Building study: Cohen Quad, Exeter College by Alison Brooks Architects

近几十年来，牛津大学及其学院大规模扩张了他们的领地。一个重要的推动因素是，希望让所有学生都住进大学自有住房。随着大学内部潜在的地块已经用完，越来越多的新建筑出现在运动场的边缘和偏远的郊区。

Sadly, many of these annexes have failed to capture the character of an Oxford college. Student bedrooms clustered around a poorly utilised common room and desultory landscaping is commonplace, often with little to animate the internal spaces or create a sense of connection with the wider university and city.

It’s therefore gratifying to see how Alison Brooks Architects (ABA) have managed to capture the true essence of an Oxford college with their new Cohen Quad building for Exeter College. Although a nine-minute walk from Exeter’s historic home on Turl Street, the Cohen Quad avoids the pitfalls of the remote college annex.

The Cohen Quad building is envisaged very much as an extension to Exeter’s main site on Turl Street. It’s success is helped by the fact that it’s close to the heart of the city, in Oxford’s Jericho quarter, and also because it is envisaged as a true extension of the college, rather than a forlorn residential outpost.

This is a project that manages to recreate the atmosphere of a college in miniature, through an enriching mix of uses, detailed research into historic precedents, and careful consideration of how its occupants interact.

The concept of legacy runs deep in Oxford

Two c-shaped courtyards are linked to create an s-shaped plan along a narrow plot facing Walton Street and Worcester Place. The building retains an existing façade along these two elevations, but everything behind is entirely new build.

当艾莉森·布鲁克斯(Alison Brooks)带我穿过大楼时，我问她，牛津剑桥委员会是否曾是她对这项业务的雄心之一。“当然!她告诉我。“你真的不可能找到比埃克塞特学院更好的客户了。他们懂得传承和长寿的重要性。”

The concept of legacy runs deep in Oxford, where colleges think in terms of centuries, not just years or decades. Exeter wanted a building that would last at least 200 years. For some, the weight of history at such an institution is stultifying. Brooks is not one of those people – she is clearly energised by the context and the opportunities that it’s offered. “I believe there is something that’s future heritage. We should be designing it now”, she tells me.

Exeter counts William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones amongst its alumni, and Brooks has happily tapped into this inheritance, seeking to channel their arts and crafts ethos, as well as her own well-articulated design philosophy.

In her new bookIdeals then Ideas，她提出了她的四个指导原则:“真实、慷慨、文明和美丽”。这是对拉斯金自己的七盏灯的清晰呼应，并巧妙地联系到拉斯金启发的那些以价值为基础的设计理念。

It’s refreshing that Brooks talks unashamedly about beauty in architecture

With the Cohen Quad, Brooks has been given the opportunity to put these ideas into practice, and she hasn’t shied away from controversy. “Beauty” for example is a concept often sniggered at in the architectural mainstream – too “subjective” or nebulous for traditional modernists to waste their time with.

Treated as the weird preoccupation of right-wingers like Roger Scruton for decades, it’s refreshing that Brooks talks unashamedly about beauty in architecture. She clearly wants to reclaim the word. Like those arts and crafts precursors, there’s an implication in her theoretical stance that architects who aren’t aspiring to beauty are perhaps not aspiring to create true architecture at all.

Exeter College was founded in 1314 and is the fourth oldest in the university. It’s been located on its prime central location since 1315, with little room for further significant expansion since the 16^thcentury. In 2008 it put in place its first ever strategic plan, identifying the need for more student accommodation as well as teaching and conference facilities.

The Cohen Quad site was originally occupied by Ruskin College, which has since decamped entirely to its Old Headington campus. In 2010 Ruskin College put its central Oxford site up for auction. “New properties come up very rarely”, says Rick Trainor, Exeter’s rector.

埃克塞特大学在与其他大学的激烈竞争中获得了这块地，并于2011年发起了建筑竞赛。学院希望新场地能够与原建筑连接起来，目的是让生活在场地上的学生和学者能够更自由地混合。

Brooks says the competition brief was essentially “How to reimagine the collegiate ideal for the 21^stcentury.” The practice undertook extensive research into the college typology to understand its origins in what Brooks describes as a “defensive monastic community”.

