Green Belt Innovation - Sahiba Chadha

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GREEN BELT INNOVATION PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE URBAN PERIPHERY ENABLED BY THE GROWTH OF CAMBRIDGE'S KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

SAHIBA CHADHA

Darwin College | University of Cambridge

© Sahiba Chadha 2013

Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank Ingrid SchrĂśder for her invaluable commitment and support in guiding this design thesis. I am also grateful to Mary Ann Steane for her generosity in time and advice in supervising drafts of the thesis as it came to fruition.

In addition, I would like to thank Joris Fach and Peter Clegg for their design support and advice, as well as Jonathan Cook and Simon Smith for guidance in matters of landscape and structural design respectively.

I would also like to acknowledge Hattie Hartman at the Architects’ Journal and the team at Cullinan Studio for the opportunities they afforded me during my field study period.

I am particularly grateful to the research students, scientists and building managers at the various institutions I have visited, for their practical insights and for generously facilitating my fieldwork.

Critics

Finally, I am extremely grateful to my family and friends for their patience and moral support over the last two years.

Peter Carl Max Beckenbauer Joseph Bedford Claude MH Demers Arie Graafland Spencer de Grey Edmund Fowles

This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text.

All drawings, photographs and images are owned by the author except for where specifically indicated in the figure captions. Satellite imagery has been sourced from Google Earth and Bing Maps.

I would also like to thank my peers Dan Ladyman and Sophie Mitchell for their daily support and contemporaries Ed Barsley, Tom Powell and Mark Rigby for advising drafts.

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Alfred Jacoby Jon Lopez Nick Ray Makoto Saito Alex Warnock-Smith Koen Steemers Paul La Tourelle

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH QUESTIONS METHODOLOGY & LIMITATIONS

I. SUSTAINING THE RURAL-URBAN FRINGE

i. LOOSENING THE CAMBRIDGE GREEN BELT ii. PASTORAL CAPITALISM: THE FRINGE AND THE PARK iii. SUBCLASSIFICATION: A SYNTHESIS OF GREEN BELT AND INNOVATION

II. CONTEXT III. PRESERVATION & PROTECTION

i. PRESERVATION ii. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

IV. ACCESS & ECOLOGY

i. ACCESS ii. ACCESS AND ECOLOGICAL ENHANCEMENT

V. ADAPTATION & PRODUCTIVITY

i. ADAPTABILITY ii. SOCIAL SPECIFICITY / INNOVATION PRODUCTIVITY iii. PRODUCTIVITY AS GENERICISM REVERSION

SUMMARY & FURTHER RESEARCH REFERENCES

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ABSTRACT

Recent peripheral urban development has generated a loosened Cambridge green belt. This presents an opportunity to re-address what the green belt can do for the British city; how should its essential characteristics of ‘openess’ and ‘permanence’ be augmented or challenged?

Cambridge’s recent and historical peripheral development is related to the mid-twentieth century birth of the research park. Largely planned around vehicle access, these parks are typically a palette of manicured lawn and car park evolved from the American corporate park model. Standard examples exhibit siteplans that isolate building tenants and contradict the collaborative nature of science and technology innovation.

This thesis focuses on a greater ambition for green belt and science park landscapes, by exploring the hybridisation of the two into a new mode of development. It argues that development in the green belt can be strategised and manipulated to provide enhanced public access, amenity and ecology, as well as stimulate social interaction and creative capital for a scientific community. By readdressing this particular mode of rural-urban fringe development, a more regionally-specific landscape can be sought for development of the Cambridge periphery.

Fig. 1a-b (opposite, overleaf ) Ample access features in green belt land in the north east of Cambridge (a) have a marked contrast with public Rights of Way in the north west of the city (b)

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a

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b

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INTRODUCTION

“Green belts are being referred to by [some] planners as tools of planning technology rather than sacred items of planning ideology.�

(Hall, 1973, Vol.2 p.79)

Since the post-war period, the periphery of the English city has been defined by containment strategies (Hall, 1973).

The establishment of the country’s green belts in the 1950s exemplifies this. These green belts were admired globally (Amati, 2008), and praised for their ability to “prevent the consolidation and extension of vast masses of suburban and sub-suburban housing,” and “build up a more organic form, on a regional scale.” (Mumford, 1961, p.505). Whilst these assertions are open to debate, it represents a common attitude of that period. It followed that during the latter half of the twentieth century the green belt became an internationally replicated planning device, with varying degrees of success (Amati, 2008). This thesis discusses the city periphery as the rural-urban fringe formed at the outer lying edge of suburbia where green belt change is at its most contentious.

Peter Hall’s report of green belts as “planning technology” rather than “sacred planning ideology” reveals a misplaced optimism regarding the status quo (1973, Vol.2 p.79).

Technologies are typically in a state of perpetual update, whereas the green belt has exhibited inertia closer to that of a sacred ideology. Arguably, this attitude, at what is essentially the frontline of new development, has proved averse to maintaining healthy development patterns. In the context of the sustainable paradigm, it is particularly important to fully understand what characterises the rural-urban fringe. Do green belts ensure the social and environmental sustainability of this often forgotten juncture between the rural and urban condition? This thesis looks to investigate ways to better employ the green belt as a device that fulfils the aspirations that drove its introduction.

A context of changing policy Over the last decade national planning policy trends have shifted from a focus on land-use towards a focus on spatial plans, as it is argued that the latter facilitate a stronger promotion of sustainable development across the board (Gallent et al, 2006). Concurrently, the National 13

Planning Policy Framework presents a marked change in planning governance, where a decentralisation of power aligns with recent ‘localist’ political agendas and presents opportunities for local government to take greater control over development 1. As a result, organisations such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England 2 (CPRE) and Natural England see the fundamental green belt characteristics of openness and permanence as under threat (CPRE, 2012).

Cambridge has been chosen as the region for study due to its recent green belt deallocations, but also for its consistent historical relationship to containment. There has been pressure for the city to expand ever since the restrictions of The Holford-Wright Plan in 1950, which led to the defining and establishment of the Cambridge green belt (Holford & Wright, 1950). Development, housing in particular, was forced to leapfrog the belt creating satellite towns such as Bar Hill in the 1960s and more recently Cambourne, adding congestion stress through increased commuting. In the case of Cambridge, the NPPF’s perceived loosening of restrictions to green belt development has major implications for the city’s periurban fabric, which has already been the subject of change under the Cambridge Local Plan of 2006.

Catalysts for the development currently altering the inner boundary of the city’s green belt relate to these historical pressures. The region’s ‘knowledge economy’ has been a key stimulus to fringe development since the 1970s, embodied in the proliferation of peripheral science parks and mirrored in an economic growth commonly documented as The Cambridge Phenomenon (SQW, 1985). As a special case, land development restrictions to do with University growth have been loosened, resulting in a situation of drip-feeding land for development (Healey, 2007, p.135). Today land release still runs parallel with the universities’ expansion, particularly that of the University of Cambridge, exemplified by the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and the North West Cambridge urban extension, both of which include significant development for the academic and research sectors (see Fig. 3).

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Fig. 2 England’s green belts - 2011 raw data boundary lines

Notes 1. The Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) of the late 1980s to mid-1990s, critiqued for being too bland was superseded

by Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) issued in 2003 (Haughton & Counsell, 2004) p.143. Both iterations of policy were of a time when central Government had a firmer hand in regional planning.

2. Prior to the introduction of green belts CPRE, set up by Patrick Abercrombie in 1925, although mostly pro-green belt as was Abercrombie’s stance.

However it was not always a united view, there were instances of other representatives had expressed a preference that “in general, controlled peripheral development was preferable to a green belt and satellite towns; the danger of the green belt was that development would leapfrog it and start on the other side, threatening wider tracts of the countryside than before.”

(Hall, 1973, Vol.2 p.49)

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Fig. 3

The Cambridge Phenomenon is a subversion of the historical “ivory tower” isolation of the city. It was argued that the city had to become more dynamic as to both physical connections and its own fabric (Healey, 2007, p.120). The irony is that expansion has been justified as the only route to preservation of the University’s ability to support innovation, particularly in physics and bioscience.

This makes evident the recent and historical relationship between the rural-urban fringe condition and settings for scientific innovation. The thesis frames this as a relationship between green belt and innovation.

Cambridge City Council’s Local Plan in 2006 resulted in the release of 215 hectares of green belt land for development (Adapted from CCC Local Plan 2006)

The resulting selective growth in research sector has meant extra pressures on housing and congestion in Cambridge (National Housing Federation, 2012). Indeed, England as a whole has witnessed the percentage of residential development in the green belt more than double since the early 1990s (CRC, 2010, Summary:p.9). In Cambridge green belt boundaries around the city and in South Cambridgeshire are listed as “under threat” from 12,350 dwellings as part of the Council’s current review of 2006’s Local Plan (CPRE, 2012). The scarcity of brownfield land in the city exacerbates this issue. The alternative of densification, which inevitably includes building upwards, challenges landmarks of Cambridge’s historic skyline and specific long distance views of the city from the green belt (CCC, 2012).

Cambridge is part of a larger structural development plan referred to as the ‘M11 corridor’ (Buchanan & Partners, 2001) (Roger Tym & Partners et al, 2004). This plan draws Cambridge into the “orbit of the rapidly expanding London metropolis”, as urged in the 1960s, and builds on the construction of Stansted airport in the 1980s – all contributing factors to growth pressures in Cambridge (Healey, 2007, p.127).

It is important to note that in the wider arena there are currently conflicting views about where innovation should be located in relation to the city. For example the Francis 16

Study area Cambridge green belt boundary 2011 Main arterial roads Protected green space in the city ‘Areas of Major Urban Change’ 2006 Existing research parks / campuses

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0

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20 km

20 km

B

A

Crick Centre, a vast new research complex, has chosen to be based in Kings Cross, London. In this vein, the UK Science Park Association (UKSPA) seem to think the days of the science park might be numbered, and are concerning themselves with improving digital and virtual communication, in the promotion of a virtual knowledge park (Wright, 2013). Others value face-to-face interaction as far too significant to be replaced (Bathelt et al, 2004).

The spatial implications are, of course, significant.

Cambridge represents one end of the spectrum, large

Fig. 4 A. Buchanan’s 2001 report identified spatial growth patterns in the region north east of London (Drawing adapted from: Buchanan & Partners et al, 2001) B. The area surrounding the M11 was highlighted as a knowledge economy growth area C. This study identifies key research parks along the route D. The relationship between these parks and the green belt in Cambridge is evident.

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20 km

C

Settlement population: 75,000 - 150,000 50,000 - 75,000 15,000 - 50,000 5,000 - 15,000 0 - 5,000

‘spatial pattern’ identified by Buchanan 0

isolated M11 ‘spatial pattern’ green belt 20 km research park or campus

D

amounts of green belt land have already been released for research space development. In the urban condition space is at a premium, potentially complicating expansion and adaptation. The peripheral condition is characterised by sparsity and therefore, while it lends itself to expansive development, it inherently suffers from poor physical connectivity: to urban centres and between buildings. The academic discourse critiquing the rural-urban fringe has gained impetus over the last decade (Shoard, 2002; Gallent et al, 2006). This thesis adds to the dialogue by practically exploring the design possibilities in this often neglected landscape.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Theoretical Can urban expansion be harnessed as a strategy for the socially sustainable preservation of both green belt principles and Cambridge’s innovation heritage?

Technical In redesigning the research campus model, can the tectonic relationship between landscape and structure work to enhance and protect ecology, green belt connectivity and social interaction?

Terminology This thesis employs two definitions of social sustainability, based on summative research

by Dempsey et al (2011): 1. General: Ensuring inter-generational social equity and sense of community. This includes preservation of access to resources such as education and training, decent housing, public services, (social) infrastructure, green space, culture and recreation 2. Knowledge-based economy: Preservation of a sense of community or place that leads to the collegiality and social interaction associated with innovation.

The phrase ‘innovation heritage’ is used to describe the longstanding historic tradition of Cambridge as a city of scientific progress and excellence.

Fig. 5 The rural-urban fringe of Cambridge is characterised by green belt and transport infrastructure.

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METHODOLOGY & LIMITATIONS

Methodology Spending over a year in residence in Cambridge has allowed a deep appreciation of the nature of life in the city. Several science campuses and parks, in Cambridge as well as others, were visited and documented qualitatively through photo surveys and written analysis, with a number being described quantitatively through drawn analysis. Two research buildings were then documented in detail through thermal simulation and drawn analysis: the Cavendish Physics Laboratory on the West Cambridge site and the Centre for Stem Cell Research (CSCR) on the Old Addenbrookes campus. This initial research resulted in a pilot design thesis dealing with shared social space to foster interaction on the University’s Downing site, a central urban location.

