Deep in the bowels of the new Gradel buildings is the so-called basement hub, a circular area from which doors, corridors and stairways go off in all directions to different parts of the development. One notable feature here, added more for the sake of symmetry of design than for any other reason, is the ‘Staircase to Nowhere’, a set of seven or so steps which do no more than go up to a small semi-circular area on which some natural light is shed from a window far above.

Staircase (top), Gradel Quadrangles, New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford