PORTFOLIO

THE WATCHING TOWER

This project, a Watching Tower near the centre of Oxford City high street, with unrealised and unbuilt structures and being historically significant, aims to explore an architecture driven by various views and perspectives. This will be showcased in the use of two materials, Glulam timber and Polycarbonate glass. My design aims to both honour this context and expand on it in terms of scale and complexity. The project features a public watching tower that invites visitors to experience carefully considered panoramic views of Oxford that stimulate interest and exploration. This tower is part of a larger architectural composition that includes public galleries and private laboratories and learning spaces. These spaces are designed with the intent to create dynamic interactions between public accessibility and private exploration. For example, certain areas are designed to offer vistas that allow the public to glimpse into private labs or learning spaces, creating a sense of transparency and connection between the different areas. I want to convey a sense of both separation and unity between the private and public realms by altering up the viewpoints and interactions throughout the site. This project also aims to combine the ideas of history, science and architecture all into this area and to reflect the life cycle through its reuse and mix of plastics and glass to the environment. A strong connection to the site is made through the use of stone in the rest of my building, as most of the buildings in Oxford have used this material.

THE WATCHING TOWER

PROPOSED CROSS SECTIONS

TECHNICAL AXONOMETRIC-THE WATCHING TOWER

PROPOSED ROOF PLAN

PROPOSED GROUND FLOOR PLAN

VISUALS RENDER

The Light Tower draws inspiration from Oxford’s profound legacy as a center of scientific discovery and architectural symbolism. Referencing the city's historic observatories, spires, and the History of Science Museum — the world’s oldest purpose-built museum — the tower reinterprets light not only as a physical element, but as a metaphor for knowledge and enlightenment. As visitors ascend, they experience changing conditions of natural light, echoing the evolution of scientific understanding from the early work of Oxford scholars like Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren.

RENDER VISUALS-THE WATCHING TOWER

The architecture becomes a modern clockwork model — a vertical instrument for exploring time, optics, and perspective — while aligning spatially with Oxford’s iconic landmarks. By fusing public engagement, environmental systems, and educational spaces, the Light Tower serves as both a civic beacon and a contemporary response to Oxford’s enduring dialogue between science and architecture.

PROPOSED LONG SECTION

EXPLODED AXONOMETRICS(LIGHT ANALYSIS)

SITE ANALYSIS-OXFORD

RENDERS OF KEY VIEWS-THE WATCHING TOWER

The Watching Tower is a vertical journey into light knowledge and perspective and an “observatory of knowledge that both physically and metaphorically elevates learning. The Light Watching Tower is organized as an experience through light, learning, and perspective, with each level serving a distinct educational and experiential purpose. At the base, an orientation public gallery introduces visitors to the tower’s environmental systems and Oxford’s scientific heritage. Ascent begins with a public viewing platform framing key city landmarks, followed by a light studio for workshops, lecture theatres and experimentation with optics and material. Midway, a quiet study library offers a contemplative space lit by controlled shafts of daylight, supporting individual reflection. Higher up, the solar lab displays real-time data on energy generation and sustainability, reinforcing the building’s role as a teaching tool. At the top, marks the climax of the journey — a space of pure light aligned with a platform for several panoramic views, symbolizing enlightenment and intellectual clarity. The continuous ascent links these spaces into a narrative experience, echoing Oxford’s legacy of inquiry and architectural symbolism.

TECHNICAL ASPECT-MODELS AND DETAIL DRAWINGS

A set of these specific materials, glulam timber and polycarbonate glass were chosen to represent the project, a watching tower that captures specific important landmarks from the entire city of Oxford. This material proves to be the best choice because of their strong connection with the meaning of the project but also to the site and the universities/collages that provide information on the history, science and art of the location of Oxford. The height of the structure allows for plenty of natural sunlight to enter the translucent polycarbonate glass, allowing for the tower to light up throughout the day. Whereas for night hours, artificial lighting is placed inside the Watching tower, as well as inside the rest of the building. Moreover, these materials provided an opportunity to explore techniques of joinery connections and using a mix of plastics and timber that can be reused, that ended up becoming the main driver behind this technical investigation. Through a series of iterative test modelling, I have managed to incorporate modern materials to bring to Oxford that can be contrasted to the majority of the city’s traditional architectural heritage stone buildings. It complements the environment’s context, offering a visual and experiential exploration. This juxtaposition of old and new provides Oxford with a glimpse of the future, while honouring its historical history. This has been achieved by keeping sustainability at the forefront of all decisions ensuring that the project is as sustainable as possible and at net zero.

RENDER VISUALS-THE WATCHING TOWER

This project proposes the Light Tower as a hybrid civic and academic instrument — a vertical public space that uses natural light not only as a spatial and environmental force, but as a tool for education, orientation, and reflection. Driven by the legacy of Oxford as a birthplace of scientific thought, the tower becomes a living observatory: it collects, manipulates, and displays light in ways that allow users to see, learn, and understand. Its design promotes climate literacy and architectural awareness through passive solar systems, dynamic views of the city’s historic landmarks, and immersive environments that frame light as both a physical phenomenon and a metaphor for intellectual pursuit. It helps users understand Oxford through curated perpectives( architectural, social, historic and academic). Users become active participants in understanding and “reading” the city-like a guided visual textbook, whislt also contributing to dialogue in learning spaces. The Light Tower is not simply a place to observe Oxford — it is a place to observe how we observe, teaching users how light shapes knowledge, perception, and experience over time.