Mansfield College appointed Feilden Fowles Architects for its Estate Transformation Project following an invited competition in 2023. The College has now submitted a planning application to Oxford City Council for this major redevelopment.
The College’s original buildings, designed by Basil Champneys and completed in 1889, form the northern range of the site and reflect Mansfield’s non-conformist origins. Today the College continues to be a disruptor in Oxford, recognised for its radical stance to access with the most diverse cohort of students in Oxford and over 90%of whom are from state school backgrounds. The College has a feeling of openness, marked by the absence of a gated entrance and allowing its community and visitors to freely enter and enjoy the College setting. This spirit of inclusivity and social purpose has shaped the direction of the Estate Transformation Project and design approach from the outset.
The brief for the project involves a holistic transformation of the main College site.The centrepiece is a new south range, providing 174 study bedrooms, a new Porters’ Lodge gatehouse and entrance garden, teaching and learning facilities, social spaces, workspace for operational staff, and ancillary accommodation to support a broad range of College activities and uses.
The project includes refurbishment and additions to the Grade II* North Range to improve user experience, accessibility and operations,and a site-wide landscape design led by Tom Stuart-Smith Studio that consolidates the estate into a coherent whole which is inviting and accessible to all. The transformative project will not only provide high-performance new buildings, but also improve the existing listed building fabric, substantially reducing operational carbon and enabling the College to reach its ambitious target of being carbon neutral by 2030.
Read more on the Architects’ Journal here.
We’re incredibly honoured to receive the prestigious Gold Award at the Wood Awards 2025 for the Urban Nature Project at the Natural History Museum!
The Garden Classroom is a flexible space at Tate Britain for workshops and events related to horticulture and art, part of the wider Clore Garden designed to reimagine the gallery’s grounds as a new biodiverse landscape for London.
Our Director, Fergus, has been speaking at Monocle’s Quality of Life Conference. This year’s conference brought together international delegates in Barcelona to hear from 20 globally renowned architects, business leaders, entrepreneurs and designers about the forces shaping our lives, cities and businesses.
We are delighted that the Urban Nature Project at the Natural History Museum has been shortlisted in the Wood Awards 2025. Feilden Fowles worked alongside Xylotek as specialist timber designer and sub-contractor. The awards recognise, encourage and promote outstanding wood design, craftsmanship and installation. Photographs by Jim Stephenson.
“Feilden Fowles and J&L Gibbons’ scheme brings the fossilised dinosaurs of the museum alive by walking visitors through landscapes spanning millennia.” Eleanor Young’s RIBAJ editorial on the Urban Nature Project at the Natural History Museum. Read it 
“Imagine a national museum where the experience starts before entering the building, with exhibits brought to life, feeling as if they are hands on instead of hands off, and where even queueing can be entertaining. The Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Project does this and much more, transforming two hectares of external space at the front and side of its historic building from 1860.” Read more 
We are excited to announce that Feilden Fowles are working alongside landscape architects Tom Stuart-Smith to design the new Clore Garden at the Tate Britain.
We’re delighted that our Director, Edmund Fowles, has been invited by