Cover Two storeys of the Robert Day Sciences Center by Bjarke Ingels Group, part of the Prix Versailles 2026 universities list, cantilever in opposite directions above a ground-floor colonnade of angled concrete columns, their glazed undersides catching evening light (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
Two storeys of the Robert Day Sciences Center by Bjarke Ingels Group, part of the Prix Versailles 2026 universities list, cantilever in opposite directions above a ground-floor colonnade of angled concrete columns, their glazed undersides catching evening light (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
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The Prix Versailles has named its 2026 shortlist of the world’s most beautiful universities — eight projects across five countries that treat the campus as an ecosystem for research, teaching and community life
The Prix Versailles recently released its World’s Most Beautiful Universities List 2026, naming eight campus buildings across Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States. Three of the eight will go on to receive a further World Title, Interior or Exterior, at Unesco Headquarters on 10 December.
Jérôme Gouadain, Secretary General of the Prix Versailles, framed the selection around the growing role universities play as connective infrastructure, bringing students, researchers, faculty and industry into shared physical space. Across the eight projects, that ambition takes different forms: mass timber construction, biomimetic engineering, listed-building conversion and a treehouse-inspired conference centre. Several designs also fold humanities or Indigenous perspectives directly into the architecture, from Oxford’s co-located faculties to UNSW’s embedded reading of Bidjigal Country.
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UNSW Sydney — Health Translation Hub, Randwick, Australia
Above The façade’s angled white fins repeat down the building’s height, narrowing toward a boxier upper storey clad in darker glass
Above A terracotta staircase spirals through the atrium, connecting floors via sculptural white landings
The façade’s angled white fins repeat down the building’s height, narrowing toward a boxier upper storey clad in darker glass
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Above Terracotta-toned service desks and seating anchor the ground floor, set beneath a folded timber ceiling
Terracotta-toned service desks and seating anchor the ground floor, set beneath a folded timber ceiling
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Designed by Architectus on Bidjigal Country, the Health Translation Hub takes its form from wind-carved coastal dunes, with a façade system that cuts solar radiation by around 60 per cent while preserving a sense of transparency. The building embeds an Indigenous reading of place throughout its landscape and interiors, drawing on native flora with medicinal and cultural significance. Functioning as a connector point within Sydney’s Health Precinct, it reconceives the hospital block as a single structure housing research, education, clinical practice and industry together, enabling scientific discoveries to move from laboratory bench to clinical bedside within one site.
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University of Cambridge — Ray Dolby Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Above At dusk, the entrance to the Ray Dolby Centre glows beneath a copper-clad lecture theatre suspended above the ground floor (Photo: Kilian O’Sullivan)
Above Glazed upper floors reveal a hammered copper volume within, its diamond pattern lit from inside at dusk (Photo: Kilian O’Sullivan)
At dusk, the entrance to the Ray Dolby Centre glows beneath a copper-clad lecture theatre suspended above the ground floor (Photo: Kilian O’Sullivan)
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Jestico + Whiles designed the new home of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge’s Department of Physics, naming it for alumnus Ray Dolby. At 32,900 square metres, it is the largest research centre of its kind in the UK, with 173 laboratories and 1,500 square metres of cleanrooms, offices and collaboration space, supported by exacting vibration, humidity and temperature controls.
A dark steel staircase leads up towards the building’s signature copper-clad volume, suspended above the atrium on a faceted underside (Photo: Kilian O’Sullivan)
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Light-filled concourses and open circulation were designed, with the Department’s close involvement, to encourage chance encounters between researchers and visitors. A quadruple-height atrium and exhibition spaces open the building to the public.
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University of Oxford — Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Oxford, United Kingdom
Above The atrium’s timber lattice dome draws the eye upward through overlapping triangular sections toward a central oculus (Photo: Hufton + Crow)
Above Stacked balconies mark the entrance to the Faculty of History, with red and ochre armchairs arranged in pairs along the oak-lined façade (Photo: Hufton + Crow)
The atrium’s timber lattice dome draws the eye upward through overlapping triangular sections toward a central oculus (Photo: Hufton + Crow)
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Hopkins Architects designed the Schwarzman Centre in Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter to co-locate the university’s humanities faculties for the first time, from English Language and Literature to Theology and Religion, alongside the Institute for Ethics in AI, the Oxford Internet Institute and the new Bodleian Humanities Library.
A timber-clad staircase descends past library shelving visible through glass balustrades (Photo: Hufton + Crow)
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The building is arranged around an atrium topped by a dome, clad in Clipsham stone and cream-coloured brick to sit within Oxford’s traditional palette. Public-facing spaces include a 500-seat concert hall, a theatre, a cinema and an exhibition space.
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University of Amsterdam — University Library, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Three-dimensional lettering wraps the building’s rounded corner, rendering a line from Martinus Nijhoff’s poem “Awater” across 24 languages and six writing systems (Photo: Jannes Linders)
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MVSA Architects, working with Buro van Stigt, converted a listed former hospital complex into UvA’s new University Library without altering its historical identity. The project’s central move was transforming the inner courtyard into an atrium beneath a biomimetic roof, a slender, self-supporting steel structure modelled on the geometry of a leaf, which maximises daylight and creates a climatic buffer.
