Carlo Ratti and Hawkins Brown have made it through to the second stage of a competition to design a £1bn innovation district north of Oxford.

Allies and Morrison, Grimshaw, and Prior & Partners – each leading a diverse team (see box below) – are also on the list to design the 190ha mixed-use site at Begbroke.

They beat entries from OMA, BIG, Levitt Bernstein, SOM, Farrells, AHMM, Woods Bagot, Arup working with David Kohn and Adam Kahn, and White Arkitekter with Haptic, Mikhail Riches and Williams Matthews Associates, among others.

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