Keble connection - residence building at Keble College in Oxford, England

Architectural Review, The, Sept, 1995 by Catherine Slessor

The new block comprises two types of living and studying accommodation - the traditional, monastic cell and the larger flat. Flats are located at the ends of the building, and are signified architecturally by the glazed protrusions of communal dining-cum-kitchen areas. Students tend to cook in their rooms, so this provides a safer and more convenient alternative, as well as a social focus.

Individual rooms have a mixture of loose and built-in furniture that exudes a Scandivian elegance and lightness; each also has its own modular shower and lavatory pod that simply slots into place on site. At basement level there are three common rooms that can be extended out to a generous south-facing terrace through a glass wall, creating an enlarged teaching or social space. The lawn of the Fellow's Garden slope gently down to meet the terrace.

Out of term time the building will be appropriated for conferences and seminars, as is now common practice with academic residences.

Despite being in the shadow of Butterfield's magnum opus, RMA's new building has a spirit of quiet, refined intensity, acting as a contemplative, modern foil to the effusive lyricism of history. In its assured manipulation of space and inventive attention to detail, it is also an exemplary embodiment of Keble's original principles of economy and simplicity of living.

(1) Oxford and Cambridge, Christopher Brooke, Roger Highfield, Wim Swaan, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p290. (2) The Buildings of England, Oxfordshire, Jennifer Sherwood and Nikolaus Pevsner, Penguin, 1975, p277.