Oxford Station

Oxford Station is an amalgamation of two historic train stations dating from the 1840s. It was partially rebuilt in the 1970s and 1990. The existing buildings are inadequate for the transport volume and fail to create a sense of arrival or place. The future Oxford station needs concourse spaces east and west of the tracks, to create a station that is addressing its context. 

Project Details +

Project Details

LOCATION: Oxford, UK

CLIENT: Brookgate/ Network Rail

DATE: 2021

STATUS: Invited Competition

SIZE: 500m2 Western concourse and ticket facilities, 7.500 m2 offices

Credits +

Credits

ACME: Alanoud Al-Radaideh, Cesar Cruz Gomez, Friedrich Ludewig


CONSULTANTS:
G&T (Gardiner and Theobald)

Redcliffe Camera Section

Bodleian Library

Arches as a Spaces of Discovery

As a first phase, the existing western buildings and parking structures require demolition. This allows for the construction of a new western entrance building and unlocks the future rebuilding of the eastern station side. The proposed western building creates an arched sequence of public spaces, with Network Rail and workplace above. The new massing respects the root protection zones of mature trees to preserve their street presence.

1. Site Boundary Footprint

2. Respect Trees

3. Unify Volume

Oxford Arches

Bodleian Library

Sir Roger Penrose

The interior of the station concourse is defined by pigmented concrete arches and the use of nonperiodic encaustic tiles. Penrose tiles are formed from two tiles that can only tile the plane non periodically and exhibit five-fold rotational symmetry, as found in the arrangement of atoms in quasicrystals. Discovered in 1974 by Sir Roger Penrose, the Oxford mathematician and Nobel Laureate in Physics, the tiles are a subtle link between the everyday routine of train journeys and the discoveries emerging from the exchange of knowledge in the city. 

Station Entrance Colonnade

Station Underpass

Related Projects

Cambridge North Masterplan

Vaclav Havel Airport Plaza

Dublin Central