The school is located adjacent to Oxford’s railway station and at the heart of a regeneration area of the city. The second phase of the Business School continues the design themes and values of the first phase which was opened in 2001. Developed around a central staircase, the new building includes a range of lecture theatres, classrooms and meeting facilities as well as a large club room and several dining areas.
The building has a striking appearance, featuring a range of aluminium doors and windows from Smart Architectural Aluminium. Over 685 square metres of Smart’s systems were used across the building, with the project featuring the company’s Superglide patio doors and Visoline tilt & turn, casement windows, and doors and frames. All of these were supplied in a polyester powder coated grey finish to reflect the overall design scheme of the development.
A striking feature of the new building’s external façade is an 8.2 metre run of Smart Visoglide sliding doors, installed in an unusual ‘zigzag’ formation. This creates an interesting aesthetic, shifting the view from the inside of the building towards the city of Oxford. The sliding doors also make the space extremely flexible, allowing easy movement between the club room and the large paved terrace.
Visoglide doors have also been used in other areas to provide a similar feeling of light and space to the meeting and dining rooms, some with access to external and others to internal balcony areas. Continuing the design theme, the Visoline casement and tilt & turn windows and single and Smart Wall double doors were installed where possible without mullions or transoms to accentuate the systems’ slim lines. Finally, an imposing Smart Wall double door leads students, staff and visitors from the building’s reception area to the central staircase and the facilities beyond.
The design, manufacture and installation of the door and window systems were all managed by Avdon Bristol Limited, one of Smart’s specialist fabrication partners, who worked in close partnership with Dixon Jones and main contractor Chalegrove Properties Ltd.