This thesis takes a view that design research is an opportunity to use a design proposal as a vehicle for exploring the key issues unearthed by research. Hence the design project should not be considered a definitive response to the questions highlighted in this introduction, but as a means of testing these themes at a practical level. At all times this thesis looks to qualify all design considerations and recommendations as generic, semi-generic and specific. This helps to classify the relevance of the research nationally, regionally and locally respectively.

Limitations The use of the park typology limits the thesis to a lowerdensity mode of development, and hence does not deal with a higher, intensive use of land for expansion. The tension between green belt and development for innovation is not specific to Cambridge, but the city’s historical situation renders it atypical, hence there are limits to the study’s prototypical nature. Choosing a specific site presents further limits: the design response is developed via a set of principles but inevitably becomes site specific as the design progresses.

Finally it is important to underline that the periphery does not always remain so, and while this will be alluded to in the thesis, the issue warrants a wider frame of reference.

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Fig. 6 Case studies: A. West Cambridge B. Downing C. New Museums D. Cambridge Biomedical Campus/New Addenbrookes E. Old Addenbrookes F. Wellcome Sanger Institute G. Cambridge Science Park H. M4 corridor parks: Oxford & Bath-Bristol Science Park

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

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North West Cambridge masterplan

University’s West Cambridge site

Cambridge Biomedical Campus

2011 green belt boundary Cambridge City Council: Local Plan 2006’s ‘Areas of Major Change’

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Fig. 7 Urban change in Cambridge is focussed on the rural-urban fringe.

(Source: LDA 2003 & CCC Local Plan 2006)

Client, stakeholder and user groups Hypothetical clients for the design study have been identified: a collaborative partnership between a University science department and a large R&D company. These stakeholders would act as main tenants, with several secondary tenants letting space inkeeping with the research park concept. Acknowledgement of the University and its relationship to science parks in Cambridge is fundamental to this study. The involvement of the University in designing for innovation reflects a genuine search for how to benefit the production of knowledge and preserve the city’s character, not simply maximising site lettings and profits. While the intention is to investigate a prototypical or generic park, an example tenant is pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, who recently publicised plans to downsize their Cheshire-based research facility, relocating over a thousand R&D employees to a proposed $500 million purpose-built facility in Cambridge by 2016. This is speculated as being in direct relationship to their recent 16 per cent drop in sales last year (BBC News, 2013) resulting from patent expiry. This affirms that in order to pursue innovative drug development large companies must “locate more scientists close to globally recognised bioscience clusters, making it easier to access world-class talent and opportunities for collaboration and partnerships” (AstraZeneca Press Office, 2013). AstraZeneca are clearly buying into the concepts of ‘open innovation’ 3 and the benefits of colocation to academic research.

Such company investment in the region perpetuates the view of Cambridge as a growing bioscience innovation hub. While the Biomedical Campus, due for completion in 2020, represents an existing location for Cambridge’s bioscience activities, it also embodies a traditional approach to green belt development, designing a typical flat site (sub) urban masterplan. This thesis deliberately avoids this site in order to be disassociated from such conventional green belt development. In addressing the needs and possibilities presented by a more challenging motorway-side site 25

on the fringes of the city, this thesis aims to establish the alternative design principles that might throw such conventional green belt development into question.

Fig. 8 A recently declassified site west of Cambridge and beside the M11 motorway provides the basis of the design study.

Notes 3. Open innovation is a term coined by Henry Chesbrough, UC Berkeley: “Open Innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate innovation. With knowledge now widely distributed, companies cannot rely entirely on their own research, but should acquire inventions or intellectual property from other companies when it advances the business model.� (Chesbrough et al, 2006)

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SUSTAINING THE RURAL-URBAN FRINGE

“Today green belts continute to be designated...without any real concern for the green belt land itself. Their purpose remains as the creation of firebreaks between genuinely valued landscape, not to tease out the essential qualities of the distinctive landscape that develops on urban edges, and to enhance it in its own right.�

(Shoard, 2002, p137)

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LOOSENING THE CAMBRIDGE GREEN BELT

Fig. 9 (previous & opposite)

Roots of the green belt concept

The Cambridge green belt is made up of 74 per cent high grade arable or horticultural land, 13 per cent semi-natural grassland and 5 per cent ancient woodland, most other designations are typically 8 per cent.

Before its adoption by Raymond Unwin and Patrick Abercrombie, Ebenezer Howard held very a particular vision for the Garden City. This consisted of a ‘Social City’ of high-density one-mile radius urban cells which “were set on a green background which was publicly owned and was used for a wide variety of semi-urban purposes (colleges, hospitals, children’s homes) as well as agriculture…a form of polycentric urban agglomeration of great size” (Hall, 1973, Vol.2 p.386). Howard posited that a network of highspeed rail transport would traverse this green background.

Howard’s vision was the catalyst for the green belt concept.

Perhaps the satellite villages around the city of Cambridge, which itself is incredibly compact, are vestiges of these city cells. Either way, the qualities of Cambridge as an attractive place to work and live are arguably embodied by its tightly drawn green belt.

Study area

Current green belt remit A green belt is a statutory designation for preserving both the countryside and the character of English towns and cities by preventing urban sprawl. Current policy underlines the fundamental green belt characteristics as openness and permanence. Through these characteristics, the green belt acts with the following purposes:

To check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; To prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; To assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; To preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and To assist urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.

(National Planning Policy Framework, 2012: 9.79-80)

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While this wording has been replicated in regional policy almost verbatim over the past decade, the Cambridge Local Plan shows the Cambridge green belt to have its own operative bias (see Fig. 3 for local vision of town and countryside connection). In particular, this is to preserve the city’s unique and dynamic character as “compact with a relatively large historic centre”, to maintain and enhance the quality of the City’s setting and to prevent merging of local “necklace” communities (CCC, 2006). In addition, at all policy levels, there is an expectation that green belt land provides opportunities of public access for outdoor recreation and sport. Although at local and regional level the green belt is treated uniformly as sacrosanct, the quality and use of the land is not overtly considered.

Unlike conservation designations such as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), which are scenic landscapes deemed worthy of protection in themselves, the green belt designation represents a landscape preserved to protect urbanity – and rurality – as well as itself.

This comparison is especially useful for understanding recreational use. Where conservation areas aim to retain qualities such as wildness and tranquillity for public enjoyment (Selman, 2009), the green belt is largely agricultural landscape and hence has limits to its potential for recreation (CPRE & Natural England, 2010). Gallent et al critique the rural-urban fringe as being increasingly associated with bad quality land, limited access and little landscape quality, but more importantly they posit that planning policy here has “tended to promote monofunctionality, with no coherent view of how places`work’ or might be created through harmonisation and interaction (between agriculture and industry, between people and the landscape, or between technical uses such as waste management and energy production).” (Gallent et al, 2006, p466) This thesis specifically concerns itself with this issue of “harmonisation and interaction” between people and landscape.

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Fig. 10 Cambridge’s historic core has a tight urban grain dominated by the University’s colleges

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Fig. 11 A house on the green belt boundary south of the city - those resident on the city periphery are also among its more vocal protectors.

Green belt and changing policy Within the context of Cambridgeshire, critiques of green belt can be seen as two-fold: that it is a policy with limited utility and that its designations are not protected enough.

The rigidity and suitability of the concept has been subjected to consistent scrutiny by academic commentators as summarised by Gallent et al (2006, p.465). This rigidity means that the green belt cannot engage with the social, political and environmental factors that concern the rural-urban fringe. Yet the fringe of Cambridge is certainly not static. Pressure for growth and conservationism have created a consistent socio-political dialogue between green belt protectors, key stakeholders (particularly the University of Cambridge) and local communities. Green belt protectors, such as CPRE, are particularly vociferous in their critique, expressing resistance to the deallocation incited by the Government’s consolidation of planning policy in its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) of March 2012.

Despite the last decade of changing governmental policy,4 the definition of ‘green belt’ has remained unaltered. The NPPF underlines that the green belt is of great importance in preserving England’s urban fabric, demonstrating the continued reluctance of central Government to directly interfere with green belt policy, due partly to the public popularity of the device (Morrison, 2010). However, closer scrutiny reveals that the real threat to the green belt is found in the NPPF’s subtext:

Notes 4. The introduction of three different policies over a period less than ten years suggests a step change in policymaking.

The National Planning Policy Framework supersedes the locally focussed frameworks of Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS), which in turn relatively recently replaced the Regional Planning Guidance in 2004.

“At the heart of the National Planning Policy Framework is a presumption in favour of sustainable development, which should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan-making and decision-taking.” (DCLG, 2012: 0.14) This suggests that development will stimulate growth and in turn become economically sustainable, a slant well documented in the press (Fig. 15). Whilst effort is made to define ‘sustainable’, inevitably there remains some ambiguity to what exactly is classified as such. The idea that 35

“sustainable development” can speed through decisionmaking “without delay” as the NPPF encourages, may represent a threat to inner green belt boundaries. In the context of Cambridge, where the sustainability of satellite communities is compromised by perpetuating strain on public and private transport provision (Morrison, 2010), increased development on the city’s inner green belt boundary could be classed as a more sustainable option (Cambridge Futures, 1999).

Fig. 12 Above: access through study site Below: view from inside the western green belt looking east toward the site.

What the NPPF offers is scope for local government to take better hold of the reins. This decentralisation could be deemed positive because local authorities have the regional understanding to make informed decisions, or negative as councils are potentially swayed by local actors for their own benefit. This thesis posits that decentralisation is an opportunity for the former rather than the latter: better decision making being likely in the case of Cambridge, in that the council has demonstrated a historical willingness to protect the city whilst remaining sympathetic to the overarching influence of the University as dominant stakeholders (Healey, 2007).

A detailed account of the Cambridge green belt The Cambridge green belt encompasses 26,340 hectares and, being comparatively smaller than its thirteen nationwide counterparts, comes under the jurisdiction of only two district planning authorities: CCC and South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC). Physically, the belt is 64 per cent high-grade agricultural land, the majority of which is subject to Natural England funding for ‘agri-environment’ schemes 5 – the highest proportion in the UK. Its proportion of ancient woodland, however, is 3 per cent lower than the English average (CPRE & Natural England, 2010).

Spatially, the green belt is a 5-8km wide band drawn tightly around the city, with green corridors that penetrate the urban fabric over the city boundary. These corridors of undeveloped land are a celebrated device for conservation of Cambridge’s character and setting (Healey, 2007, p.164).

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Notes 5. Agri-environment schemes are voluntary agreements initiated by Defra and run by Natural England.

Under these schemes farmers and other land managers are paid to manage their land in an environmentally friendly way.

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Even the Holford-Wright Plan ratified University development in the west so long as it was “contained within a setting of small villages, fields, woods and meadows, with ‘green wedges’ penetrating in the heart of the city” (Holford & Wright, 1950). It is, however, important to note: “Whilst they have broad support, corridors remain contentious as there is limited direct evidence of their ecological necessity. They may also facilitate the movement of predators or invasive species.” (Selman, 2009)

Fig. 13 Green corridors are defined by the green belt boundaries and major highways. In some cases they link into protected green space in the city (Adapted from CCC diagram, available at http://cambridge.jdiconsult.net/)

The cynic might consider these less green corridors into the city and more suburban sprawl leeching out into the green belt. Yet with the Cambridge green belt proportions consisting of only 18 per cent of potential amenity use, that is ancient woodland and semi-natural grassland, these adopted green corridors work towards improving outdoor amenity space, with a provision of paths and cycle routes through vegetation as well as open green space for sport.

Although the corridors are accepted as strategic guidelines, the CCC’s 2012 green belt appraisal intimates they could be concretised in policy in the 2014 Local Plan. (CCC, 2012a) Cambridge is a unique green belt case, a small designation administered by only two district councils, with a heightened need for declassification in the recent past and an unrivalled set of landowners in the University and colleges. The vast scale of peripheral developments in Cambridge, for both residential and research sectors, have actively challenged green belt permanence. The HolfordWright report suggested a city population cap of 100,000 that has already been exceeded: the 2011 census puts the current population at 123,900.

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CCC green corridor green belt boundary line CCC protected green space Cambridge City boundary

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Charting Cambridge’s urban expansion north- and west-wards: 1945 - Prior to the establishment of the Cambridge green belt, the city began to spread along radial roads 2000 - Development begins to strain at the green belt boundary 2011 - New boundary data is released after 215 hectares of green belt were deallocated in 2006 2018 - New developments on declassified land are filled out and the green belt is reviewed - can a new understanding of the belt boundary be sought?

Study area

1945

2011-present

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2000 1. National Institute for Agricultural Botany 2. North West Cambridge urban extension 3. University’s West Cambridge site

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2018?

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OPTION

DEVELOPMENT

1 Minimum Growth

Nothing to encourage further expansion but rather seek to curb it. All new development

2 Densification

Concentrating development in the City of Cambridge where demand for location is

would be allocated to market towns in East Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire.

highest. Existing private open space and unused land within the urban envelope targeted for compact development.

