Saïd Business School’s Global Leadership Centre is now open
The new leading centre for executive learning in Oxford has opened its doors to the business community.
After over ten years of work, the former Osney Power Station, Oxford’s first electrical power plant, now houses the Global Leadership Centre on the bank of the river Thames. From competition to completion, Mann Williams worked alongside architects John McAslan + Partners to realise an ambitious design respectful of the original building and flexible for its new uses. Retention of the existing brickwork facades, a new build frame and building envelope enhanced by the Passivhaus principles balance the embodied and operational carbon to provide a highly efficient development.
The former turbine hall now acts as the main entrance and social core of the Centre while the flexible teaching and meeting spaces, dining room, bedrooms, gym and terrace welcome visitors among original steel trusses, exposed brickwork and a retained gantry crane. Natural light forms another cornerstone of the design, introduced via a landscaped courtyard.
The Centre now welcomes learners from around the globe through executive programmes focused on residential learning, conferences and collaborative research.
Our engineering team have been integral in unlocking the site, providing conservation input for the repair and retention of the above and below waterline facades, structural modelling and design for the new frame and foundations, civil engineering design for the below ground services and integrating flood compensation into the building and site footprint. Our collaborative approach through the use of BIM across all elements of our work ensured the clear delivery of our information for Graham Construction.Spencer Fereday, Project Director
Photographs courtesy of Hufton + Crow
