Oxford's first power station reopens as business school bedrooms and classrooms

Oxford's first power station is humming again — this time with students, not turbines.

John McAslan + Partners, the London-based architecture practice, has transformed and extended the disused Osney Power Station in Oxford into learning space and accommodation for the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford in Oxford, Dezeen reported on 8 October 2026. The renovated building is called the Global Leadership Centre.

The brick riverside building opened in 1892 as Oxford's first electrical power plant. It closed in 1968 and sat disused for decades before the business school took it on for its new base on Arthur Street.

The architects kept the street faces and repaired the brick facades. Above them, the metal-clad upper levels were rebuilt and extended to make room for more floors. The result keeps the old bulk and adds new height without losing the industrial outline.

Inside, the former turbine hall, the big open room where electricity-generating machinery once stood, is now a triple-height entrance and shared space. That means it runs through three storeys. An outdoor courtyard has been cut into the middle of the plan to pull daylight deep into the building and break up the heavy masonry.

Old industrial parts are still on show. Steel trusses span overhead. Brickwork is left exposed. A gantry crane, the travelling overhead frame once used to lift heavy equipment, remains in place above the new arrivals space.

The centre holds flexible teaching and meeting rooms, a dining room, a library and a gym. There is a terrace overlooking the River Thames. Three floors of accommodation sit in the upper levels, tucked above the teaching floors.

The school lists 121 ensuite bedrooms at the centre, Oxford Saïd Business School says. Ensuite means each bedroom has its own private bathroom. The school describes the building as its dedicated facility for leadership education, built for formal and informal teaching and short courses for working managers.

The project has been a long run. Planning consent for the conversion was reported in 2019 as a £60 million scheme. The school held a ground-breaking ceremony at the Arthur Street site in 2021 and said the centre would support high-level business and leadership education and expanded Executive Education programmes. It later said the scheme would raise the global profile of the school. In 2022 the school said the building had won an international architecture award.

What makes this stand out is how little the working history has been tidied away. Students check in, eat dinner and head to class under the same steel and brick that once powered a city. The light well and the terrace do the rest, opening a closed power plant to air and river views.