3 Necklace

Concentrating development in the villages (existing or new) and Market Towns beyond the

4 Green Swap

Development allowed in selected Green Belt areas of less scenic value and are not available

Green Belt in South Cambridgeshire and other districts - a continuation of existing policies.

for public use. Equivalent or enhanced amenities for public use further out of town required as replacement.

5 Transport Links

Development allowed within easy access of a public transport corridor. More intensive use of the existing railway lines reinstatement of the St Ives/Huntingdon line, necessary investment in opening new stations.

6 Virtual Highway

Development allowed within a corridor providing a high capacity electronic communications system - a more speculative development which might reduce the need for personal travel.

7 New Town

Development in a single location beyond green belt, large enough to provide an alternative to the City of Cambridge for employment and services. Large investment in infrastructure necessary.º

The redefinition of the green belt boundary is a contentious local issue, historically and in the last decade. At the turn of the century the Cambridge Futures project added vehicular congestion to the major drivers for change in the city. The project foresaw that restricting growth would cause an increase in the average cost of living in the region of 80 per cent, adversely affecting the city’s social sustainability. All development options explored projected a negative impact on congestion in the city, which became the focus of the study’s environmental quality conclusion. In the end, strategies with more manageable cost and congestion increases were adopted in order to encourage a greater socio-economic mix (Cambridge Futures, 1999).

The notion explored by Cambridge Futures of a ‘green swap’, which would continue to allow development so long as proportionate increase is accommodated elsewhere, is legible in the Local Plan but disputed by pressure groups. Michael Monk of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough branch of The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), notes, “…any erosion of green belt close to the city of Cambridge would undermine character and setting and could not be compensated for by land some eight to ten miles out.” (Monk, 2012) The CCC’s 2002 green belt appraisal (LDA, 2002) and the following Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Structure Plan 2003 sparked the recent sizeable boundary changes of Cambridge’s green belt. The Local Plan 2006 cemented this declassification of 215 hectares of green belt and as Cambridge revises its Local Plan for adoption in 2014, 42

Fig. 14 Cambridge Future’s development options set out in 1999. (Adapted from table on http://www. cambridgefutures.org/)

further release is under consideration (Marrs, 2012). This 2006 declassification resulted in the aforementioned large developments on the city’s northwest and southern edges amongst others. (Fig.1) The CPRE believe this recent declassification allows plenty of space for required development. They deem this current revised boundary must remain untouched over the next thirty years. One expects that eroding the Green Belt at the city’s edge would increase travel distances and adversely affect the city’s good record for sustainable travel. Monk explains that at present Cambridge is easily “traversed by foot and bicycle, such journeys would become less attractive and could require greater investment in roads and public transport infrastructure.” (Monk, 2012) The focus on easing congestion by both Cambridge Futures and the Holford-Wright Plan contrasts with the emphasis on community engagement today. This focal shift, from environmental sustainability to ensuring its roots in socially sustainable development, is evident in the NPPF advocacy of consultation between planning authorities and local communities to establish sustainable development opportunities in their region (Clause 155). Despite the public tendency to support green belt preservation (Morrison, 2010), CCC claim that during consultation prior to the 2006 Local Plan there was “…a recognition that there needed to be more development on the edge of the city, especially due to housing need.” (Marrs, 2012) This demonstrates a public awareness of the affordability of living near to the centre, and shows Cambridge residents acting to improve their own socio-economic mix (Cambridge Futures, 1999). Recent detailed workshop consultation on the current Local Plan labelled the current green belt approach (Policy 4.1) its least successful policy.

Suggested development options included multiple hubs and increased density, however there was no consensus on where growth should be, revealing the level of complexity involved in understanding public opinion on Cambridge’s green belt (CCC, 2012b).

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The University’s position, by contrast, is easily discerned; it has always kept a keen eye on planning law, and was historically resistive of imposed controls (Healey, 2007). In many ways, the University has been an actuator for normalising green belt declassification; the North West Cambridge masterplan gained outline planning approval in August 2012 with a declassification of 90 hectares of green belt within its site total of 140. Any opposition to the development has been precluded with heavy consultation between the public and the project team, including masterplanners AECOM Design + Planning. The high concern for maintaining the green belt value of openness has ensured that over a third of the masterplan – 50 hectares – is dedicated to open space and parkland.

A context for amending the remit of the green belt Although both the NPPF and Local Plan stress conservation of the green belt except under special circumstances, Cambridge’s current developments show that in practice need has produced a series of ‘special circumstances’. In the media coverage, the suggestion that the NPPF is ratifying release of green belt has perpetuated fear of sprawl and, as the examined subtext shows, this may be justified.

The option of densification in the form of building upwards threatens Cambridge’s historic skyline and views, despite the support of such concepts from pressure groups such as the CPRE. The alternative, manifested in existing expansion plans, must be carefully managed to prevent the loss of accessibility to recreational open space and visual amenity.

Perhaps the only positive of peripheral development is the increase of housing closer to the city, improving accessibility and mobility. Cambridge Futures presented a rigorous interrogation of the Holford-Wright walling in of the city and promoted spread into the green belt as a viable, sustainable expansion option. Whether this approach will be branded 44

Fig. 15 Screenshots of recent green belt coverage in local and national media (Sourced from respective media websites)

negatively as ‘sprawl’ in the future remains to be seen.

“Spatial plans are concerned with long-term vision and short-term actions, with frameworks or guidelines for integrated development, and operate through the interests of selected stakeholders, thereby managing change, and representing a negotiated form of governance. In cases in which planning has failed (or has been unable) to realise the potential benefits of intervention, we can attribute at least some blame on its past land-use control focus.” (Gallent et al, 2006) This thesis sees the green belt as a resource and argues that as a landscape it can be managed to better serve the city dweller, through a spatial plan whose objectives have been redefined in accordance with current local initiatives. Urban fringe development has the opportunity to work much harder to retain green belt landscape whilst still allowing development.

The 2006 Local Plan green belt policy supports proposals that “increase public access, improve amenity and enhance biodiversity”, ensuring a network of green infrastructure for both non-agricultural usage and wildlife habitat across the City (CCC, 2006). This aligns with the aspirations of local residents for an increase in nature reserves, woodland walks and cycle paths (CPRE & Natural England, 2010). The evidence reveals there is little alternative to the Government notion of “imaginative” use of the green belt or rather, as urbanist Peter Hall has identified in the past, utilising it as a “tool” rather than treating it as a “sacred item” (Hall, 1973). This suggests there is an opportunity to reassess the way we define and view green belt, to consider how we can protect its qualities through imposed design guidelines. This shifts the dialogue surrounding green belt declassification from preservation to provision. By improving access and providing amenity for recreation, a better relationship between the city and open space can be sought.

45

46

PASTORAL CAPITALISM: FRINGE, PARK & CAMPUS

“Unlike residential suburbs, this type of metropolitan development did not originate as an ideal promoted by designers, advocated by reformers, and coveted by consumers…The designers involved in these projects brought to the table the vocabulary of pastoral landscapes and modernist buildings, the ability to concretize ideas, and expertise in implementation, but these suburban forms were the visions of capitalists and emerged from a capitalist imperative.”

Louise Mozingo on the advent of corporate parks and campuses in America (Mozingo, 2011, p.217)

Fig. 16 The court is a typical element of the quintessential Cambridge college. Many of the older colleges, such as Gonville & Caius college pictured, feature linked sequencing of courts throughgateways.

The rural-urban fringe is typically presented as a neglected zone in planning (Shoard, 2002). Here, lower building standards are excused for the utilitarian architecture of warehouses, superstores and industrial parks, neighboured to landscapes of “rubbish tips... golf courses, allotments and fragmented, frequently scruffy, farmland” (ibid, p.117).

Of course, this was never the intentional setting of the out-of-town workplace on its conception.

Morphology from the out-of-town campus Mozingo (2011) explores the notion of the pastoral setting as a tranquil or even moral environment, and explains how it was adopted in the mid-20th century for large American corporations, realised and sited in suburbia. The suburban corporate workplace is categorised into three forms of what she terms ‘pastoral capitalist’ development: the corporate campus, the coporate estate and the office park. In the 1940s the corporate campus was adopted as a white-collar workplace away from industrial factories and was modelled on the University quadrangle campus. This was followed a decade later by the coporate estate which, by contrast, was an executive workplace consisting of statement buildings with extensive, landscaped drives. The coporate estate landscape setting is symbolic of English country estates, where the house ranks socially and culturally higher than the nearby town. The office park was developed as a flexible, low-cost alternative to the corporate estate or campus, with each building plot “encircled by a pool of parking within a matrix of landscape edges, medians, and verges that provided suburban consistency” (Mozingo, 2011, p.13). In the UK, the promotional terminology of the park type of development varies: office, research, business, science or technology, the terms are used interchangeably but essentially represent the same kind of morphology.

As mentioned, the heritage and precendent for these typologies derives from the academic 47

48

Fig. 17 Jefferson’s ‘academical village’ at the University of Virginia.

campus. The Oxbridge college quad, originating from Merton College, Oxford, could be considered the origins of the campus concept far before the term entered general usage (Hashimshony & Jacov, 2006), as the model is composed of a collection of buildings with the intent of creating a knowledge-based community. However, historically the Oxbridge example is tightly set into an urban grain, rather than benefitting from the relatively unbounded spaciousness associated with the contemporary campus. Campus translates into ‘field’ in Latin, hence has connotations with openness and landscape. Thomas Jefferson’s notion of an ‘academical village’ implemented at the University of Virginia in 1819 is often considered to be the first example of a campus: place-making through landscape on a city edge condition (Edwards, 2000).

Following this first example, the campus typology was developed mostly as an Anglo-American phenomenon. In post-war Britain, the socio-politics of the Welfare State did much to encourage and inform the development of the outof-town campus as a utopic academic community, where people could mingle and interact centrally (Muthesius, 2000). In the 1960s, these utopian ideals of campus were physically embodied in the architecture of the British New Universities, in particular: “…the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic became an even more intensely pursued issue. English designers once more joined a European Modernist avant-garde tradition which reached back to Sant’Elia and Le Corbusier of the 1920s, where communication lines were singled out into separate elements, such as platforms or bridges, thereby linking all buildings into a single conglomerate.”

(Muthesius, 2000, p.92) These ‘conglomerates’, such as Hugh Morris’ Bath University plan and Denys Lasdun’s University of East Anglia, saw the campus as a linear megastructure in an idealised parkland setting. The perceived benefits of such a model lay in its linear extendibility and the clarity and weather protection of internal ‘communication lines’ or streets. However in reality, there were a number of common failings as summarised by Muthesius’ critique.

49

50

Fig. 18 Left: Oxford & Cambridge Science Parks Right: at Cambridge Science Park transport infrastructure takes precedence over green space which is relegated to ‘green skirts’ around buildings.

51

52

Fig. 19 Designed ‘pastoral’ landscaping at Cambridge Science Park

He underlines that the fact that utopia can only exist theoretically helps explain why many campuses exist in a perpetual state of planning and expansion, much like the contemporary research park. This tendency to never be finished reveals the downside of the imperatives of flexibility and change associated with the typology. A second critique is that the emphasis on the whole has led to a neglect on making individual places – the urban intimacy promised by the likes of Lasdun was not delivered. Here, in trying to be a town rather than an institution the campus paradoxically achieves neither (Muthesius, 2000).

‘Pastoral capitalism’ & knowledge transfer Mozingo argues that the American pastoral ideal embraced in suburbia is derived from Frederick Law Olmsted’s vision that suitably designed public parks could provide an alternative to the 18th century landscape classifications of ‘beautiful’ or ‘picturesque’. His intention was “to evoke a familiar, tranquil, and cultivated nature as a counterpoint to the city…Not intended as a zone of active use, the pastoral public park presented composed scenery for passive viewing.” (Mozingo, 2011)p.10 Merging the ideas of the country estate and the pastoral landscape, corporate campuses are usually set in a decadent acreage of land, unlike the office park which is much more methodically and efficiently planned in order to maximise rental profits. Driven by efficiency and access, office parks have become increasingly removed from the pastoral ideal, instilled with a typically suburban trait that was already noted at the time of these parks’ establishment: “the new suburban sprawl has become abjectly dependent upon a single form, the private motor car, whose extension has devoured the one commodity the suburb could rightly boast: space. Instead of buildings set in a park, we now have buildings set in a parking lot.” (Mumford, 1961, p.506) 53

Google headquarters

54

Fig. 20 Mountain View, Silicon Valley

0

100m

55

Fig. 21

Nowhere is this trait more evident than in the hallowed ‘technopole’4 of Silicon Valley. Catalysed by the establishment of Stanford Research Park, Silicon Valley is a conglomeration of office, research and technology parks, which gained prominence while spearheading the information technology revolution (Castells & Hall, 1994). The area is characterised by the spatial and formal monotony of American corporate suburbia. This has clearly not affected the innovative output of the region, which is often cited to be resultant from informal inter-firm social engagement between entrepreneurs, in both work and leisure settings (Saxenian, 1994; Mozingo, 2011).