Above Seen from above, the library’s faceted glass roof sits within a courtyard enclosed by the original hospital complex’s pitched brick wings (Photo: Jannes Linders)
Above A curved white walkway sweeps past a brick corner tower original to the historic complex, its windows lit against the atrium’s steel roof structure (Photo: Jannes Linders)
Seen from above, the library’s faceted glass roof sits within a courtyard enclosed by the original hospital complex’s pitched brick wings (Photo: Jannes Linders)
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A sculptural staircase, the “Tree of Wisdom,” anchors the atrium as a social hub. On the exterior, three-dimensional letters render a line from Martinus Nijhoff’s poem “Awater” in 24 languages and six writing systems, referencing the disciplines taught at the Faculty of Humanities.
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University of Arkansas — Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation, Fayetteville, United States
Above Glazed floors stack above a cantilevered ground level, with exposed timber columns supporting the roof’s overhanging edge (Photo: Timothy Hursley)
Above The building's roofline breaks into a jagged sequence of gables, each clad in standing-seam metal above timber-slatted walls (Photo: Timothy Hursley)
Glazed floors stack above a cantilevered ground level, with exposed timber columns supporting the roof’s overhanging edge (Photo: Timothy Hursley)
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A red gantry crane spans the double-height workshop, framed by diagonal timber bracing on both sides (Photo: Timothy Hursley)
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Grafton Architects, the Irish practice led by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, designed the Timberlands Center for the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, drawing on wood as a material with deep roots in Arkansas’s economy. The building functions as a working manual for mass timber construction, with an entirely exposed structure, a jagged roof, laboratories, studios and an auditorium arranged around a large workshop that looks out onto the city. The generous natural light and high ecological standards double as a live case study for the students who use the building daily.
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Claremont McKenna College — Robert Day Sciences Center, Claremont, United States
Above Two storeys cantilever in opposite directions above a ground-floor colonnade of angled concrete columns, their glazed undersides catching evening light (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
Above At dusk, warm light fills the timber-lined interior visible through the entrance’s angled glass volume, flanked by triangulated concrete bracing on either side (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
Two storeys cantilever in opposite directions above a ground-floor colonnade of angled concrete columns, their glazed undersides catching evening light (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
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Above Red furniture sets punctuate a rooftop terrace planted with drought-tolerant landscaping, set beneath the building’s triangulated concrete façade (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
Above Viewed directly from above, the building’s rotated volumes form an eight-pointed star around a central skylight (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
Red furniture sets punctuate a rooftop terrace planted with drought-tolerant landscaping, set beneath the building’s triangulated concrete façade (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
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At 13,500 square metres, Bjarke Ingels Group’s Robert Day Sciences Center brings computer science, data science and life sciences under one roof. A central atrium is formed by superimposed volumes, each pair rotated 45 degrees from the floor below, creating laboratory transparency and encouraging exchange between disciplines.
Above Timber trusses cross the atrium in a repeating triangular pattern, with a suspended sculptural installation of coloured spheres hanging at its centre (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
Timber trusses cross the atrium in a repeating triangular pattern, with a suspended sculptural installation of coloured spheres hanging at its centre (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
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Eight rooftop terraces and open walkways extend that logic outward. The façades use reinforced concrete panels textured to resemble wood, chosen for the durability and fire resistance a scientific laboratory requires.
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Harvard University — David Rubenstein Treehouse, Boston, United States
Illuminated from within, the building’s triangulated timber-and-glass façade wraps its corner site among Boston’s mixed high-rise surroundings (Photo: Jason O’Rear)
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Jeanne Gang, a Harvard alumna and professor, designed the Rubenstein Treehouse within the university’s Enterprise Research Campus as a conference centre built to feel like a cabin nested in a canopy. Visitors ascend a sculptural central staircase, wrapped around freestanding elevators, to reach Canopy Hall and its panoramic terrace.
Above A visitor looks out from a timber-framed terrace, with diagonal cross-bracing supporting the cantilevered volume above (Photo: Jason O’Rear)
Above The mass timber corridor is lined with angled glazing, with exposed diagonal bracing visible overhead (Photo: Jason O’Rear)
A visitor looks out from a timber-framed terrace, with diagonal cross-bracing supporting the cantilevered volume above (Photo: Jason O’Rear)
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It is Harvard’s first building to combine mass timber construction with low-carbon concrete and high-performance systems intended to reduce its environmental footprint while improving occupant comfort.
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Johns Hopkins University — Bloomberg Student Center, Baltimore, United States
At dusk, the building’s cascading pavilions catch the last light against Homewood campus’s historic brick backdrop (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
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Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group with interior architect Rockwell Group, the Bloomberg Student Center is Johns Hopkins’s first building built solely for student life. Twenty-nine roofs fitted with close to 1,000 solar panels cap a series of timber pavilions that follow the contour of the Homewood campus hillside, each storey opening directly onto the slope.
Students descend a wide stepped staircase that doubles as informal seating, flanked by stone-clad planters and timber columns (Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu)
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More than 200 student organisations use the building, alongside a performance space, art studios, dance and music rehearsal rooms, a digital media centre and a dining hall.
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Jennifer Choo is Regional Managing Editor of Tatler Homes, covering architecture, interior design, and art across Asia. Based in Malaysia, she oversees regional content on luxury residential design and contemporary art collections. Legally trained but choosing to pursue her passion for design, she previously led notable design publications and worked as an interior stylist and art consultant for property developers, design firms, and private clients.
