Nex Architecture has emerged victorious in the design competition to revamp the grade II-listed library of Oxford University’s Exeter College – beating Carmody Groarke, Coffey Architects and Gort Scott in the process.

The practice’s proposals for the Oxford college’s neo-gothic library, designed by George Gilbert Scott in the 1850s, were described as displaying an unbeatable combination of “talent, insight and rigour” by Exeter rector Rick Trainor.

Trainor said the six-strong shortlist – which also included Jonathan Tuckey Design and Lee/Fitzgerald – as “stellar”, but that Nex had been the team that “most connected” with the challenges posed by the project.

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