Transport signage at Cambridge Science Park reinforces the dominance of vehicles on the site

This success in promoting particular kinds of social setting is used to explain why the park model has failed in other regions (ibid). In these instances, Silicon Valley’s industrial siteplans of uniform low rise buildings and car parks have been replicated at random with little consideration of the social provisions that are so vital to fostering the Valley’s innovation.

Recent thought has been that this face-to-face interaction must be elicited by a workplace setting in order to disseminate tacit knowledge, which cannot be easily transcribed and shared via the usual (written/virtual) communication streams. Bathelt et al summarise this position: “The main argument regarding the spatial aspects of this has been that – on the one hand – the more codified the knowledge involved, the less space-sensitive should these processes tend to be. If – on the other hand – the knowledge involved is diffuse and tacit, the argument is that such interaction and exchange is dependent on spatial proximity between the actors involved. Only by being in the same local environment, and by meeting repeatedly in person, can and will such more subtle forms of information be exchanged. This has been proposed as the main mechanism that makes it beneficial for a firm to be located in a spatial cluster, surrounded by other similar and related firms.” (Bathelt et al, 2004, p.32) 56

Notes 4. A French term adopted by Castells and Hall, (1994, p.8) defined as “deliberate attempts to plan and promote, within one concentrated area, technologically innovative, industrial-related production: technology parks, science cities, technopolises and the like.”

57

0

50 km existing UKSPA members proposed science parks

58 0

50 km

80 75 70 65

total no. of registered science parks in the UK

60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10

2010

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

1965

1960

each year by region

no. of parks established

0

2015 +

5

Fig. 22 (opposite) The UK Science Park Association (UKSPA) acts as an authoritative body on science, business and technology park planning, development & management. Its current members include almost 80 science parks.

Fig. 23 (above) Cumulative & bar analysis of UKSPA members marketed as ‘science parks’ demonstrates the steady increase of park establishment in the UK since the founding of Cambridge Science Park in 1970.

Central Scotland Northeast of England Yorkshire Northwest England Nottingham + East Midlands Birmingham + West Midlands Cambridge East of England Essex Oxford + M4 Corridor London + Thames Gateway West of England + Wales South of England

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Fig. 24

The presence of this exchange at local (workplace) and regional (city) level, often referred to as ‘buzz’ (Storper & Venables, 2004), is augmented by the infrastructural and institutional links of a University, which are vital to maintaining knowledge ‘pipelines’ to a global arena (Bathelt et al, 2004).

Negative spatial issues of the park model In their collaborative work Massey and Quintas dissect the economic and cultural implications of the science park (Massey et al 1992). They note science parks represent “an infrastructural mechanism to bridge the gap between academia and industry.” (Quintas et al, 1992, p.162) This is an apt description, in essence the park is a form of speculative property development, a large acreage of land is acquired, branded and linked to a university, plots are assigned and some developed to be let to tenants, others sold to specific companies. Research however shows that the research links of science-park-based firms and a control off-park group are not necessarily very different, yet onpark firms reported benefit from sharing university facilities (ibid).

However, whilst these and other studies are generally comprehensive, they lack a critique of the spatial implications of the park model as offered by Mozingo.

The spatial realisation of innovation in Cambridge “As economic growth emerged not from belching smokestacks and banging assembly lines buts from binary code and biochemistry, the office park proved to be particularly adaptable to technological, information , and service ventures.” (Mozingo, 2011)p.193 In the UK, the research park traces its roots to the Cambridge Science Park, established in 1970, in a bid to formalise the relationship between spin-off high-tech 60

Cambridge Science Park

61

North West Cambridge Urban Extension

West Cambridge

firms and the University. The park became a countrywide typology in the 1980s, when the country was experiencing a “recession in traditional labour-intensive industries” (UKSPA, 2008) and cuts to government funding pressurised universities to attract alternative funds through industry links.

Where historically universities were concerned largely with basic research, connections to R&D are an attempt to aid incubation of enterprise (Segal Quince Wicksteed Ltd, 1985), but also to give a certain trustworthiness to marketable products (Gieryn 2008). The necessity for a knowledge-driven economy has not relented since, hence research and development (R&D), the conversion of knowledge into product, remains of paramount importance to the nation’s economic health as repeatedly set out by the government (Department for Trade & Industry, 1999; 2006).

Fig. 25 Both the University’s West Cambridge site (above) and Cambridge Science Park (opposite) have extensive green belt ‘frontage’ (Adapted from CCC Local Plan 2006)

Study area

In Cambridge, what began with the aim of supporting high-tech industry in the 1970s and 1980s, has slowly evolved to include a world-renowned bioscience research and development (R&D) cluster. This phenomenon is often seen as a UK parallel to Silicon Valley and in the “mythology of high-technology creation…it has become 62

Cambridge green belt boundary 2011 Main arterial roads Protected green space in the city ‘Areas of Major Urban Change’ 2006 Existing research parks / campuses

Cambridge Science Park

a worldwide image or symbol of the innovative milieu” (Castells & Hall, 1994, p.93).The relationship between this phenomenon and the University’s plans for expansion goes much deeper, as has been well-documented (Segal Quince Wicksteed Ltd, 1985; Echenique et al, 2003). In 1967 the University-instigated Mott Committee argued that the Holford principles had stunted the city’s economic growth by stifling development, but also threatened the city’s longvaunted capacity to support scientific innovation. A notable example was the refusal of planning permission for the IBM European Headquarters (later built in Portsmouth) as it might detract from Cambridge’s “celebrated historical charm” (Mozingo, 2011, p.205) The resulting Mott Report suggested that containment principles should be relaxed to allow science-based industry to be located on the fringe of the city, under the premise that such industry is light touch, clean and to some extent ‘green’ (Healey, 2007, p.139). This led to the establishment of Cambridge Science Park by Trinity College three years later, the precedent for numerous parks in the following decade (see Fig. 25) including the University West Cambridge site. The part the park model plays in fostering innovation clusters is not easily discerned, as despite being similar in form, planning and academic links, some are well 63

known to thrive, as in Silicon Valley, and some to fail (Quintas, Wield, & Massey, 1992).

The Cambridge Phenomenon is argued to be resultant from a series of simultaneous events following the Mott Report: ripening technology, the building of new roads (particularly the M11), a responsive financial and business sector for spin-offs and startups, and also a “cumulative demonstration effect” (SQW, 1985; Castells & Hall, 1994) p.97. This makes clear that the success of innovation regions is a cocktail of many factors, some replicable and some purely fortuitous.

Continual fringe expansion Evolution in research practice and a need to attract world-class researchers demands that the University continually updates its buildings. The density of the city centre has necessitated University expansion into green belt sites owned by itself and the colleges.

This expansion, south- and west-ward, is set to continue with the infilling of the West Cambridge site, the completion of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and the North West Cambridge urban extension. In North West Cambridge alone the plan includes approximately “100,000sqm of academic and commercial research space, providing further research facilities for the University, along with specialist employment premises and local job opportunities” (AECOM, University of Cambridge, 2010).

Unable to wait for available space locally in the University’s densely packed New Museums 64

Fig. 26 The Old Cavendish building is located in the centre of Cambridge on the University’s New Museums site, facing onto Free School Lane, and currently housing the Department of Psychology.

Fig. 27 The current Cavendish building on West Cambridge is acutely utilitarian, as can be read from its prefabricated CLASP construction system, typically used for railway and other public buildings.

site at the city’s historic core, the Cavendish Physics Laboratory was the first University department to move out to the suburban West Cambridge site in 1974: “…instead of grimy congested little workplaces and cellars there were light, shining rooms, surrounded by vistas of green fields, trees, and even a lake.” (Crowther, 1974) Over the last century and a half the Cavendish has produced 29 Nobel laureates – more than any other institution in the world, which is a remarkable measure of its innovation success. Its current home, a complex designed by Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall (RMJM), is an example of sprawling utilitarian buildings in a pastoral setting, typically associated with the science park. The Cavendish move from the densely-packed city to the looser periphery is symbolic of a shifting in the setting of innovation: the University aims to move most science departments out to the West Cambridge site, which occupies a large site adjacent to the M11. The landscape palette of lawn ‘skirts’, access roads and car park offers a classic example of the spatial banality necessary for the piecemeal plot development of the park model. The apparent necessity to masterplan around vehicle access is inherently mono-cultural. This designing for the car over the pedestrian, the on-going bane of suburbia, continues to embody impoverished site planning principles that fail to give enough attention to social interaction.

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SUBCLASSIFICATION: A SYNTHESIS OF GREEN BELT & INNOVATION “Through the use of the alternative model of `multifunctional management' suggested by Brandt and Vejre, it is possible to build a case for interventions that seek to harmonise farming with local ecology; to allow the landscape to maintain its economic function by permitting farmers to diversify into new activities; to expand sociocultural functionality by developing new access opportunities and new facilities; and to link essential services with landscape enhancement in cases in which they are deemed necessary.

This is not a strategy for `sanitising' the fringe, but for allowing sensible interventions that have not always been possible under the land-use model or within areas of statutory greenbelt (which freezes those functions and threatens their future viability).�

(Gallent et al, 2006, p.467)

Making a case for synthesising the green belt and innovation Drawing on the evidence that the science park model under-performs on an economic and social level, the aim of this thesis is to offer a spatially-driven alternative to this kind of developer-led initiative. Designing an alternative to the model’s sprawl enables more nuanced understanding of the issues and opportunities of siting spaces for innovation at the urban fringe. In particular, this thesis moves to classify access design (roads, parking, paths) as part of the landscape architecture of the site, rather than as mono-functional infrastructure, and explores how the notion of the pastoral setting can be achieved through a realistic conservation agenda for the English landscape.

The classic American campus of manicured lawn and geometric lakes is a completely generic response, almost entirely a-contextual, thus specifically with regard to the UK climate: mown lawns to sit out on are not an all-year-round possibility (Brooker, 2012). It is argued that if dealt with in regionally specific terms, the pastoral capitalist vision could have much more to offer as a development model. In the last decade buildings for science have added higher design aspiration to their high cost (Yaneva, 2010), hence the mutual benefits of using their siting to mediate their city-edge condition in a forward-thinking fashion are likely to be more readily communicated.

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Fig. 28 The hypothetical Green Belt Subclassification system proposed by this study

green belt land

D eclassified

green belt land

F ully D eveloped land

e.g. Addenbrookes masterplan

S ubclass A

D eveloped L and 1 / 3 G reen / blue landscape

e.g. North West Cambridge masterplan

S ubclass B

D eveloped L and 2 / 3 G reen / blue landscape

e.g. Landscape-driven research campus model - with permanent built element

S ubclass C

D eveloped L and

potential reversion to green belt

e.g. Landscape-driven science park model.

Temporary built element for fixed term funding period (10-15 years)

connections to

green belt land

67

/3 open landscape 1

/3 open landscape

1

Green Belt Subclassification A

Between 2000-2006, 46.8% of all land being developed was greenfield. In peri-urban areas this proportion was even higher and consisted of more commercial development than other settlement types (CRC, 2010, 4.2). Hence, development on the green belt has become increasingly commonplace.

The central tenet of this thesis is that between the arguments for and against declassification, there may lie another way, wherein the particulars of fringe typologies could deliver a new form of peripheral development in Cambridge. This is an opportunity for deallocated green belt land to be classified as such and adhere to a set of development rules to mitigate the effects of sprawl. In this case, stringent rules on landscaping and density must be imposed in order to retain green belt qualities. This alternative set of rules is a envisaged in this thesis as a Green Belt Subclassification system, as laid out in Fig.28.

This represents a regional strategy for Cambridgeshire to be explored and implemented in response to the NPPF decentralisation of development control.

These Subclasses go some way toward preserving green belt openness and permanence whilst enabling controlled development. Retaining openness presents a challenge, but is possible by careful designation of open landscaped areas as a counterpart to built footprints. By incorporating a high proportion of regionally specific landscape elements, including vegetation and bodies of water, the city’s physical setting of being surrounded by open green land can be retained.

The retention of the belt’s permanence is tougher to address. It is proposed that this new model would observe a strategic permanence to the landscape element of any development on declassified green belt. In other words, a proportion of the declassified land would be bound by policy to remain landscape and not building footprint. In addition, a measure of plot ratio could be imposed so that designated green areas remain protected from infill development, although spatial efficiency would have to be ensured to negate further sprawl into the belt.

