Wolfson and Rayne Buildings, St Anne's College

Oxford, like all universities, expanded in the post-war period in a drive to increase numbers in Higher Education. Its status as a historic centre with valuable built heritage enabled quality in its architectural commissions of the period and a wealth of great modern buildings are testament to this. Howell, Killick and Partridge designed several schemes across the city, including this pair of residential halls at St. Anne’s College. The Wolfson and Rayne Buildings were part of a phased masterplan that was intended to be built over a period of fifteen years from 1961 and include another four such blocks arranged in a curving plan around the existing college lawn and a new lake – only these two and a gate house (demolished, 2014) were constructed to the ambitious plan. The 45 study bedrooms in each block were symmetrically arranged around a central lozenge shaped core. Slightly splayed walls, set perpendicular to the curve established centrally created a convex façade on each side and angled gable walls that cup the entrances. Developing their ‘chocolate box’ aesthetic as seen in their competition entry for Churchill College, Cambridge, the architects used a projecting pre-cast concrete module to create a space somewhere between an oriel window and a balcony to each room. The modules were a single piece and weighed two tons (2032kg), the arris was particularly fine and gave them a lightness not usually afforded to concrete. The overall sculptural form of the buildings was achieved with this simple planning and a fairly typical construction of load bearing brick cross walls and reinforced concrete floors tied back to the in-situ cast gables. The lake was never realised. These buildings were listed in 1993 [1].

[1] https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1369457

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