The New Manor Ground by Finlay Walsh from the University of Bath

The New Manor Ground, Oxford, was presented at the AT Awards live finals on 20 September 2023 to a jury comprising Simon Allford, Esther Robinson Wilde, Ed Jarvis, Amin Taha, Patrick Bellew, and Chair Lee Mallett. Read about how the project has stood the test of time.

Credit: Finlay Walsh Thompson

The New Manor Ground development by Finlay Walsh Thompson, architecture student at the University of Bath, completes the ‘missing’ fourth side of Oxford United’s ageing Kassam Stadium, giving the club and its fans a home they can be proud of, as well as providing important community and commercial resources. Each of the stadium’s four sides is given a unique purpose defined by a single word: ‘club’, ‘grow’, ‘community’, and ‘trade’.

One of the main interventions is a brick plinth, which meanders in and out of the existing structure and accommodates a range of facilities, including a club shop and café, service hatches for local traders, and changing rooms. The masonry structure is also intended to give the stadium a human scale and community spirit, both of which are rare in modern football grounds, says Walsh Thompson.

Located atop the plinth is the middle concourse, where fans and locals can circulate accessing lower tier seating or an upper band of reusable accommodation modules. The latter are built into the existing steel frame, utilise recycled fabric from the façade, and house both affordable workspaces and hospitality boxes. Landscaping solutions at the base of the stadium include allotment plots and community football pitches.

“The aim is to maximise the stadium’s potential all week-round, while also reducing operational and embodied carbon expended elsewhere in the community”, explains Walsh Thompson. “The hope is that the scheme can act as a blueprint for the reuse of 20th-century football stadiums, most of which were designed without adaptability and multi-use in mind. This should illustrate how they can be bought up to speed for contemporary needs without the need for demolition or relocation.”