCROMBIE BUILDING Oxford Brookes University 1

ABERCROMBIE BUILDING Oxford Brookes University The Abercrombie Building forms the first phase of the much larger New Library and Teaching Building for Oxford Brookes University. The extended Abercrombie building rehouses and consolidates the Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment, which includes the School of Architecture. The extension runs to the south of Abercrombie and engages with the main New Library and Teaching Building, helping to knit the new with the old. The new extension is linked to the existing building by means of glass bridges and shared meeting galleries, forming a dramatic interior with internal spaces opening onto the void.2

“Oxford Brookes has been the university thatall new universities want to be. Now it will have the buildings for others to emulate as well.” The Independent. 3

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The building is an example to students of bestpractice in terms of sustainability, construction,design and facilities. The void itself, with its highglass roof forms an environmental moderator,allowing light and air in as well as framing viewsof areas not only on the same level, but to otherparts of the school and outside to a courtyard.Whilst the upper floors serve the faculty theground floor is part of the wider Universitydomain. The space incorporates a galleryspace as well as café and experimental sociallearning spaceThe specific brief for the Abercrombie Buildingwas to bring together for the first time thevarious disciplines of Architecture, Planningand Construction under one roof. As partof the overall masterplan it was necessaryto demolish an existing 1980s building (TheLloyd Building). This building contained thedepartment of planning and whilst connectedto the existing Abercrombie the physicallinkages were tenuous with convolutedcirculation and various half levels, meaning thespaces did not flow from one area to another.The Abercrombie facades are the first realisedelement of this intensive design development.They included a complex layering of structuraland planning grids to create a flexible building.The use of coloured glass in the façade alongwith the glass bridges creates shafts of intensecolour.In order to maintain the integrity of the ‘pegs’as they pass from outside to inside the internalfacades have been designed to mimic theexternal skin. However to respond to thedifferent environment the external dark greyfibre concrete rainscreen has been replacedwith dark grey acoustic panels. 5

“… this is absolutely exquisite…This is the beginningof a great modern cathedral of learning.”University chancellor Shami Chakrabarti, director of campaign group Liberty.



ABERCROMBIE BUILDING Oxford Brookes University Project Details Project Team Location Client Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University Completion Date Architect 2012 Design Engine Contract Value Structural Engineer £16m Ramboll Area Building Services Engineer 4800 sqm Grontmij Per m2 Cost £3330/sqm Quantity Surveyor Turner & Townsend Awards Specification Writer AJ Retrofit Award, Higher Education John Ahern (over £5m) 2014 Fire Engineering Consultant Grontmij Oxford Preservation Trust Award 2014 Acoustic Consultants Sandy Brown RIBA Building of the year (South) 2014 Landscape Consultants Landuse RIBA Sustainability Award (South) 2014 Furniture Consultants Design Engine RIBA Awards (South) 2014 CDMC QMP Building Control Approved Inspector HCD BREEAM Assessor Grontmij8

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Design Engine Architects LtdThe Studio, Coker CloseWinchester SO22 5FFT.+44(0)1962 890111www.designengine.co.uk10