The floor was specified as a narrow-board European oak, lightly band-sawn and finished in an ultra-matt lacquer, so the timber reads as one calm plane beneath the building’s sweeping concrete and glass. Across roughly 4,000 m², the broad floor of the atrium, the forum and the cascading staircases, the oak had to hold its line in one of Oxford’s busiest academic buildings.

Completed in 2016 and awarded a RIBA National Award, the Blavatnik School is one of the university’s most distinctive contemporary landmarks. The Taj Mahal tone gives the Winderen plank a soft, pale warmth that balances the architecture’s cool materials and daylight.