The distinctive external facades are constructed using handmade red brick, again carefully chosen to match adjacent buildings designed by Champneys. The windows and doors are bronze anodised, selected to reference the iconic Clough Gates. To add relief to the facades, “curtains” of decorative dogtooth brickwork stripe down the walls, picking up on the strong verticality of the Pfeiffer Arch and the Fawcett Building.
This attention to detail and the link to the College’s strong heritage earned the project RIBA National Building of the Year 2019.
The Dorothy Garrod Building provides teaching, research, conference and social facilities at ground floor level, with outstanding student accommodation on the upper two floors; a glass gymnasium at roof level provides striking contrast to the rooftop gardens which offer memorable views across the existing College grounds.
The building has been designed to incorporate sustainable / renewable energy sources to operate in conjunction with passive means of reducing CO2 emissions. The building's fabric is exceptionally well insulated, devised to exceed the requirements of current Building Regulations; subsequently heat losses and external heat gains are minimised, allowing by way of compromise the installation of large windows which provide generous levels of natural daylight. The careful combination of natural and mechanical ventilation eliminates the need for artificial cooling.