Adopting these Subclasses, should facilitate access to outdoor spaces for leisure and recreation. Following this, access into the green belt itself can be readily incorporated into new proposals by integrating paths, walkways and bridges, and aligns with the Government notion of “imaginative” green belt use (Syal, 2012). Provocatively, there is scope to design 68

Fig. 29 Diagrams demonstrating various landscape proportions in horizonal & vertical planes, on chosen site at 1:5000 (existing landscape shown)

/3 open landscape

2

/3 open landscape

2

Green Belt Subclassification B

a landscape in which the architectural or built element has a shorter life span. In such a scenario, designated as Subclass C, the site could be planned to regress to a simple pastoral landscape: a state of undevelopment.

“Site plans accommodated low-rise structures, efficiently large floor areas, modular layout, big parking lots and building expansion. Deep landscape setbacks faced the busiest roadway and presented the corporation’s public face to passersby.” (Mozingo, 2011, p.31) The low-rise buildings favoured by the park typology, modelled on factories with a modular site plan, could be considered a driver for its poor landscape strategy. The University’s West Cambridge site and Cambridge Science Park, provide examples of typical building footprint proportions for the science park model (Fig. 12). These sites have gross building footprint areas that fall under 20 per cent of their total site areas, with the remaining accounting for access roads, car parks and landscaping. Hence, the science park precedent still demonstrates a typological quality in its density that is actually better suited to landscape-driven development. By employing a 15-20 per cent maximum building footprint, an improvement can be offered on the North West Cambridge development precedent by increasing the designated proportion of open landscapes to at least two thirds of the proposed site (rather than only one third), adhering to the Subclass B (Fig. 28-29).

With its intended concept of buildings in a pastoral setting, the park model offers a mode of development that sits well with the green corridor strategy. The North West Cambridge masterplan includes a landscape corridor as a barrier to the M11 motorway to its west (Fig. 25). In the 2011 green belt boundary data, this barrier is still shown as green belt, despite being a highly designed recreational landscape of berm, path and water features, rather than the organized/ or managed agricultural landscape. This furthers the case for subclassification, whereby green belt land is redesigned but retains inherent qualities. Satellite mapping over the years reveals the M11 itself as a barrier to sprawl, hence, the permanency of this particular corridor is implied by the motorway’s own stability (see pages 38-39).

However in the masterplan, the green corridor acts as a barrier between the motorway and the development, whereas the design thesis project will investigate how the development itself can act with the landscape to create a green belt motorway barrier.

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Fig. 30 Diagram illustrating built footprint as site proportion for the University’s West Cambridge site and Cambridge Science Park

West Cambridge

MJP Masterplan

Total Building Footprint Total Site Area

75 642 m2 691 834 m2

Additional Building Footprint Total Building Footprint

55 400 m2 131 042 m2

Built Footprint

11% of site area

Future Built Footprint

19% of site area

81-89% access roads, car parks and landscaping

Cambridge Science Park Total Building Footprint Total Site Area

Built Footprint

70

93 564 m2 617 105 m2

15% of site area

85% access roads, car parks and landscaping

User capacity Typical GIA per user (sqm) Approximate GIAs (sqm)

Fig. 31

BLOCK CALCULATIONS

Site specific comparison of low and medium rise approach using an approximate of 1600 tenants

Laboratories (Lead & Secondary) Incubation Centre

Lead Laboratoy-­‐based Secondary Lab 1200 400

Block depth (m)

11 24

Block length (m) 65 60

42000

93.83378016

GROSS INTERNAL AREAS FOR WHOLE SITE all figures in sqm

For 1600 tenants

Workplace area

17600

Addition for storage & prep

2640

Write up / Social

9600

Total Accommodation

29840

Balance - WCs, circulation

8952

Plant - ducts, boiler, entrance

5968

Total required for viability

44760

Current proposal (and % of target)

Site development proportionTotal site area (sqm)

119815

typical low rise park approach medium rise approach (2-3 storeys) (3-4 storeys) Storeys inclusive of 0.5-­‐1 storey plant Total building area (No. sqm)of storeys

Typical low rise of 2-­‐3 storeys

44760

44 760 / 2.5 Medium rise of 4 storeys = 2 17 900Current m of footprint proposal using medium rise of 4 (excluding envelope)

Parking

(2.5 x 3.6 m storey) = Cambridge Science Park 1 per 30sqm 9 m average building height

924 11088

int tpr

oo

%

15

b

%

10

b

t uil

int tpr

foo

Subclass B /3 minimum open landscape

2

2.5 4 4

(3.5 x 3.6 m storey) = 13 m average building height

Current proposal requirement Sqm required

tf uil

44 760 / 3.5 44760 = 12 790 m2 of footprint 42000 (excluding envelope)

Subclass B /3 minimum open landscape

2

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Connections into the rest of the green belt “Cambridge is relatively poorly provided with opportunities to access and enjoy the countryside. Encircled by largely arable agricultural land and with a limited footpath network, positive action is required to improve this situation.”

(Brown & Morrish, 2006: 7.1) The interventions made in Subclassifying the green belt provide an opportunity to address Brown and Morrish’s critique, whereby the act of retaining an open landscape could facilitate a physical gateway to the green belt. Effective spatial planning of the green belt in this north-west area of Cambridge begins with access. This would accord with The Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000 (CROW), by managing an appropriate network of footpaths and bridleways that harmonise with the hedgerow field divisions between agricultural lands. According to the most recent State of the Countryside report, hedgerows are a distinctive and multifunctional asset to the English countryside. They are a traditional demarcation of land ownership, create landscapes specific to their region and are important wildlife habitats for 125 biodiversity conservation species, 70% of which in decline (CRC, 2010, p.164). However the report stresses that these are generally decreasing in hedgerow quality and extent across the country: despite increased maintenance and restoration in the 1990s survey results have shown a 6.1% decrease between 1998 and 2007 (ibid). Hedgerow intervention offers an extension to the Subclassification strategy where landscape elements are not only retained but encouraged into improved biodiversity.

This demonstrates how the Subclasses might create opportunity for a spatial realisation of recent theory on improving the heterogenity of the rural landscape, commonly discussed as a progression to “multifuctional landscapes”, where human and landscape interaction in driven by an integration of function (Brandt & Vejre, 2004; Gallent et al, 2006).

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PROJECT CONTEXT

74

75

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Fig. 32 Qualitative analysis of the green belt boundary revealed opportunity for improved recreational access in the north west of the city

Study area Cambridge green belt boundary - 2011 Main arterial roads Analysis route

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78

79

Climate: designing for the local environment Cambridge’s climate region – East Anglia – is anecdotally dryer and milder than the rest of the nation. The actual margins are demonstrated in the following table of averages for the climate period of 1981-2010 UK CLIMATE DISTRICT

ANNUAL MAX/MIN TEMP (oC)

SUNSHINE (hours)

ANNUAL RAINFALL (mm)

E & NE ENGLAND

12.6 / 5.2

1423

779.3

NW ENGLAND & N WALES

12.3 / 5.5

1372.6

867.1

MIDLANDS

13.4 / 5.6

1438.2

798.3

EAST ANGLIA

14.5 / 6.4

1569.6

624

SE & CENTRAL S ENGLAND

14.3 / 6.3

1410

787.6

S WALES & SW ENGLAND

13.4 / 6.3

1492.7

1263.4

(Source: Met Office www.metoffice.gov.uk)

These conditions, along with the fertility of the drained fenlands, account for its abundance of agricultural land.

This dry, mild climate and the compact nature of the city help explain the prevalence of cycling.

Wider study area This thesis has identified the northwest periphery of Cambridge as the proposed green belt area of investigation.

There are a number of green belt issues here, some generic and some site-specific. To a certain extent, this direct relationship to a major highway is a semi-generic national green belt issue, but particularly prevalent in the north and west of the city. The following drawn analysis explains the connecting context of villages and their demographics, main access routes around and through site, wider rights of way and public footpaths. The wider site connections have then been measured out as realistic cycle and walking routes hinging at the site, mapped alongside public transport links for site users. Most interestingly, the area includes a number of Roman roads (Huntingdon Road is the Via Devan Roman road) and the ‘West Fields’ of Cambridge, a medieval set of fields with instances of visible ridge and furrow.

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Fig. 33 Green belt inner boundary comparison: 2006 data (light grey), 2011 data (dark grey)

Research site The site of focus, on Madingley Road, forms a part of the West Fields. It comprises two parts divided by a tree and hedgerow-lined drainage ditch, with several healthy, mature trees. The northern part of the site is currently designated as allotments and sports pitches within the North West Cambridge urban extension. The southern part is owned by Trinity College and has been subject to a feasibility study for a concert hall and convention centre .

Crucially to this thesis, the Madingley road site lies right on the Cambridge green belt inner boundary and was declassified between 2002 and 2011. The thesis proposes to explore development of this site as Green Belt Subclass B – retaining two thirds open landscape. The maximum dimensions of the site range close to 400m, a dimension commonly used to define campus ‘walkability’ (Spooner, 2011).

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Fig. 34a Existing contours at 0.5m intervals.

The land in this area rises 10m towards the east, with an incline significant for the extremely flat topography of Cambridge. A

very gently modulated plateau sits further east from the 20 metres AOD contour, with more obviously contoured areas generated by human activity, such

as gravel and coprolite digging.

(Brown & Morrish, 2006)

15m

20m

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Fig. 34b (below & overleaf ) Annotated bird’s eye view of the Madingley Road site (Source: BingMaps). The feasibility study for the southern part of the site was commissioned by the

SPRING Alliance, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company founded in 2009. The proposals are intended as a communication hub for innovation and research as well

as a cultural centre - a program that is more aspirational that current innovation ideals at the fringe.

M11 motorway B A D C

Madingley Road

2011 green belt boundary existing and proposed academic research sites

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A

B

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C

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D

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2014

2013

Feasibility study & Policy preparation

Direct liaison between architect, landscape architect and CCC as in Fig. 2 Stage 4, to establish green belt declassification system for testing with project.

Funds sought

Eg. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) /Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Short-term lease of site from Trinity College

Design strategy & proposal

Design team establish design strategy for proportioning land uses under green belt (de)classification system indicated in Fig. 7.

Planning Development & Public Consultation

Consult with planners and public on integration of declassification system into site design.

(Fig. 2 Stage 5). Design team review accordingly and prepare planning submission.

Planning application submitted

Fig. 2 Stage 6

Pre-construction - detailed design period

2 0 1 6

2015

Planning approval expected

Long lease from Trinity College begins once planning approval is received and full funding secured

Build Phase 1 (main facility & major earthworks)

Build Phase 1 Completion Main facility handover

20 20

201 9

20 1 8

2 0 1 7

Aligns with AstraZeneca timeframe

Build Phase 2 (Planting & Landscaping) Commencement Fig. 35

Build Phase 3 (Supporting Facilities) Commencement Build Phase 2 Completion 2018 Green belt review

Total completion Declassification system assessment period

CCC appoint independent assessors to monitor usage of site by general public and tenants. Study is prepared for public survey and consultation. Findings forwarded to central Government.

Hypothetical Subclassification and proposal timeline At present, green belt designations are reviewed every 15 years (RTPI, 2012), meaning that after the 2003 Structure Plan the next review should be scheduled for 2018.

The design proposal employs this timeframe as a defined trial period to reappropriate the park model for green belt development.

This would allow ample time for the subclassification concept to be implemented and analysed over the 2014 Local Plan’s implementation period up to 2031.

This approach would require high-level consultation between planners and design professionals prior to implemention, and rigorous collaboration between architect and landscape architect on individual projects in order to attain viability as a continued approach.

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Local implementation and review of Subclassification system “Today, planning is being encouraged to become more proactive in setting agendas, forming visions, and taking a positive lead in promoting change. In this context there have been calls for local authorities to become more creative in finding solutions to local development problems, and indeed to become more innovative.� (Gallent et al, 2006, p473) In order to ground this research within a real-world framework, a timeline for the project has been drafted in Figure 35.

Design principles The following sections are structured around the fundamental themes to be explored through this design thesis. Each section will identify the site opportunities and constraints in further detail. These are access, preservation, protection, ecology, adaptation and productivity. Each issue has a direct relationship to landscape design and a perceived effect on both scales of social sustainability being investigated. At the larger scale this concerns the wider community of the city of Cambridge and its relationship to the green belt. At the scale of site design, this affects the sustainability of a productive scientific community: relationship amongst its members and between the community and its physical environment. Throughout the next sections any design principles derived will be referred to as generic, semi-generic and specific - i.e. they could be applicable at national, regional or local levels respectively.

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PRESERVATION & PROTECTION

It is worth noting the damaging effect that late twentieth-century agricultural practice has had on the landscape, through the loss of hedgerows and intensification of arable use (including ploughing of former ridge and furrow). This erosion of character is unfortunately very common and generally found but some of these effects could be remedied by appropriate management.

