Architecture studio NBBJ has completed the Life and Mind Building at the University of Oxford, featuring a striking exterior clad in rippling stone panels inspired by actual brainwave patterns. The innovative 25,000-square-meter facility brings together the university's departments of biology and experimental psychology, combining teaching spaces and lecture halls with research laboratories and offices.
The building represents one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken by Oxford University, developed through Oxford University Development, a partnership between the university and Legal & General. The distinctive rippling stone panels above the entrance are based on a two-second brainwave reading taken by research fellow Sage Boettcher, serving as both a scientific time capsule and a poetic expression of the building's mission to explore the mind, nature, and their interconnected systems.
The five-story structure is organized around a full-height glazed atrium at its center, which NBBJ describes as a "social and spatial spine" that connects communal, research, and teaching spaces through a series of balconies and terraces. This central glazed atrium acts as a linking volume for the building's two wings, which form a V-shape around an entrance plaza featuring stepped planting and a cylindrical glass elevator providing access to both ground and lower ground floors.
Externally, the building's outward-facing elevations feature chunky stone-clad mullions with windows framed by dark brown ribbed metal panels and fins. The western wing is topped by a distinctive sawtooth roof, while the eastern wing is crowned by the central glazed atrium that extends to form a workspace volume opening onto an external terrace shaded by large stone-clad louvers.
According to NBBJ, the building's design ensures that occupants are "never more than one level away" from green space, whether it's the planted entrance plaza, roof terrace, or the series of potted trees within the atrium. This biophilic strategy is integral to what the studio calls the building's "life and mind" ethos, supporting mental wellbeing, enhancing air quality, and reinforcing the structure's ecological identity.
The practice explains that the building was "conceived as a living framework for discovery," with architecture that "choreographs movement, light, and interaction across a series of interconnected levels." The design philosophy emphasizes the connection between the building's physical form and its academic purpose of exploring the relationships between mind and nature.
The completion of the Life and Mind Building follows closely after the opening of the 25,300-square-meter Schwarzman Centre at Oxford, designed by London-based Hopkins Architects and clad in traditional Clipsham stone. The new facility adds to Oxford's growing collection of contemporary architecture, alongside recent additions such as Wright & Wright's "calm and confident" extension to the Corpus Christi College Library, demonstrating the university's commitment to innovative educational architecture.
