Somerville College was founded in 1879 as a college of the University of Oxford and was one of the first higher-education centers for women. It is situated at the north end of St Giles’ Street, one of the city’s main axes, and since its original founding in Walton House it has gradually grown as a sequence of eclectic contructions around a quadrangle. The latest additions rise on the north of the historic campus, forming a boundary between the College and the large-scale development of the old Radcliffe Infirmary site. Two long volumes adapt to the narrow site – 300 meters in length and only 7 in width – and serve as a connection with the future academic neighborhood. The design references the adjacent buildings and the neighboring residential area, including the protruding windows of Philip Dowson’s Wolfson Building and the red brick Victorian workers’ cottages. Despite the narrowness of the site, the scheme adopts a typical layout of student bedrooms, with stair towers at each end that mark the entrances. Each bedroom is expressed through a prefabricated oak bay window which houses a desk and a window seat internally and provides a varied articulation to the facade...[+]