North West Cambridge Area Action Plan: Green Belt Landscape Study (Brown & Morrish, 2006, 3.6)

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PRESERVATION

Fig. 36 The green corridor to the south of the city that feeds into Granchester.

A romantic landscape When looking to preserve the characteristics of the Cambridgeshire landscape one must acknowledge all its wider significance. While the more practical and environmental factors have and will be discussed, the romantic significance of these landscapes warrants brief consideration. Some of the unkempt landscapes preserved in the city’s green corridors have deep cultural association with literary works of Rupert Brooke and Lord Byron amongst others.

Brooke’s yearning homage in his poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester (Café des Westens, Berlin, May 1912)) embodies the romance associated with the origin of this particular ‘green corridor’ into the city. Between the vivid descriptions of this pastoral semi-wilderness, as tree-lined tunnels of “green gloom” and “May fields all golden”, there are hints at the continuing debate over the (im)mortality of this landscape. The fact that much of this description is evocative of the same locale today demonstrates how romantic literary imagery can itself justify the preservation of fenland settings like that surrounding Grantchester, firing public aspiration for protection of these and other green belt landscape settings.

Whilst in Cambridge the general public acknowledge the importance of agricultural land in the green belt, they also see the belt as a space for recreation and relaxation.

There is a clear aspiration to see more nature reserves, woodland walks and cycle paths in the region (CPRE & Natural England, 2010). This is equally evident in aspirations for the countryside at large; research has shown a higher public expectation of government investment to maintain attractive landscapes, wildlife habitat and space for recreation, rather than seeing the countryside as solely a source of food (Hall et al, 2004). This thesis argues that by incorporating a strategic landscape policy into subclassified green belt land, a more dynamic use of the rural-urban fringe could be exploited by local residents, site users, passers-by, recreational users and wildlife.

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Shared social space

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Fig. 37 These drawings are an abstraction of the argument for a concentrated over a dispersed siteplan. This is inherently a campus form, rather than a park. This suggests that rather than amending the science park, the typology could be regress to a formal campus concept.

Specific to the Madingley Road site, concentration is preferrable for preserving the landscape to the east of the site, especially given the direct relationship to the motorway.

This relationship is further explained in Part III: Access & Ecology.

Preserving cultural landscape heritage When discussing access to nature in the locality of towns and cities it is important to recognise that a truly ‘natural’ landscape is a relative rarity in the UK. Much of what we know as the English countryside was built by farm hands, peasants and tenants (Muir, 2000, p. xiii) and has since been so extensively altered that it in essence ‘cultural’ rather than natural (Brandt & Vejre, 2004 ; Selman, 2009). The sculpting of these landscapes by man means that layers of human history are readable in the landscape (Fig. 38).

The dominance of agriculture makes the cultural nature of the Cambridge landscape particularly explicit. Yet rather than dismissing this landscape as a productive ‘factory floor’ this thesis looks at it as a part of Cambridge’s cultural heritage. The relationship between the city and its cultural landscape should form a unified whole, much like a country house and its setting (Brown & Morrish, 2006).

In the study area north-west of Cambridge, “the history of Cambridge is written on the land and is still legible” and hence development should be constrained to preserve this regardless of green belt status (Brown & Morrish, 2006). By employing Subclassification, whereby the appropriate Subclasses can be employed for differing scales of preservation, it is argued that this call for preservation can be properly enforced. This hinges on the establishment a specific landscape language for the rural-urban fringe of Cambridge, using a design vocabulary derived from its immediate landscape of green belt.

Fig. 38 (overleaf ) Satellite imagery from 1945 and 2012 demonstrate the landscape evolution in the study area.

The reversal of damage to landscape heritage and biodiversity by agricultural practice is an issue of increasing prominence. This has been assessed as still relatively poor in north-west Cambridge, despite availability of Natural England ‘agri-environment’ maintenance funds (ibid).

Therefore at this scale, this thesis argues that new ruralurban fringe development should, where possible, actively preserve heritage landscape and act to improve agriculturalecological balance.

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ho rig ina l fi url eld on =2 g= 20 20 m 0m (ap (ap pro pro x) x)

eac

shifts in ownership & practice = change in field pattern

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This would necessitate an “active” preservation, employing a level of care and maintenance and would utilise the available funding (CRC, 2010).

Landscape subdivisions exist within the category ‘agriculture’ namely: cropped, fallow or grazed. The abundance of arable land in the Cambridge green belt, means rough grazing and grassland becomes significant, and at times revered, in its relative rarity 7. In retaining and enhancing the genuine pastoral landscape of the site, historic features will be maintained and augmented to create a landscape informed by and preservative of its agricultural heritage. For example, the site’s Roman archaeology on its eastern edge is preserved by selective placement of building. Similarly, by becoming a managed site, the somewhat fragile remains of the medieval ridge and furrow can be properly maintained. The forms of these historical earthwork features are often difficult to discern, hence are experienced ephemerally, their visibility changing seasonally and diurnally with varying light and weather (Muir, 2000). This pursues the landscape of subtlety, a landscape museum as arboretum, rather than theme park (Brown & Morrish, 2006, 3.5).

Fig. 39a-c a. Ridge and furrow formations can be subtly seen in Brown and Morrish’s 2006 study. b-c. In site visits for this thesis these have been visible up close but less obvious from afar than seven years ago. Confirming the authenticity of the formations is difficult for a non-specialist, however as the furrow lines align the the site boundaries it is likely that they are authentic. (Muir, 2000, p. 213)

It is clear that at this scale the designer can make a useful contribution by integrating “nature and culture, in the service of utility. Here, ‘culture’ means the landscape resulting from human actions and conceptions, and ‘nature’ the forms and processes of environments occurring of themselves.” (Dee, 2012, p.37) Creating a building that is buffered and in part embedded in earth, means that a large part of the development becomes its own set-piece of formal landscape. The undeveloped land remains a managed pastoral area, with re-planting of the grassland and seeding of meadow flowers, that links into the urban extension’s landscape motorway buffer. This treatment not only maintains the setting for these heritage landscape elements, but also augments the grassland as a valuable setting for biodiversity; encouraging a continuous, open environment for the dispersal of flora and fauna (Caspersen & Hasler, 2003).

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Notes 7. In contrast on the whole the balance in England is half of agricultural land is grazed.

a

c

b

a

b

c

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Fig.39d Existing archaeology & geology: Animal species colonisation capacities of hedgerows are greater in chalk geology areas such as Cambridgeshire (Muir, 2000,

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Roman archaeology

p. 84), however as the site lies at the chalk-clay boundary one can only speculate as to whether this will apply specifically to this site.

Also subject to speculation is the

appearance of ridge and furrow, which has been approximated from site visits.

Data part sourced (AECOM, 2011)

Area with trace of ridge and furrow Geology: River gravel Geology: Gault clay formation Geology: Lower chalk

Grazed / pasture Great crested newt protection zones CCC Tree protection order Tree cover

Fig. 39e Existing landscape & ecology assessment Data part sourced (AECOM, 2011)

Poorly maintained hedgerow

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TO BE ADDED / UPDATED

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‘Innovation heritage’ The development threats to Cambridge’s landscape heritage has been clearly linked to the heightened need to preserve the region’s capacity to innovate. In this sense the loosening of the green belt to protect ‘innovation heritage’ has come at the expense of landscape heritage. It follows that an understanding of this other strand of heritage is vital to this study.

Scientific research in Cambridge is located in both peripheral and urban campuses, locations that offer different perspective on the relationship between innovation and place. A preliminary study used the location of Nobel-prizewinning scientific work as a means of exploring this issue (Fig. 40). Many of these were awarded in a period when ‘local buzz’ (Bathelt et al, 2004) attracted the best scientific minds and hence monopolised many critical scientific advances (Crowther, 1974; Burton, 2000). The correlation between location and chronology is clear: during the latter half of the twentieth century Nobelprizewinning workplaces moved to the rural-urban fringe.

Specifically this shift shows the movement of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory for Molecular Biology (MRC LMB) to new buildings in West Cambridge and New Addenbrookes respectively.

1904 | Lord Rayleigh

1962 | James Watson

1906 | Sir J.J. Thomson

1962 | Max Perutz

1908 | Lord Rutherford

1962 | Sir John Kendrew

1915 | Sir Lawrence Bragg

1963 |Alan L. Hodgkin

1917 | Charles Barkla

1964 | Dorothy Hodgkin

1922 | Francis Aston

1967 | Ronald Norrish

1927 | Charles Wilson

1973 | Brian Josephson

1927 | Arthur Compton

1974 | Sir Martin Ryle

1928 | Sir Owen Richardson

1974 | Antony Hewish

1929 | Sir Frederick Hopkins

1977 | Sir Nevill Mott

1932 | Edgar D. Adrian

1977 | Philip Anderson

1933 | Paul Dirac

1978 | Pjotr Kapitsa

1935 | Sir James Chadwick

1937 | Sir George Thomson

1947 | Sir Edward Appleton

1948 | Lord Patrick Blackett

Recently, however, both laboratories have had to address their own futures in updating their facilities: the LMB completed construction on a new building on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in early 2013.

The Cavendish also plan to redevelop their buildings, which are described as “no longer appropriate for the current programme or, in light of new interdisciplinary collaborations and new investigative techniques, for the future direction of research at the Cavendish” (Cavendish Development Office , 2011). It is expected than new facilities will enable the Cavendish to maintain its international contribution to physics.

1951 | Sir John Cockcroft

1951 | Ernest Walton

1957 | Lord Todd

1958 | Frederick Sanger

1962 | Francis Crick

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1979 | Allan Cormack

1980 | Frederick Sanger

1982 | Sir Aaron Klug

1984 | César Milstein

1989 | Norman Ramsey

1997 | John E. Walker

2002 | John E. Sulston

2009 | V. Ramakrishnan

2010 | Robert G. Edwards

The Cavendish 1974 - present

The Cavendish 1874 - 1974

MRC LMB 1962 - present

MRC LMB 1947 - 1962

Fig. 40 Chronological mapping of the workplaces of Cambridge’s Nobel laureates in the sciences.

1900 - 1919 1920 - 1939 1940 - 1959 1960 - 1979 1980 - 1999 2000+

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Fig. 41 Images of the Old Cavendish demonstrating the intimate nature of the cramped workspaces, circulation spaces and wider site.

(Image above source: Archive at http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/years/rutherford.php)

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Fig. 42 Film stills from a recording made of teatime at the Cavendish in the Rutherford Building, during a research visit in 2011.

The Old Cavendish building, built in 1874, featured innovative interlinked laboratory spaces that allowed members to easily pass through each other’s workspace and by the 1960s was full to capacity. These linked spaces and cramped conditions created an intimacy that engendered a collaborative working environment (Schaffer, 2007; Finch, 2008). This intimacy has arguably been lost at the current Cavendish building on the West Cambridge site. Thus, while extensive rat-runs of corridors wrapping the whole building are supposed to support opportunistic interaction, some research groups have instigated twice-daily teatimes – alerted by a bell – in an informal library-cum-kitchenette.

Based at the Cavendish, Nobel laureates Francis Crick and James Watson were known to discuss their research on the structure of DNA during their “daily lunchtime walk around the Backs.” (Crick, 1990) This exemplifies how a decent length of landscape provides space for activity and reflection, in a way that can be conducive to fruitful discussion. The LMB’s former building 8 had a particularly effective social core: “[The canteen was] the most remarkable and unique feature of the laboratory…sitting down with a random collection of lab directors, postdocs and graduate students and talking about science…Everyone contributed suggestions and/ or criticisms. Initially I wondered how anyone got any experiments done since they were spending so much time in the canteen, and then I realized that the many discussions reduced the number of unwise or unnecessary experiments that were done and enhanced the good ones.” (Steitz, 2010).

Notes 8. Evolving from the MRC Unit at the Old Cavendish, until 2013 the MRC was located in a custom building south of Cambridge in the Addenbrookes Hospital. It has recently moved into a new facility on the adjacent declassified green belt site of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

This space is complimented by the wide stairwells that lead up to it, anecdotally providing enough space for researchers to pause and converse (Henderson, 2012). The LMB’s shared facilities are praised by some as encouraging a spirit of collegiality, where senior scientist or incoming PhD have equal rights to equipment (Ramakrishnan, 2009). This is a clear cultural and social rejection of hierarchy in favour of better, interactive science and aligns with Gieryn’s positive 109

findings of shared facilities and egalitarian workspace (Gieryn, 2008).

This demonstrates that shared social cores and facilities are key stimuli to scientific process. In the context of amending the park typology this could translate to a level of shared facilities between firms where appropriate. These shared spaces create a critical environment where all members are encouraged to helpfully interrogate each other’s ideas, and maintain a level of informality. Spatially and socially, an intimacy becomes evident that gives these spaces a true sense of place.

