Florey Building with attached walls and abutments

The Florey Building is a residential student block for Queen's College, Oxford, designed by James Stirling and Partners in 1966–1967 and constructed between 1968 and 1971. Roy Cameron served as associate architect, and Frank Newby of F J Samuely and Partners as engineer.

Materials

The reinforced-concrete structure is clad in panels of red ceramic tiles, as are the retaining wall of the courtyard (the tiled surface of the courtyard was replaced by grass in the late 20th or early 21st century), the podium, and the interior floors and stairs of the vestibule and breakfast room. The cloister wall and retaining walls are constructed of red engineering brick. Where the A-frame structure is exposed, it is fair-faced concrete. The glazed walls comprise clear or black patent glazing in aluminium frames, with clear vertical and black horizontal members. The interior walls and ceilings are white painted plaster, with dry-mounted acoustic partitions. The floors of the bedrooms retain a high proportion of original cork tiles, though some have been renewed, while the cork floors of the stairs and corridors, and vinyl floors of the service rooms were replaced by linoleum in the late 20th or early 21st century.

Plan

The building is roughly semi-circular, or horseshoe-shaped, in plan, facing north towards the River Cherwell. It is formed by five straight sections, or arms, of accommodation, the south-east arm of which is elongated. The building is raised above a ground-floor cloister and courtyard by 11 regularly-spaced reinforced-concrete A-frames, which form a colonnade. Nestled under the east and west arms are two small, flat-roofed and curved single-storey buildings containing a porter's flat and vestibule respectively. Parallel with the south-east arm are twin circulation towers, linked to the main building by glazed corridors. The building half-encloses a central courtyard which features a raised podium to the north-west corner over a raised basement breakfast room, on which stands a sculptural vent and wind vane.

Exterior

The outer, street-facing elevation has four storeys of accommodation—the top floor of which is double-height containing a mezzanine—raised above a ground-floor cloister. The façade of the upper floors is clad with panels of the same red tiles as the Leicester and Cambridge buildings of the Red Trilogy. Like traditional collegiate buildings, it turns its back on the town to create a private space for college members. The bulbous form of the building swells outwards on the first, second and third floors, before a vertical fourth floor and mezzanine. The red walls are substantially blind, articulated only by a short band of clerestory windows to each floor, and an entirely glazed mezzanine to the fourth floor. These upper floors are supported by a series of 11 reinforced-concrete A-frames, which are exposed on the ground and first floor of the outer elevation.

The twin circulation towers, similar to the Leicester and Cambridge buildings, mark the main point of entry to both the courtyard and the upper residential floors. Beside the porter's lodge, they are a modern interpretation of the collegiate gatehouse. The towers are linked to the upper floors of the student accommodation by glazed corridors, which reduce in length as the building swells outwards. At the north end of the east and west elevations, an angled glazed box projects approximately one metre from the sloping tiled façade at each half-landing of the fire-escape stairs, providing views from the stair to the river. The semi-circular building is terminated by blank gable ends to the river, which reinforce the bulbous profile of the exterior, and cascading glazed walls of the courtyard.

Nested under the A-frames are a single-storey flat-roofed porter's lodge on the east side and a vestibule on the west side, leading to the upper floors and basement breakfast room. Both have curved glazed walls, though some of the windows of the porter's lodge were replaced by uPVC in the late 20th or early 21st century. Both glazed structures are attached to a wall constructed of red engineering brick, which runs the length of the building under the A-frames, separating the outside public area from the private courtyard, and providing shelter for bicycle parking on each side. An opening in the red brick wall, adjacent to the porter's lodge and opposite the entrance to the twin circulation towers, provides access to the courtyard via a plain metal gate.

The inner or front courtyard elevation is concave, gently sloping backwards like the tiering of an amphitheatre, with glass cascading from the vertical double-height fourth floor over a staggered and sloped third, second and first floor. The walls are continuously glazed, with uninterrupted views over the courtyard, meadow and city beyond. The patent glazing system, also used at Leicester and Cambridge, has closely-spaced slender aluminium glazing bars and tall narrow glass panes. The fenestration incorporates ventilation louvres at the upper and lower level of each floor, and aluminium window-cleaning ladders at each level. The upper sections of the A-frames are visible through the glazing, and are exposed on the ground floor where they form a covered walkway or cloister, approximately three metres wide, under the raised building.

