Cristian Francioso

Terminus:  A gateway to Oxford, interpreting the city through the derive. 

Observing the standard practice of tourists visiting Oxford revealed the disconnect between the person and the place as a result of technology and financial strategy.  The derive offers a way to resolve this disconnection. The building is the first point of arrival at Oxford’s Gloucester Green bus station welcoming tourists to pass through, offering a habitual experience (haircut/new shoes/drink etc.) that changes their perceptions and allows them to explore Oxford through the derive.

Year 2

Emily James

Terminus:  High Tea, Low Tea – Tearoom, Gloucester Green Bus Station 

Through defining “high” tea as a high cream tea, and “low” tea as a greasy spoon cuppa, my tearoom design challenges our expectations of the spaces we visit through illusion.  The kitchen acts as a catalyst between the two tearooms, through which the tricks of reverse hierarchy are revealed to the inhabitants who leave questioning their expectations of Oxford as a city. 

Year 3

Fiori Koustas

Terminus: INN – BETWEEN

The INN – BETWEEN is a short stay Inn, at the bus terminal in the city of Oxford, creating a dream-like space with an ambiance that promotes relaxation and sleep. The spaces conceptually form a real and unreal world, where day-trippers and bus drivers can relax and have a unique experience.  The INN- BETWEEN includes a lounge with comfortable seating, a secluded business centre, and a snack bar.  For travellers who wish to nap or have complete privacy, chair-beds are provided, which can transport into bedrooms with private washrooms facilities available for 1- 24 hour stays.

Year 3

Tirion Hughes

The Alleyway Theatre

Year 2

Tristan Hubbard

Terminus: ‘Trojan Gowns’

The project seeks to explore the potential of a weaving facility for the Oxford graduation gowns as an insight into the power dynamics between ‘Town and Gown’. The novel ‘Jude the Obscure’ by Thomas Hardy proposed a position to the project bringing light to the unspoken stories of the worker’s (Town) Oxford. Whilst occupying environmental and programmatic conditions demanded by the fabrics and machinery housed within, narrative threads transport the project into a wider conversation of Oxford’s and societal imbalance.

Year 3

Toby Ackerman

Terminus: The Office Jazz Club 

Located in Gloucester Green, Oxford, the office jazz club tells the story of bored call-centre workers who decide to improvise, re-shape, and re-use the elements of the existing office building over time, to establish and construct Oxford’s first proper Jazz club.

Year 2

Gemma Lea

Terminus: City of Towers

At it’s heart operating as a printer’s and laundry the project latches onto the traditions of Oxford University and the site’s opportunities to create a “closed-cycle” production space, where the trash of one process becomes the main ingredient of the next process; producing little to no waste.

Year 3

Lucy Perrin

Terminus: Public Swimming Pool, Gloucester Green, Oxford 

This project is designed to fill the need for accessible, calming, and joyful swimming experience in the centre of Oxford.  The project uses rainwater harvesting and natural filtering techniques, acting as a mechanism to reduce flooding and is focussed on developing people's confidence in swimming. 

Year 3

Jess Gardner

Terminus: Lavender soap bus station

My intervention combining a new bus station with a lavender farm and soap recycling facility, collecting a distributing soap from the city’s guest houses and hotels, aims to make Gloucester Green ‘more green’, improving the sustainability and biodiversity of the city whilst creating an exciting and memorable experience for everyone travelling in and out of the city. 

Year 3

Ines Reino Da Costa

Terminus: The Pitch

The Pitch is an intergenerational club in Cascais, Portugal, providing an opportunity for recently retired business people to network and socialize, while the club’s staff of young entrepreneurs pitch business ideas and seek investment for their start-up ideas from club members. The project provides social spaces for the members and spaces to nurture new start-up businesses.

Year 3

Marco Nicholas

Terminus - Dionysian indulgence departure lounge 

On the surface, this building is a waiting environment and departure lounge for passengers of Gloucester Green bus station in Oxford.  The architecture inside the building, however, encourages visitors to overindulge, detach from their reality and succumb to their Dionysian impulses.

Year 3

Orestis Hasikos

Terminus: Casino

Between each game the casino offers the choice to continue gambling or an alternative providing a similar dopamine stimulus.

The project engages in the tactics and strategies that might encourage users to stop and do something else; the building acting as a “spatial observatory” to reinforce awareness of time passing and connections outside.  At the same time the design tempts the users to carry on to the next game.  The final decision is the user’s.

Year 3

Rafael Ceriz

Talking:Shop -Eynsham Inn-Between

Located in Eynesham, the inn inhabits the remnants of an Old Bakery drawing in visitors, local residents, and curious passers-by, amidst exposed masonry walls, timber detailing and an open fire.    The openness of the tavern becomes increasingly private and intimate in the journey to the bedrooms, while the Innkeeper, maintains a close eye on his guests.  Eavesdropping their conversations and passing unnoticed, he spies strategically to relay his knowledge to other visitors, positioning himself as Eynsham’s central figure of gossip and folklore.

Terminus: Waiting for Uckfield; the Ways-Side Station Reserve

Re-imagining the neglected Uckfield Station and adjacent river Uck, the project annexes the nearby car park and woodlands, expanding the station concourse and riverside to create a protected micro-landscape, visitors are drawn from their fast-moving commuter lives to be progressively immersed in the slower ways of the river.

Year 3

Sharon Paul

Terminus: Oxford Business Union 

The project provides a space where Oxford’s local businesses can come together to discuss, debate and achieve their common goals independently from local governance that neglects them.  The integrated homeless shelter and skills development centre employs rough-sleepers in the “Local Shops of Oxford” scheme, bringing non-university activities to the forefront, helping people get back on their feet while engaging them in the decision-making, and helping to stimulate and build the local economy.

Year 3

Ursula Baynes

Talking:Shop

A bookshop in Eynsham run by an angel, living, working, and forever reading among the bookshelves.

Gloucester Green becomes worthy of the name ‘Green’ again, through cloisters that shelter and structure people’s movement, and the growth of plants, while hosting a 24-hour cafe and well-being centre, offering sanctuary and a place of support for locals, students, and commuters; transforming an unloved area into a space of delight and support within the busy city.

Year 3

Peter Topping

Terminus: The Existentialist café, Heyes Building, Gloucester Green

The existentialist café is a cognitive terminus in which a user is placed in a space in-between spaces. The architecture promotes experiencing the everyday through different membranes of sensory amplification and deprivation. Through this juxtaposition of self and spatial environment one can begin to explore the themes of existential crisis.  

Year 2