Preservation of place The relationship between place and scientific innovation in Cambridge is an important consideration. The notion of ‘place’ is interpreted both as a material construct and a construct of the mind (Menin et al, 2003); material in the sense of the physicality of building, and also the less tangible place created by ‘local buzz’. Gieryn asserts that place can be added to “the list of modulators of scientific credibility”, although most scientific texts would never specify architectural or geographical location, as that 110

Fig. 43 The MRC Unit’s temporary shed at the Old Cavendish.

(Source: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology)

Fig. 44 The celebrated coffee-break culture in a brightly lit top floor canteen with extensive views, at the MRC LMB building on the New Addenbrookes site

would seem to delegitimise the science (Gieryn, 2006, p.27). Nonetheless, in support of the empirical preliminary studies, the importance of architecture and place to the social structure of scientific practice are well established in the academic arena (ibid; Schaffer, 2007; Yaneva, 2010). However, this importance is rarely translated into a discussion of how to achieve productive spatial relations between campus, community and immediate work setting.

The thesis argues this as a missed opportunity, in terms of how landscape can be exploited along with atria and open plan laboratories as places of interaction and to harness the sense of place. Locality is discussed even less frequently, perhaps because of the required decontextualising of experimental science (Gieryn, 2008). The suburbanisation of scientific research facilities has exemplified the ‘placelessness’ often associated with the scientific laboratory (Gieryn, 2008; Kohler 2008), and nowhere is this more evident than in the monotony of the typical science park.

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Pilot design study A design intervention was proposed at the University’s Downing site as a means of exploring the opportunities of an urban laboratory setting in comparison to the rural-urban fringe. The Downing site is a key example of a community of departments within the School for Biological Sciences that require colocation. For now, this site is the exception to the rule of moving science to West Cambridge. Negative aspects of the site included a lack of clarity in where department entrances were and a real lack of informal social space. The key question for this design study was: can the urban characteristics of density be used to exploit the benefits of colocation and facilitate the crossfertilisation of ideas?

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Fig. 45 A ‘furniture-figure-ground’ drawn at first floor level revealed a variety of inhabitation across the site, somewhat dominated by formally rigorous laboratory space.

Fig. 46 (opposite) The lack of incidental social space is exposed by observation of site users congregating on the road between parked cars.

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[Academic use only]

The study was an exercise in placemaking for opportunist social interaction, combining ‘architectural microsurgery’ with social program. A series of linking buildings were proposed down the central site axis, further densifying the site. This design thinking has been carried forward in the architectural and spatial design of the buildings proposed for the Madingley Road site.

Fig. 47 The ‘furniture-figure-ground’ was redrawn with the interventions at first floor, defining site as a series of collegiate courts.

Fig. 48 (opposite) Some of the buildings were reprogrammed at ground floor so they could all be entered from a central pedestrian axis. This ensured that the gateways became not only intimate nodes for interaction on the circulation spine but also orientated site users.

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Fig. 49-51 Like an atrium, these gateway links of the pilot design study acted to connect related departments, but accomodated specific social or academic needs (a cafĂŠ, library, conference rooms).

At a human and environmental scale, comfort conditions were privileged by designing the interiors to be well lit and naturally ventilated.

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Fig. 52-53 Deep reveals were designed of an optimised geometry for reducing solar gain during the summer, whilst still allowing a warm suntrap large enough for two people to sit

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in during winter months At ground level these links created a rhythm of sheltered exterior spaces for outdoor interaction.

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Having understood the issues pertaining to preservation of landscape and innovation heritage, particularly through the evidence and theory of placemaking that is specific to scientific innovation, this thesis now looks at all the ways in which the design of a green belt landscape can support innovation.

Landscape for noise mitigation As mentioned, the site in question represents a semi-generic motorway edge condition. So far in the north and west of the city there are several approaches to dealing with this – ­ heavy insulation, double/triple glazing, landscaped buffer zones, building the road higher – but none that look to exploit the opportunities of merging building and landscape.

The scale of the research park typically means a large amount of spoil from digging foundations. In practice this is often used to create landscape features. This thesis argues that this spoil is better employed strategically rather than only aesthetically. For the Madingley Road site spoil from foundations and drainage tracts has been reutilised to form an earth mound, or berm, to buffer the site from the motorway. The surface of the berm absorbs direct transmission of vehicle noise but should also defract noise over the development (Highways Agency, 2001, 5:1:2.12).

A crib wall has been proposed as a gravity retaining structure to the berm. Crib walls speak of transport infrastructure, and usually face onto the motorway.

However, by facing the structure toward the building, it is hoped its monumental quality can be appreciated architecturally along with its honesty of material. The structural form means the parts of the wall open to the elements could be seeded and irrigated with a hardy plant such as sedum and become a ‘living wall’. However, the wall could develop more meaningfully if parts are left unseeded to allow for the opportunistic seeding of species such as red valerian and rose-bay willow herb, which may only flower temporarily.

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Fig. X Noise Exposure Categories across the site classed according to Government Planning Policy Guidance Note 24. Typically this guidance applies to residential development, but is worth consideration for any typology.

Data sourced (AECOM, 2011; PPG24)

NEC B (55-63 dB) - Noise is an important factor but not of overriding importance NEC C (63-72 dB) - Strong presumption against development unless no alternative NEC D (>72 dB) - Planning permission should normally be refused

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Fig. 55a-b a. Crib wall: standard prefabricated concrete members stacked as shown and incrementally infilled with earth and hardcore during construction. Importantly, these fair-faced concrete elements have not be redesigned so that the authenticity of the structural narrative may be retained.

a

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b. The tectonic relationship between landscape and structure is exploited. A sharp edge at the top of a noise barrier has been proven to increase its efficiency (Highways Agency, 2001, 5:1:2.17), so the crib wall could be designed to sit proud of the earth. The surface of the berm is proposed as grassland to give more rapid noise attenuation (ibid. 5:2:2.4).

b

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Fig. 56 ‘Build in retreat’ phasing would mean the northern part of the site would be constructed and occupied first (A), with the rest of the site to follow.

The Highways Agency guidance shows that approximately 10-15dB noise attenuation can be produced by barrier methods – the combination of soft surface, a significant height of berm and a sharp edge should approach this performance. Building higher is also a means of noise mitigation in this location. This also has wider strategic benefits of reducing the amount of built footprint typical of low-rise park typologies.

The use of cut and fill means that construction access would necessitate ‘build in retreat’ phasing as in Fig. 56.

Architecturally, the heavy and solid nature of the berm and crib wall should be reflected in the materiality of the rest of the spine - using a matched concrete finish would allow the crib and spine to read as monolithically hewn.

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Protected environment: ventilation In contrast the laboratories are intended as expandable and so are envisaged as lighter touch. Materially this could be a steel frame and panel construction, but it is arguably more interesting to consider timber, especially cross-laminated, as it works well with airtightness and mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems (MVHR) – allying with the Passivhaus model. Ventilation design issues have been summarised as follows:

SUITABILITY FOR:

Workplace (laboratory, write up)

Shared/ social space (formal & informal)

ARM CONDITION

Linearly extendable but most probably hermetically sealed and not making the most of interlocking landscape. Clearly divisible as wings

Distance from motorway means more tranquil setting and closer connection to landscape: suitable for natural ventilation

SPINE

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Linking element means each discrete finger Relationship to the motorway means it is is connected to the other – vital to ensuring a sensible to seal and mechanically ventilate the successful shared facility. Certain amount of spine, so that it too becomes a buffer in background noise could be favourable for a addition to the landscape berm social environment

Fig. 57a-e (below, opposite, overleaf ) Cross-laminated timber presents an efficient and quick construction process, as well as offering excellent airtightness. The notion of a timber laboratory is remeniscent of the low-tech, ad hoc laboratories, and speaks of impermanence and adaptability.

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Sensitive program in relation to spine

Fig. 58

The ‘knuckles’ at the joint of spine and arms present a sensible ‘landlocked’ location for the most sensitive program associated with the laboratory: Highly controlled environments subject to heavy artificial cooling in order to protect from heat gains and of a potentially delicate experimental nature, or even ‘black boxes’, with little to no natural light. For example, nanoscience experiments are very sensitive to vibrations, so laboratories for these should be set up on the lower level where such interference is minimised. In the typology study situations were encountered where some isolated walls were provided through to upper floors. 9 Clean rooms are often totally ‘landlocked’ from external walls, and therefore would also suit location in the knuckles. Here suitable levels of containment can be sought, vital to maintaining standards, and limiting the number of pollutant particles and/or bacteria. These rooms, such as certified Class 100 (ISO 5 equivalent), are typically accessed via an airlock that is linked to a main corridor. The lower level of the most earthsheltered fingers provide ideal situations for animal house provision.

Access hierarchy

Less sensitive general laboratories can therefore be located in the arms, which due to their relatively narrow width could be naturally cross-ventilated where appropriate.

Social spaces, located in the spine, should offer respite from these heavily controlled environments.

Notes 9. These sensitive areas would have to sit on isolated concrete footings that are separated from the main body of the slab with a 12mm layer of rubber, which goes some way to reduce transmission of vibration through the slab.

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vehicle access controlled access core indoor / outdoor shared space secured access accommodation ‘knuckles’

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Fig. 59a-b Example lower (a) and middle (b) floor plans demonstrating spatial arrangements of laboratories and offices in relation to the ‘knuckle’ of the spine

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“Society’s goals regarding cohesion and inclusivity, and protected area management authorities’ responsibilities to encourage sustainable modes of transport such as walking and cycling, may mean future pressures to provide designated [conservation] areas close to major centres of population.”

(Selman, 2009, p.145)

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Cambridgeshire Rights of Way Cambridge green belt boundary 2011 Proposed new Right of Way Country parks Proposed country parks Nature reserves (SSSIs etc)

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Fig. 60 Introducing a Countryside Right of Way through the site links the new social core of North West Cambridge to the green belt

Applying the Subclassification strategy As Selman notes, the demands for future societal cohesion and inclusivity necessitate better access to conserved landscapes (Selman, 2009). While this refers to SSSI or AONB-type designations, his point is easily applied to the rural landscape access that is an important function of the green belt. Access to green space is often argued to be a contributing factor to ensuring social sustainability (Dempsey et al, 2011). Hence, collective protection of this access, arguably helps bolster the “social cohesion” that leads to a more socially sustainable community (ibid, p.292), with a vested interest in what happens in their surrounding area.

Thus, the North West Cambridge urban extension is to become a new district with its own social core – a realisation of the Cambridge Futures ‘multiple hubs’ concept (Cambridge Futures, 1999). These hubs aim to provide community facilities while retaining access to open recreational space, which has been identified in this area as particularly limited (Brown & Morrish, 2006, 3.5).

This objective supports application of the thesis’ Subclass B where two thirds of the development site remains protected landscape, over Subclass A (one third landscape). Currently the Madingley Road site has been allocated for outdoor activity as part of the urban extension. Employing a strategy of concentrated development, as enforced by the two-thirds design constraint, will aid similar use of the site.

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Returning to the design thinking of the preliminary study, the technological innovation giants of Silicon Valley are using their ample funds and resources to begin recasting assumptions concerning workplace design, with the help of global architectural practices. For example, Apple Inc.’s proposed new building by Fosters + Partners in Cupertino is a megastructure encircling a landscape, while the new Google headquarters by NBBJ in Mountain View retains the typical park-style conglomerate of buildings.

The precedents of Swiss big pharmaceutical companies, namely Novartis and Roche in Basel, show campuses of buildings designed and promoted as an architectural showpieces. However, arguably these ‘aspirational’ precedents still represent plot-based piecemeal development that fits into and does not challenge the spatial logic of existing campuses or parks.

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Fig. 61 Campus precedents Novartis, Basel, Switzerland (above).

Fig. 62 Apple based in Cupertino, Silicon Valley existing (above) and proposed (below, Image © Foster + Partners, ARUP, Kier + Wright, Apple)

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Infrastructural spine The proposal for Madingley Road site seeks to address the negative spatial implications of piecemeal development, such as the surrender of the ground plane to vehicular access. The design provides an infrastructural spine of access and social functions that links each research building ‘arm’, but also restricts vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian access to a more efficient hierarchy (see Fig. 64). This is seen as a semi-generic approach, as the spine concept could be replicable on a number of sites other than those with a motorway condition. The spine approach can be likened to the 1960s zeitgeist when “it was a longstanding tradition in British architecture for a London architect to come to the provinces, to praise the beauties of the site, to make an effort to determine the genius loci, to place massive structures on it and in the end praise the unity of these buildings with the site.” (Muthesius, 2000) p.142 Denys Lasdun stressed in 1968 that the area surrounding his megastructure at the University of East Anglia in Norwich should not be built upon as it would subvert his design’s premise: access to open views across landscape.