她告诉我:“牛津的四方院子有一些非常奇妙的东西。一个共同生活、共同学习、共同社交的社区的原则对我很有吸引力。”“这是一种教学模式，用四轴形式表达自己。”

Brooks将主要的设计挑战描述为“如何在一个狭长的场地中唤起这种感觉”。她还指出:“传统的牛津建筑往往非常薄。能够看穿整个建筑是非常重要的。”实践的解决方案是三面开放的四边形，复制和旋转形成s形平面，主要流通路线贯穿建筑的脊柱长度。

ABA也对如何鼓励建筑内部的活动和互动感兴趣。布鲁克斯说:“我们想探索该建筑如何吸引人们外出使用空间。”“自由和选择有助于让人们感到自己是社区的一部分。”在Cohen Quad建筑中，这是通过流动的空间和视觉连接实现的。

It’s at ground floor and basement level that ABA have really explored the organisational opportunities presented by the long, sloping site. These are expressed through split-levels and playful shifts in perspective. At ground level the central circulation morphs along its length. Where it runs along the side of the two “quads”, it becomes what Brooks describes as a “cloister”.

Each of these two glazed cloisters is given a distinct architectural treatment. The first has a series of spruce CLT archways and the second has concrete arches. But both subtly play with perspective, through the constantly changing width and height of the archways, as well as the gently sloping floor. It’s a highly seductive way of drawing the visitor deeper into the building.

Brooks describes the central communal split-level space as the “learning commons”. Again, one of the most successful aspects of the project is the way in which it recreates that mix of academic and domestic spaces that characterises so many Oxbridge colleges. Brooks describes it as her ideal university building, a place that isn’t just somewhere to sleep but somewhere where you can spend all your time, a ”scholarly home.”

All of the ground floor teaching rooms have fully glazed partitions facing onto the circulation areas. Brooks says that this was an aspect of the design that she felt very strongly about, as it enables women in particular to see and gauge what’s going on in a room before entering.

可见性和透明度是整个公共区域的优先事项。布鲁克斯说:“作为一名女性，当你走进一个房间时，你会感到非常难为情。”“蜂窝房间的原则是，你要么在里面，要么在外面。我觉得这需要通过消除界限和模糊空间来挑战。”

This ability to see and understand what is happening around you is further enhanced by the split-levels in the “learning commons”, which flit across four different layers. “You can see what’s going on. It feels welcoming and informal and relaxed. Everyone loves the playfulness of split levels,” Brooks says.

The journey through the ground floor terminates at the Fitzhugh Auditorium, a generous multipurpose space with a sweeping sculptural glulam roof structure. Brooks describes the auditorium as echoing the role of the chapel in the main college. The roof is cut and folded, allowing it to lift up and bring light down into the space. The auditorium is entirely column free, with flitch plates connecting the two sides of the timber roof.

Voids in the ground floor slab lead down into the basement level, where there’s a café, special archive store, and various administrative and service spaces. The basement student common room feels like a bit of an afterthought, but is perhaps superfluous anyway, given the generosity and popularity of the other communal spaces.

The Neil Blair special collections room in the basement is lit by a simple oculus and lined with cherry wood. Cherry is used extensively throughout the building. Brooks says “There’s a lot of oak in Oxford but I find it a bit cold and green. Cherry is from my youth. I grew up in a house full of cherry wood. My mum waxed lyrical about it. I love it.” Harder Jatoba wood (Brazilian cherry) has been used elsewhere for flooring and staircases.

The college recently acquired two stained glass windows by Edward Burne Jones, which had been discovered in a church in Kentish Town and put up for auction. They sit rather forlornly at the end of a basement corridor, with artificial back lighting. The acquisition apparently came after the building’s design was completed. It’s a shame these relics haven’t been more wholeheartedly integrated into the building. Hopefully time will allow the college to find them a more appropriate setting.

Upstairs, a William Morris rug, previously on the floor of the rector’s lodge, is rather more successfully hung on a four-by-four metre wall. Again though, it feels a missed opportunity not to have found a more integral role for this link back to the college’s past, especially within a building that seeks to celebrate the arts and craft tradition.