Openings in the red-brick wall provide direct access to the courtyard from the east escape stair, the porter's lodge, and west escape stair and breakfast room. The cloister is separated from the raised courtyard by a red-tiled plinth wall, with narrow flights of red-tiled steps cutting into the raised courtyard, in line with the corner of each arm of the building. The raised courtyard, formerly tiled and now with a grass covering, has nine wide red-tiled steps to an angled square-plan podium in the north-west corner, also the roof of the semi-sunken breakfast room. The podium retains a sculptural weather vane, formerly painted Stirling's signature shade of bright green, which also acts as a ventilator to the breakfast room below. The breakfast room has sloped clerestory windows to its north-west and north-east elevations to the river.

The north side of the courtyard and podium are bounded by a monumental floating tiled handrail, similar to that at Cambridge. From the north-west corner of the cloister, a red-tiled ramp descends along the north side of the courtyard to the riverside walk. The riverside walk has concrete paving, a monumental floating cast-concrete rail on slender supports, and a concrete punt mooring. While it was originally intended that the main pedestrian access would be via the riverside walk and ramp, the riverside walk was not completed by the Council, and the building can now only be accessed from the vehicular entrance from the south-east at St Clements.

Interior

The building contains 19 double-height bedrooms and a fellow's apartment on the fourth floor with mezzanine sleeping galleries over, 58 single bedrooms of varying sizes on the third, second and first floors, a glazed porter's flat and vestibule at ground-floor level, and a semi-sunken basement breakfast room. All the bedrooms are located on the inner courtyard side of a corridor which runs the length of each floor, while the outer street-facing side of the corridors house the service rooms. All walls and ceilings are painted plaster, with dry-mounted acoustic partitions between rooms, and joinery painted a Cotswold stone colour.

The student bedrooms were designed to have underfloor electric heating and cork flooring, and vary in size between 10 and 22.7 square metres. The minimum width of the regular-shaped rooms is three metres and the minimum depth, excluding storage, is 3.7 metres, allowing flexibility in the arrangement of bed furniture. The entrance wall is a continuous storage unit, containing bookshelves, cupboards, and a wash basin. The glazed wall overlooking the courtyard formerly had silver roller blinds, drawn from ceiling to floor—originally intended by Stirling to be drawn from floor to ceiling—however these were replaced by curtains in the late 20th or early 21st century, when secondary glazing was introduced to the first, second and third floor bedrooms. The double-height rooms on the fourth floor retain their original single glazing. Natural ventilation is provided by two sets of hand-operated glass louvres close to the ground and ceiling, continuous across the width of the room and building.

The double-height rooms on the fourth floor have internal timber stairs leading to a sleeping gallery, bounded by a tubular-steel balustrade and handrail. Intermediate posts were introduced in the late 20th or early 21st century. The fellow's apartment is 49 square metres, and comprises a principal sitting room, and two rooms which could be used as two bedrooms, or a bedroom and study.

On the outer street-facing side of the corridors, small service rooms provide four lavatories, two bathrooms, two shower rooms, and storage rooms on each floor. The corridors and stairs formerly had a cork tile covering, and the service rooms a vinyl covering, both replaced by linoleum in the late 20th or early 21st century. At the junctions of the arms where there are no service rooms, these angles, referred to as gyp areas, were intended to be small communal areas, though no furniture survives.

Access is provided to each floor via a main stair and lift in the twin towers. As at Cambridge, secondary stairs at each end of the corridors provide connections between each internal floor, and fire escape to the north-east and north-west ends of the cloister. Throughout the building, each stair and gallery has tubular-steel railings, formerly painted Stirling's signature bright shade of green, however these were painted white and intermediate horizontal and vertical safety rails introduced in the late 20th or early 21st century. The stairs from the breakfast room to the glazed vestibule, and from the vestibule to the first floor, retain red-tile steps.

The semi-sunken basement under the podium accommodates a communal breakfast room, kitchen and servery counter, with slender mushroom pillars, red-tiled floors, and high-level clerestory windows providing privacy from the riverside walk. The glazed porter's office and flat adjacent to the main entrance retains its original layout.