engineering.
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities at the University of Oxford has been named Building Magazine Project of the Year at the Building Awards 2026.
The award was announced at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel on Tuesday 3 November, with the UK construction industry gathered to celebrate the year’s standout projects.
Designed by Hopkins Architects, with Purcell as heritage specialist, the 15,000 m² centre brings together Oxford’s humanities disciplines in a single location for the first time. The four-storey building includes a 500-seat concert hall, 250-seat theatre and 100-seat experimental performance space, alongside teaching, research and exhibition facilities.
“It’s fantastic to see the Schwarzman Centre recognised with this award. It’s a special building that brings together so many different uses and disciplines, and a real testament to the collaboration and hard work of everyone involved.”
Our structural engineering approach resolves the building’s diverse programme into a rationalised frame and grid. We used a reinforced-concrete superstructure to provide the scale and spans required for the performance spaces, while maintaining flexibility across the building. Below ground, a new two-storey basement houses the major performance venues, which use ‘box in box’ acoustic isolation.
At the heart of the building is its distinctive central dome. Our timber-and-steel structure spans 18 metres in diameter and rises four metres above the roofline. Fully glazed, it allows natural light to flood the assembly hall and atrium below.
The Building Awards win adds to an impressive year of recognition for the Schwarzman Centre. The project has also received an AIA UK Excellence in Design Award, two Structural Timber Awards for Education Project of the Year and Solid Wood Project of the Year, and two OxProp Awards for Best Project of the Year and Best Education & Learning Building of the Year.
