Rhodes House, Reimagined for Today

An Image of Rhodes House from the front. It is a stone building with four large pillars at the front and is illuminated by the sun under a clear blue sky.

An image of the Rhodes House convening centre exterior. It is outdoors, surrounded by the stone walls of the building, and there are parasols in the seating area. It is sunny and there is a clear blue sky.

An image of a conference room with dark wooden walls and curved ceilings. It is filled with attendees and a man in a suit is speaking at the front.

Image of a glass roof shown from the inside of a stone building. The sun is shining and gives the space a bright and airy look.

An image of the Rhodes garden pavilion from the outside. It has a glass front and sides, and is located on a lawn amongst some trees.

An image from the inside of the Rhodes Garden Pavilion. It is a wide room filled with people, with large glass doors and a modern-looking wooden ceiling.

Rhodes House has been restored, reimagined and reinvented as a meeting place for Rhodes Scholars, Fellows and friends of the Rhodes community in Oxford and around the world.

Amazing new spaces have been opened up for Scholars: our state of the art convening centre; our beautiful garden pavilion; accomodation for Alumni, Fellows and visiting guests to stay; and exciting facilities such as Rhodes House's new XR lab. It is a place for people to meet, think, study and learn, a resource for Scholars, for colleagues in Oxford and for our wider community to enjoy.

Alongside modern new facilities designed by multi award winning architects Stanton Williams, the traditional spaces of Rhodes House have been sensitively and carefully restored and reimagined, making it a more welcoming, sustainable open place for Scholars and the community to meet.

Space to Think

An image looking upwards to the Rhodes Rotunda through a spiral staircase. The ceiling is domed, and the staircase is built of sand-coloured stone.

The beautiful spiral staircase lovingly created in the Rotunda exemplifies the welcoming spaces for Scholars, Fellows and friends at Rhodes House; an airy, light-filled series of spaces for our community and Oxford colleagues to meet.

Space to Meet

The centrepiece of the reimagined and redeveloped Rhodes House is a 280 seat convening hall, with state of the art connectivity and audio-visual capabilties; a home for Scholar events, Rhodes Forums, partner programmes, academic discussions and learning.

Space for Scholars

An image of the Rhodes Roseberry Room, which is a long, wooden structure with a vaulted ceiling, a striped carpet down the middle, and wooden sections on both sides with tables and chairs for study.

Rhodes House is a space for our community. Dedicated library spaces, common rooms, meeting spaces, and access to amazing new facilities ensures our Scholar community in Oxford has space to come together, to study and to organise the many discussions where the magic of the Rhodes Scholarship happens.

Space for Community

We have reimagined Rhodes House as a place for the University body to use, and a place that will benefit our wider Oxford community. Supporting Scholars and Fellows, while welcoming in the world.

Rhodes House Gardens Overlooking Accomodation Block

Sustainable and Beautiful

Behind the traditional façade of Rhodes House, we have re-engineered the building services to create site low carbon energy through a Combined Heat and Power system, providing 20% of the total energy use.

Ground-coupled geothermal air ducts bring fresh air into the new lower ground floor conference space and foyers and earth-sheltered rooms reduce demands for heating and cooling.

The roofs to the Residential Courtyard, conferencing facilities and new office space are planted with biodiverse species. Bat and bird boxes around the House will encourage a diverse range of wildlife.

Large expanses of the gardens include meadow grasses and flowers creating a beautiful scheme while contributing to the biodiversity improvements.

How will Rhodes House become a more open space?

Accessibility: Throughout the House and gardens with additional lifts and ramps
Archaeology: Making the Civil War Rampart in the garden a special feature and explaining its context with additional interpretation material
Public access: Greater transparency and access to visitors, regular open days to include tours of the building and explanation of its architecture and the work of the Trust
Public engagement: Exhibits that critically engage contested legacies, facilitate debate and dialogue about them, and raise challenging questions about how we heal, reconcile and overcome the inequities of the past.
Open garden events: Guided tours throughout the spring and summer providing information on the landscape architecture, biodiversity and planting
Arts programmes: An annual cycle of temporary exhibitions open to the public
Local Community access: Actively encourage community engagement through internships, apprenticeships and the use of Rhodes House facilities.