Brasenose College, Oxford commissioned me to photograph recent work undertaken in their Grade I listed library by Lee Fitzgerald Architects. Besides conservation and renovation of the main library, the architects designed a new reading room in cloisters extending beneath the library from the adjoining chapel, while above, an upper reading room was renewed and fitted with additional  bookcases to match existing ones. 

The redesign of the cloisters as a reading room restores the single volume of the original architecture, while creating a flexible space for study, book storage and events, including occasional dining. This area is now linked to the main library by a new stone and metal spiral staircase. The cloisters screen has been stripped back to natural stone and a previously hidden stone floor, complete with centuries old burial slabs, has been reinstated. At the far end of the cloisters, a seminar room for group working has been installed, with single volume legibility retained via structural glass panels. Mashrabiya screens lightly divide the cloisters principal reading area, folding back onto a full-length bookcase along one side for events. 

Library, cloisters and chapel all date from between 1656 and 1666 and on the exterior form two sides of Deer Park, the college’s second quadrangle, which has been newly landscaped by the architects.

This project won Lee Fitzgerald Architects: RIBA South Award 2019, RIBA South Project Architect of the Year 2019 and RIBA South Conservation Award 2019.