Zaha Hadid’s Middle East Centre project for St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, UK is due to commence onsite on 30 January 2013. Spread over 1,200 sq m, the new facility will create additional space for an archive and library at the Middle East Centre. The project captures all of the elements that have become associated with Zaha Hadid: curving panels of glinting metal with wide panes of glass to incite curiosity from passers-by.

A statement from the Zaha Hadid Architects reads: “The new library, research centre and archive for St. Antony’s College overcomes strong physical constraints to form a suspended ‘bridge’ between existing buildings - blending built and natural elements to find a coherent form - fronted by a curved frameless glass façade which sweeps above a sunken courtyard area.”