Dame Zaha Hadid on building the 'Softbridge' in Oxford

One of the world's most celebrated architects, Dame Zaha Hadid, has been in Oxford for the groundbreaking ceremony for a new building she has designed for the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College.

Zaha Hadid was recently made a dame for her services to architecture, and is best known in the UK for her design of the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympic Games. 

This project in Oxford has been dubbed the 'Softbridge' as the new building will form a suspended ‘bridge’ between numbers 66 and 68 Woodstock Road.

The three-storey building will provide 1,200 square metres of floor-space. It will offer a new 125-seat lecture theatre with disabled access, replacing the cramped rooms where public seminars are currently held. The building will also house a new library and purpose-built archive facility, doubling the amount of space currently available.

On completion, the new construction will be known as 'The Investcorp Building' because it has been made possible through a generous donation of £11 million from the international alternative asset management firm, Investcorp. It is expected to be finished by the summer of 2014.

The challenge was to create a modern landmark between an Edwardian and a Victorian building. Dame Zaha explains how the Softbridge concept meets this challenge: 'By designing the bridge in terms of the paths and flow, the existing buildings continue to be read as separate elements, complementing their current detached character.

'This bridging form reveals pedestrian paths and flows within the new building and allows for connections at different levels, creating a suspended structure that enables the public aspects of the brief to infiltrate the building and into the surrounding college.'

The college decided on a matt stainless steel cladding for the building and set to work finding a manufacturer who could achieve the building's complex geometry.

'The floating nature of the 'bridge' is emphasised via its stainless steel cladding which has a light and ephemeral appearance,' Dame Zaha explains. 'Its surface echoing the existing context of listed buildings, trees and ever-changing light conditions.'

Dr Eugene Rogan, a Fellow of the Middle East Centre, has worked with Zaha Hadid Architects to bring this project to fruition. 'Zaha Hadid was the ideal choice for this project as she is one of Britain’s greatest architects with her roots firmly in the Middle East,' he says.

'That nicely paralleled our vision of Oxford’s Middle East Centre as a British centre of excellence with deep roots in the region.'

The Investcorp Building will be Zaha Hadid Architects' fifth building the in the UK after the Maggie's Centre in Fife; the Riverside Museum, Glasgow; the Evelyn Grace Academy, Brixton; and the London Aquatics Centre.

Among her many awards, Zaha Hadid has received the 2004 Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honour. Two of her buildings have been awarded the Stirling Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects; the MAXXI: Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2010) and the Evelyn Grace Academy in London (2011).

Slideshow: Images of how the building will look (Zaha Hadid). Bottom image: l to r Professor Margaret MacMillan, warden of St Antony's College; Mr Namir Kirdar, CEO of Investcorp; Dame Zaha Hadid; and Vice-Chancellor Professor Andrew Hamilton (Rob Judges)