“Sophisticated, generous, architecture that has been built to last” says RIBA’s Simon Allford on Stirling prize winner The New Library

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named The New Library, Magdalene College in Cambridge by Níall McLaughlin Architects, as the winner of the 26th RIBA Stirling Prize. The new building provides students at the Cambridge college with a new library, incorporating an archive and an art gallery.

Set within the grounds of the 700-year-old university, the new library replaces the cramped study spaces of the adjacent 17th century Grade I listed Pepys Library and extends the quadrangular arrangement of buildings and courts that have gradually developed from the monastic college site.  

Níall McLaughlin Architects’ vision

The architect – Níall McLaughlin Architects – was able to combine load-bearing bricks, gabled pitched roofs, windows with tracery and brick chimneys to animate the skyline with contemporary sustainable design elements. It contrasts openness with intimacy and deftly achieves the architects’ vision for a structure that gradually rises up towards the light. 

According to RIBA, visitors to The New Library are met with an elegant brickwork façade and enticing large wooden doors, which open into a tiered, timber interior, bathed in light. The entrance hall is triple-height and leads into a double-height reading room.

A regular grid of brick chimneys supports the timber floors and bookshelves and carries warm air up to ventilate the building. Between each set of four chimneys, there is a large, vaulted lantern skylight. A connecting passageway above, along the building’s eastern end, provides views across the college and gardens and towards the river, according to the professional body. It added that the grid structure delineates an attractive array of spaces: wide zones for reading rooms and group study, and narrow zones for staircases and bookcases.

The layout also creates a range of study spaces for independent study – with desks set into bay windows, hidden in private niches and within shared zones – enabling students to be tucked away or among peers depending on their inclination. 

RIBA noted that this is a modern building that employs simple but highly effective passive ventilation and natural lighting strategies to minimise energy in use, and materials such as engineered timber structures to reduce carbon embodied in its construction.

Details of the project:

Speaking on behalf of the 2022 RIBA Stirling Prize jury, RIBA President Simon Allford, said: “A unique setting with a clear purpose – The New Library at Magdalene College is a sophisticated, generous, architecture that has been built to last. Creating a new building that will last at least 400 years is a significant challenge, but one that Niall McLaughlin Architects has risen to with the utmost skill, care and responsibility. The result – a solid and confident, yet deferential new kid on the college block.”

“The light-filled, warm-wood interior lifts the spirit and fosters connections. Students have been gifted a calm, sequence of connected spaces where they, and future generations, will be able to contemplate and congregate, enjoying it both together and apart. The overarching commitment to build something that will stand the test of time can be felt in every material and detail, and from every viewpoint. This is the epitome of how to build for the long term,” he added.

RIBA Stirling price shortlist for 2022 included:

• 100 Liverpool Street by By Hopkins Architects;
• Forth Valley College – Falkirk Campus by Reiach and Hall Architects;
• Hackney New Primary School and 333 Kingsland Road by Henley Halebrown;
• Orchard Gardens, Elephant Park by Panter Hudspith Architects; and
• Sands End Arts & Community Centre by Mæ