Cohen Quad featured by Rowan Moore in The Observer

Exeter’s multi-award-winning Cohen Quadrangle has received a glowing review in an article from renowned architecture critic Rowan Moore in The Observer. Cohen Quad was the lead building in the article, alongside St Hilda’s College’s Anniversary Building and Pavilion, with Moore calling for more buildings to share their impressive qualities.

After a recent visit to Cohen Quad, Moore wrote that he was impressed by the ‘playful, free and enjoyable’ architecture from Alison Brooks Architecture, remarking that the Quad ‘is a tour de force that puts people first.’

A reinvention of the ‘collegiate quadrangle’, Cohen Quad complements Exeter’s 700-year-old campus in Turl Street with additional living accommodation for around 90 students, seminar rooms, an auditorium, a special collections archive, café, a communal study space known as the Learning Commons, and teaching rooms for several Fellows.

Moore highlights the impact of these spaces on the Exeter Community. He comments: ‘It’s a rare thing to see architecture at once so imaginative and thought through, where ideas as to how people might live and work together shape everything from the big roof to a little desktop window.’

Read Rowan Moore’s full article on The Guardian website.

Rowan Moore’s article for The Observer