RADLEY COLLEGE CHAPEL EXTENSION

By Purcell Architecture.

When Radley College decided they wanted to expand their intake, enabling the school to offer a greater number of assisted places, they faced a conundrum. The whole school comes together daily in the college chapel in a tradition that has been at the heart of school life since Radley was founded by the Reverends W Sewell and R C Singleton in 1847. The existing chapel was already at full capacity, seating 600 and increasing numbers at the school was deemed ‘unthinkable’ without finding a way to continue the tradition of coming together as a community each day.

The solution lay in extending the Grade II* Listed chapel, originally designed by Thomas Graham Jackson and completed in 1893. A small group of architecture practices were invited to take part in a competition to design a new extension, subsequently won by Purcell, the architects responsible for protecting, extending and modernising many of the country’s most notable buildings, including the Palace of

Combining 21st century technology with traditional craftmanship, the extension to the chapel at Radley College is a bold yet sympathetic dialogue with the original building. The layout of the building itself demands a sense of procession and drama and the architects were keen to amplify the synergy between ritual and architecture and the new interventions.

The extension is a conscious continuation of the original design, whilst also having its own contemporary character and presence. The architectural detailing, material selection, scale and proportion of the extension is driven by the sense of design unity within the chapel. The striking extension has a complex oak room design and glazed lantern, providing space for the sanctuary. The new sanctuary has an octagonal plan form and delivers an additional 207 seats to provide a total of 807.