Building No 32 (Airmen'S Institute)

Airmen's Institute and recreation centre with dining room, built in 1926 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings to drawing number 709-12/26, with extensions added in 1935–6 and later works. The building is constructed of dark red English bond brickwork with hipped slate roofs, some later sections using asbestos-cement slate.

The main structure adopts a broad U-plan with a central range linked to two further ranges to the rear, and a late extension to the right executed in carefully copied detail. The building was designed for multiple uses, accommodating a dining room, card room, writing room, games room, kitchen and ancillary spaces. It originally housed 182 airmen and corporals.

The exterior features steel multi-pane casements set into flush chamfered concrete lintels with stooled sills. The recessed centre section has a hipped roof higher than the flanking wings, with arched lights to the ground floor; one opening on the right is a later glazed door, while a steel escape stair is positioned to the left. The two-bay wings return right in 5 bays and left in 2+3 bays, with the left section brought forward and terminating in its own hipped end. At the junction of these two parts on the north-west end stands a tall arched doorway with over-light, probably the original main entrance. The rear elevation contains various casements at both levels, connected to hipped or gabled service ranges linked by a flat-roofed single-storey unit.

Little original interior detail survives due to later remodelling, except for a first-floor room featuring a segmental-vaulted ceiling and brick dado with moulded rail.

The building retains the architectural style of the first phase of construction at RAF Bicester, representative of the first permanent designs created for Britain's independent air force. It forms part of an important historical group with the Sergeants' Mess and the 'E' type barracks blocks arranged around a generous parade ground, and relates to the later 1930s Expansion Period buildings to the north centred on the Officers' dining room and Institute. The building has a separate gated entry from Skimmingdish Lane. Following the construction of Building 20 in 1939, this building became the WRAF Mess.

RAF Bicester is the best-preserved of the bomber bases constructed following Sir Hugh Trenchard's expansion of the RAF from 1923, based on a philosophy of offensive deterrence. It retains the layout and fabric relating to both pre-1930s military aviation and the development of Britain's strategic bomber force better than any other military airbase in Britain, demonstrating how expansion reflected both domestic political pressures and events on the world stage through to 1939. The grass flying field survives with its 1939 boundaries largely intact, bounded by bomb stores built in 1938–9 and airfield defences constructed in the early Second World War period. During much of the Second World War, RAF Bicester functioned as an Operational Training Unit preparing Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British air crews for service in Bomber Command. These OTUs, of which Bicester now represents the premier surviving example, met the critical requirement of enabling bomber crews, trained individually in flying, bombing, gunnery and navigation, to form and train as operational units.