在较高的住宅楼层，建筑的特点改变为一个更传统的蜂窝布局。我看到的学生宿舍简单实用，信箱窗紧挨着课桌。浴室是预先组装好的吊舱。樱桃门和门框大量使用，每个学生门上方的海军灯具增加了一种古怪的触感。“家庭厨房”在每层都有岛屿单元，为学生提供额外的温暖和欢乐的社交空间。

Six of the college’s thirty teaching fellows are accommodated on site, adding to the sense of this being a true college in miniature. The fellows’ teaching sets are on the top floor within the roof and have tall, curved ceilings reminiscent of Aalto or Utzon. Each includes a study, bedroom and bathroom. A beautiful top floor senior common room with an enticing roof terrace is apparently only very rarely used because staff prefer to use the café downstairs.

该建筑是自然通风的，传感器触发窗户打开，以确保新鲜空气。然而，就在我去的那天(甚至在最近的热浪到来之前)，顶楼热得令人窒息。正如布鲁克斯所指出的，“当你有一个自然通风的建筑，它必须积极管理。安装了窗户驱动器的空间温度非常完美，但需要人们打开窗户的地方更热。”这似乎将成为所有建筑中越来越重要的问题，这将需要对居住者进行主动热控制管理的教育。

Brooks描述了在获得批准的过程中遇到的一系列规划挑战。这是一个敏感的地方，一边是伍斯特学院(Worcester College)，另一边是杰里科传统的工人阶级和工业街道。保留现有的1913年罗斯金学院façade是一个规划要求。“规划者说屋顶看起来太法式了，”她告诉我，尽管最终的规划审批在2014年以5票对4票通过。

The roof itself is characteristically Brooksian

布鲁克最初的竞赛作品建议保留整个1913年的建筑。但经过广泛的建模，ABA决定，现有的结构，无数的步骤和22楼梯，不适合翻新。因此，建筑师决定保留沃尔顿街和伍斯特广场的立面，但拆除其余部分。

The roof itself is characteristically Brooksian. Chequered white and grey stainless steel roof shingles by Rimex are oxidised to capture different wavelengths of light. “I believe expressive roofs are a really fundamental element in architecture, neglected since the advent of modernism,” Brooks tells me. “A city’s image comes from its roofscape.”

The mansard roof contains two floors of the building and Brooks sees it as “a type of soft and enveloping cloak”. The diamond pattern in the mansard’s cladding comes from the original college chapel’s spire. Brooks asserts that the form of the roof connects the building to the domestic. ”Craft that speaks of home,” she says.

Brooks insists that Paris was not on the practice’s mind when the roof was conceived and makes a reasonably case for being able to use a mansard roof outside French soil. “I don’t think mansard roofs can only be used in Paris”, she says. But the Parisian connotations are inescapable.

The majority of the building is constructed from post-tensioned concrete slabs, with the thermal mass of the concrete and the exterior Bath and Clipsham stonework helping to manage internal temperatures. Ground source heat pumps and hot water solar panels also form part of the building’s overall environmental strategy.

Cohen Quad is a living manifestation of what the contemporary, inclusive, Oxford college has become

ABA explored making the whole structure from CLT but found this would have required extra layers of studwork and plasterboard either side of the CLT for fire and acoustic insulation. Brooks describes this as a learning journey that led to the realisation that CLT is not always the best.

The only thing noticeably lacking from the Cohen Quad building is a student bar. This was apparently a deliberate decision to ensure that the Turl Street site retained its social primacy within the college. Despite this, the Cohen Quad is hugely popular. Rick Trainor, the college’s rector, says “Many of our students who don’t even live here also use the building.”

Trainor joined the college after the Cohen Quad was already on site. Initially unsure about the project, he says “I’ve been thoroughly won over by this building. Students want to live here because they say ‘it’s so beautiful’. I went from being a sceptic to a true believer.” Trainor describes it as a “very functional building in the best way, combining informality and adaptability.”

This building feels like a genuine evolution of the collegiate tradition, imbued with a profound empathy for the Oxford college typology, and a fascination with what makes these institutions unique. Cohen Quad is a living manifestation of what the contemporary, inclusive, Oxford college has become.

Although this is only ABA’s first Oxbridge commission, this project demonstrates a deep understanding of what makes such college environments a success, and why the collegiate tradition remains relevant in the 21^stcentury. It will be fascinating to see how the practice’s work develops with its forthcoming porters’ lodge and library project at Homerton College in Cambridge.