Adrian James Architects

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Adrian James Architects We design brilliant beautiful buildings. All shapes and sizes for all sorts of uses. We deliver beautiful buildings which clients love.

Our buildings work well, they make optimum use of the site and budget, they exceed expectations. Our buildings are technically and ecologically advanced, they are spacious and light, they fit in but stand out. Our buildings have won national awards, including the Daily Telegraph Best Townhouse Award twice and the Best Brick House Award twice; they have been featured in the national press and on television. Our fees are competitive but we aim to deliver buildings only of the highest quality. We have a very good reputation with local planning authorities and can win the best possible planning consents. We tackle any type or scale of project, and relish any challenge that requires real creativity. We approach every project afresh but with the benefit of experience. We love our work and never tire of sketching new ideas to deliver the very best for our clients. We transform apparently mundane or tricky projects into wonderful buildings.

We have just handed over Cherwell House, our student accommodation project near Oxford station, and it is full of studen...
01/10/2026

We have just handed over Cherwell House, our student accommodation project near Oxford station, and it is full of students already. Here it is basking in autumn sunshine.
Great to have got this fiendishly complex radical retrofit over the line. Adding two storeys and new cladding to an existing two storey building is - ahem - quite a challenge. Good job by Savvy.

What an event - and what an honour.The annual OxProp Awards dinner held in Keble College is a humdinger: the top social ...
14/09/2026

What an event - and what an honour.
The annual OxProp Awards dinner held in Keble College is a humdinger: the top social event in the Oxfordshire property network calendar. It was a joy for AJA to not just be there but also to win the award for the Best Architect of the Year 2026: being recognised not just for our portfolio of brilliant buildings but also for our work campaigning for local architects, for design quality and for sustainability in the built environment. A splendid evening and a humbling honour to share the stage with such a dynamic bunch of top talent.

Our new auditorium for Hertford College has been granted planning permission. Huge thanks to the whole team for getting ...
13/08/2026

Our new auditorium for Hertford College has been granted planning permission. Huge thanks to the whole team for getting this over the line, not least the city planning and heritage officers who were constructive and amenable to the proposal. There were a lot of tight parameters including critical views to be preserved over the top and a Scheduled Monument in the ground beneath, but we still managed to create something with a distinct character and integrity. Next step; build it.

The rear of our new Osney island apartment block, River View, is rather different from the front, although it shares the...
29/07/2026

The rear of our new Osney island apartment block, River View, is rather different from the front, although it shares the materials and stratification. The building is staggered so it does not intrude on neighbour’s light and shelters the backland from the aural onslaught of the Botley Road. The bedrooms have large windows framing the excellent views across the neighbouring gardens to the Hinksey hills beyond.

The first tenants are moving into our new block of apartments, River View, on Osney Island in Oxford this week. The buil...
28/07/2026

The first tenants are moving into our new block of apartments, River View, on Osney Island in Oxford this week. The building fills a prominent gap which had long been an eyesore in the primary frontage of the otherwise charming Conservation Area. It speaks the shared language of its Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian neighbours, but in its own contemporary idiom. The terrace is now complete. It’s sustainable - and the flats have stonking views.

Cock-a-hoop that AJA have been shortlisted for the OxProp Architect of the Year Award 2026.
14/07/2026

Cock-a-hoop that AJA have been shortlisted for the OxProp Architect of the Year Award 2026.

Here are two visualisations of our Cherwell House project, soon to be coming out of its wraps. We are adding two new flo...
07/07/2026

Here are two visualisations of our Cherwell House project, soon to be coming out of its wraps. We are adding two new floors to an existing two-storey student accommodation building which runs alongside the railway tracks leading into Oxford station. In the process we are changing the external appearance with new cladding, which will improve the look of the building but crucially not add too much weight. This is pushing the limits of the retrofit strategy of maximising a sustainable site’s potential without sacrificing the existing structure; great in principle, a real challenge in practice. Doubling the height of an existing timber framed building is not easy…. more on this to follow.

We have submitted a planning application to build a new auditorium for Hertford College Oxford. The site is in the corne...
22/06/2026

We have submitted a planning application to build a new auditorium for Hertford College Oxford. The site is in the corner of the college’s Holywell Quad, slap in the middle of Oxford’s Central Conservation Area, tucked between listed buildings. There are critical views over it and remains of the outer city wall under it. It’s a challenge designing anything in such a constricted and sensitive site but the quad itself is a somewhat lacklustre assemblage from the 70’s so there is certainly room for improvement.

We have responded with something which complies with the multiple local parameters but has its own distinct character; it is contextual in its use of Cotswold stone which will be crisply corrugated to flatter its curves – and prevent flyposting in St Helen’s Passage. It will upgrade the whole experience of winding down this back alley to get to the famous Turf Tavern. As well as providing the college with a unique state-of-the-art auditorium.

It was a pleasure to show the Oxford Preservation Trust judges around two of our recently completed city projects yester...
10/06/2026

It was a pleasure to show the Oxford Preservation Trust judges around two of our recently completed city projects yesterday. We managed to dodge the rain.
Our new apartment block River View in the Osney Island Conservation Area is now ready for occupation. (More on this building to follow). We caught the occupants of our Sunnymead Twosome, a pair of new houses in a quiet backwater off the Woodstock Road, putting more mulch on their beds.

Address

79A Mill Street
Oxford
OX20AL

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5:30pm
Tuesday 9am - 5:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 5:30pm
Thursday 9am - 5:30pm
Friday 9am - 5:30pm

Telephone

+441865203267

Website

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