Founded in Birmingham and established in Oxford in 1886, Mansfield College was created to educate nonconformist ministers, welcoming all denominations and those excluded from the University’s religious life. Its inclusive ethos endures through a leading outreach programme supporting students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, most from state schools. The Hands Building, home to the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, embodies Mansfield’s founding principles of freedom, inclusion, and equitable access to education.

Founded in Birmingham and established in Oxford in 1886, Mansfield College was created to provide education and theological training for nonconformist ministers, offering a home for those excluded from the University’s religious life while welcoming all denominations. That inclusive spirit endures through its leading outreach programme, which supports students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, most from state schools. The College’s newest building, the Hands Building – home to the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights – embodies its founding values of freedom, inclusion, and educational access.

Basil Champneys – architect of not only Mansfield College’s impressive North Range, but of many other important institutional buildings. His is an architecture governed by principles of disciplinedp proportion and architectural grammar, but executed with humour and playfulness, where the prevailing order of things is permitted to dissolve in moments of contained
disobedience, to delightful effect. The proposed South Range seeks to emulate the measured confidence of Champneys’ work in a way that is not imitative, but loosely referential.

Landscape and buildings (old and new) converge to form a generous and welcoming threshold between the world of the City and the College. The new Porters’ Lodge faces Basil Champneys’ chapel across a landscape of informal planting, sensitively framing a view of the North Quad and creating a sheltered space for both members of the College and general public to enjoy.

The proposed College entrance, characterised by a strong but sensitively-formed stone tower, watches over Mansfield College in the manner of a protective guardian. The Lodge is imagined as a confident and characterful addition to the city skyline – one of the most distinctive and varied of any in the world. It may be seen to participate in a long and evolving tradition of gatehouses and entrance towers that form a fundamental aspect of the character of the rich urban fabric of Oxford – and to which it makes a positive and meaningful contribution.

The proposed South Quad is envisioned as a more informal, garden-like counterpart to the ordered character of the North Quad. Its loggias – with a robust stone base, slender metal columns and a finely crafted timber roof – draw from Oxford traditions while expressing their own distinctive identity. A lightness in structure and material defines both the Quad and the South Range, creating clear front and back conditions that respectfully echo the compositional discipline of Basil Champneys’ architecture.

Sweeping, curved double-height spaces introduce abundant natural light into the
passages softening the junction between landscape and building.

Following an extensive reuse study, the John Marsh Building will be carefully deconstructed to enable the site’s renewal. Wherever possible, building stone will be reclaimed for use in the new South Range, embedding the material history of the site into its future fabric. Selected decorative fragments will be thoughtfully repurposed within the new design, offering a subtle and enduring memory of the building that once stood there.