Florey Building

The Florey Building student accommodation was the last of three buildings (along with the Leicester Engineering and Cambridge History Faculty buildings) that identified 'Big Jim' as a major player on the architectural stage in the 1960s. However, its realisation was fraught with difficulties. It sits like a UFO on the banks of the River Thames (or Isis as it is called in Oxford). The student's rooms are arranged in a distorted 'U'-shape, held aloft on an exposed concrete 'A'-frame. The inner, totally glazed, façade faces north, giving every room a view of the river. The rooms are accessed by corridors, running around the outside. These are expressed by horizontal strip windows on each floor. The rooms are arranged over four levels, with the upper most having double-height gallery rooms, intended for graduates. The ground floor contains common rooms and dining facilities. The building is finished in the original patent glazing and terra cotta coloured tiles.