This thesis argues that a building should not be a shrine in the landscape, rather a structure that acts to frame, protect and therefore enhance the landscape. It follows that while engaging with the ‘megastructure’ concept, the proposal embeds the building in the landscape rather than seeking its distinctive separation.

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Fig. 63 The spine adheres to the 10-minute wide design standard (Spooner, 2011) considered vital to walkability in a neighbourhood or campus environment, but also supports informal exterior social interaction.

The protected oak pollards are retained in the crook of the spine, allowing a break in form and hence scope for a more dynamic procession through.

[Academic use only]

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Fig. 64 Conversely to the walkways, circulation cores become secured nodes on the spine on this plane, to ensure the security of the upper and lower level which is neccessary due to potential for contentious research in the building. Whilst the social plane is freely accessible during daylight hours, every office or laboratory will have key or card access.

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Transport strategy In order to prevent the landscape regressing into a sea of car-park, critical rules about parking have been considered.

Pavilions in a landscape might seem to suggest a better relationship with nature at a superficial level, however in practice the access needs of a science park (including DDA and deliveries) mean the proportion of land that must become road surface increases. This is not a newly noted issue: Muthesius (2000) quotes Edward Durell Stone ’s call while designing the State University of New York at Albany in the 1960s to “banish the automobile,” adding, “It followed, for him, that the standard kind of American campus with its spread out diverse buildings…could not have led to a grand form, but certainly to many roads.”

The success of the spine strategy depends on behaviour change. In Cambridge the prevalence of cycling forms an existing culture of sustainable transport. However, high house prices centrally means it is likely that some users of this site would commute from a considerable distance.

The adjacency of the site to a Park & Ride is fortunate, however it is vital to consider how on-site parking should be addressed. This thesis proposes to privilege sustainable methods of transport by incentivising car-share schemes and cycling to encourage behavioural change. So while parking must be provided, it need not ally with Cambridge Science Park’s ‘what if ’ maximum capacity strategy of approximately 1 space per 28 rentable square metres. In this way, cycle parking and car-share spaces will be positioned within the building spine, i.e. located closer to workplaces, with less immediately accessible extra parking surface — treated as part of the landscape design.

A landscape dealing with public–private access Implementing a spine strategy for a scientific research facility offers more design control over site security and public-private interface. The proposal shows the spine as accessible to the public from the first floor level enabled by the landscape strategy. In this way, it is argued that the middle floor is a public and social plane, more easily accessed from all floors than if it were a typical ground floor atrium. Elevated walkways weave through the arms at this level, the more generous seating space at intersections creating social nodes.

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ACCESS AS ECOLOGICAL ENHANCEMENT

Connection to landscape Landscape and nature can be experienced and enjoyed as a view but also through movement and active engagement (Dee, 2012). Adopting a series of swales, a stalwart element of permaculture, the site strategy brings wildlife habitat right up to the buildings, facilitating a more direct appreciation of the patterns and rhythms of the landscape. A swale is a depressed tract of land (like a ditch) that collects water run off and can also, through planting of phragmites (common reed), give a degree of water treatment. Swales are also viscerally relatable to the lowlying wetlands of the fens.

Within wetland landscapes when linear landscape features such as ditches are attached to parish and township boundaries they are likely to be old and significant (Muir, 2000). An interlocking arrangement of arms and swales allows the ground condition to be usefully employed for site and building surface water drainage.

Retention structures such as crib walls have a visceral connection to earth that continues this evocation of intimacy between landscape and structure. At a semigeneric level, the berm has another function: it provides an elevated landscape on which to trace a path that links into a new Right of Way. Specifically, this occurs at the north-western point of the Madingley Road site which feeds into the wider hedgerow access strategy. In line with the Subclassification strategy, new rural-urban fringe development becomes more meaningful if it includes structural or landscape features that allow access into the green belt. Therefore this ridge-path and bridge are vital to the development of the research campus as a green belt Subclass. The particular social sustainability benefits of providing local residents with access to routes through rural landscape for walking or cycling have link to health and wellbeing. Similar provisions have been underlined

by Schipperijn et al (2013) as being a realistic actuator for enabling physical activity and hence improving city dwellers’ health, as well as the site users.

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Fig. 65 In a tight building arrangement such as that proposed, the arms define an open-sided court. The open court becomes a planted, wet landscape that can be enjoyed from inside the building (see Fig. 66 overleaf ) as well as the walkways above.

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Fig. 66 Write up desks have a direct connection to the wet landscape, planted with phragmites to aid water treatment.

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Fig. 67 The social spine benefits from a visual relatioship with the open landscape - looking out between laboratory arms over the wild swales into the improved, species rich pastoral grassland as an alternative to monocultural ryegrass typically preferred by farmers (Green, 2002)

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Wider ecology The Cambridgeshire landscape is characterised by Rackham as “the England of big villages, few, busy roads, thin hawthorn hedges, windswept brick farms, and ivied clumps of trees in corners of big fields; a predictable land of wide views, sweeping sameness and straight lines.” (1986, p. 5) While this applies to the county as a whole, these features are particularly evident in north-west Cambridge.

This thesis argues there is scope for improvement: the routes through green belt can become richer habitats without interfering with agricultural function. These routes, often Rights of Way, are almost always associated with boundary features, such as hedgerows, fences and low walls.

Fig. 68 The ridge of the berm skirts between site and motorway at an elevation that easily links to a motorway crossing bridge. The path along the berm links to a pedestrian and cyclist bridge while conforming to a minimum vehicle clearance of 5.1m over the motorway

Linear features and boundaries offer vital clues to reading landscape history. If a hedgerow is marking a significant boundary it will often contain veteran timber trees, such as pollards. On the Madingley Road site, an old oak pollard that marks the city’s parish boundary. According to Brown and Morrish (2006) these tree and hedge field patterns are thought to date from pre-enclosure. This is taken by this study to mean Parlimentary Enclosure 8, as the site elements conform to ‘enclosure by agreement’ characteristics (Muir, 2000) which predates Parlimentary Enclosure.

Within arable land nationally, only 12% of managed hedgerows are currently deemed in good structural condition i.e. with margins of over 2 metres wide (CRC, 2010, p.164). This is despite their importance to biodiversity in such areas of intensive farming: hedgerows in particular provide good habitats for birds and other species – bird numbers are used as indicators for the countryside’s biological health (CRC, 2010, SOTC, p.163). Although declines in farmland bird populations have slowed since the 1990s, there has been a marked recent decline of 11 per cent since 2003. Farmland bird species have been the worst affected since changes to farming practice in the 1970s. According to government statistics: “Nine of the 12 farmland specialists have declined since 1970, with five, Grey Partridge, Turtle Dove, Starling, Tree Sparrow and Corn Bunting having declined by over 80 per cent.” (DEFRA, 2012) Design interventions to implement new Rights of Way along boundary features linked to the site are argued as an 153

opportunity to improve their ecological balance. Wherever new access is implemented, a new hedgerow wildlife habitat is also cultivated. Generically in practice this could be realised by lining all new access routes with improved hedgerows. A minimum of 2m wide margins in order to provide decent extended habitats for flora and fauna.

Combining the creation of new widened margins and hedgerows with a cycle track creates a hybrid intervention to improve both access and ecology.

Augmenting the boundary: trees & drainage A strategy of habitat and ecological preservation should mean the retention of all existing trees. Drawing on the lack of woodland cover in Cambridge green belt (3 per cent lower than the national average), the opportunity should be take to plant a sizeable population of local species on a Subclassified site – in this case alder as a typical Fenland species. This would begin a strategy of improving locally accessible woodland, as “even if all woods were opened up to the public, 62% of the population would still need woodland creation within 500m to reach the minimum of a 2 hectare wood, and 16% of the population would still require woodland creation to reach the standard of a 20 hectare wood accessible within 4 km.” (CRC, 2010, 4.5:171) Field boundaries are often also a part of the drainage network. The wet, marshy environment created by these drainage ditches offer potential for an extensive wildlife habitat. This thesis argues that when designing in access through Subclassified sites and neighbouring green belt these ditches should be widened and planted to become larger swales as in Figure 72.

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Fig. 69 Landscape recreation access in Cambridge (Data based on Brown & Morrish, 2006, Fig. 2.0) Cambridgeshire Rights of Way Cambridge green belt boundary 2011 Proposed new Right of Way Country parks Proposed country parks Nature reserves (SSSIs etc)

Notes 8. The privatisation of land previously subject to common rights ending the ancient open field system, begun in earnest in the 17th century. Prior to this enclosure-by-agreement was already in progress: strips of open field were joined to make larger units of land that were then fenced or hedged off, consolidating each farmers land into a compact area.

(Muir, 2000).

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0.5m contours Drainage fall Watercourse / stream / pond

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Fig. 70 Existing site drainage and contours

Fig. 71 Building form of proposal and new site drainage strategy superimposed over layered site information.

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Fig. 72 On the Madingley Road site, ditches become swales along a path of cattle slats. These precast concrete elements are normally used as drainable flooring in cattle sheds have been reappropriated into a pastoral landscape.

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ADAPTATION & PRODUCTIVITY

“Put simply, greenbelts are viewed as a generic intervention, designed to achieve wider objectives, without a specific purpose tied to the area of designation itself.�

(Gallent et al, 2006, p.465)

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ADAPTABILITY

In order to progress the discussion of the benefits of a landscape setting for a research facility, it is critical to discuss the architectural and spatial characteristics of buildings for science.

Evolution of laboratory design Today scientific research by a specialist group typically takes place in a laboratory and under the direction of a senior scientist or Principal Investigator (PI). Each group is then part of the larger collective of a research institution, a relationship parallel with that of a single laboratory and its research building.

Historically, laboratory design theory has evolved with the evolution of scientific practice (Leslie, 2008). The typology case studies in Cambridge demonstrate the difficulty of designing adaptable scientific workplaces. To safeguard their continued success, research institutions must ensure their facilities evolve with scientific needs, which usually boils down to either radically adapting or replacing buildings, a characteristic which historically is thought to be facilitated at park design level by a modular site plan. While the building conservation heritage represented by architecturally celebrated institutions can present an obstacle to change (Leslie, 2010), there is also evidence for affection or attachment to the most utilitarian and least architecturally distinguished of laboratories (Brand, 1994). These examples speak of an ad-hoc informality associated with early “low-tech” inherently adaptable laboratory buildings. Other arguments suggest functional ambiguity allows for revolutionary rather than evolutionary change, or perhaps the design focus should be on generality rather than adaptability (Venturi, 1999; Scott-Brown, 1999).

Genericism “Experiments conducted in physical surrounds just like anybody else’s lab become “everybody’s” beliefs.” (Gieryn, 2008, p.798) It is important to understand laboratory genericism as a social construct, acontextuality or “placelessness” being seen as key to legitimising scientific discovery(Gieryn, 2006; 2008; Kohler, 2008).

The laboratory typology study in Cambridge (see Methodology) demonstrated three levels of analysis associated with the research facility’s adaptability, genericism and specificity.

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Fig. 73 Thesis design proposal - Generic laboratory spaces are orientated north and look into semi-open landscape courts.

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GENERIC LABORATORY CHARACTERISTICS FUNCTIONALITY EXTENSIVE SERVICING ADAPTABLE SECONDARY FABRIC (PARTY WALLS) ROBUSTNESS/RESILIENCE STANDARD FIXED & MOVEABLE FURNITURE CONTAINMENT STORAGE (AND DEMAND FOR) NEUTRALITY (FINISHES, ENVIRONMENT)

Fig. 74 Typology study: Highly populated open shelving and fixed laboratory benching in a standard 3.3m laboratory bay module at the CSCR

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LEVELS OF ANALYSIS PRIMARY = ADAPTABLE STRUCTURE, CIRCULATION SECONDARY = GENERIC MATERIAL, SPATIAL QUALITY, COMFORT IN LABORATORY TERTIARY = SPECIFIC OCCUPATION/INHABITATION, FURNITURE/EQUIPMENT, COMFORT IN SOCIAL SPACE

Fig. 75 Typology study: Mid-experiment write up and reconfigurable lab tables at the Cavendish

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Adaptability is designed into primary fabric (such as structure), as it is near impossible to anticipate the future needs of a laboratory. On a second level and returning to the introductory discussion of the movement of research institutions to the city’s periphery, these case study buildings reiterate the acontextuality of laboratory typology. These generic spaces are then characterised by tertiary fabric (benching, equipment, ‘lab mess’) and their associated patterns of inhabitation.

On the Madingley Road site, these characteristics have been interpreted as generic laboratory and write up buildings as arms feeding off a more specifically designed social spine.

These ‘arms’ are envisaged as linearly expandable as needs change and more space is required. Insolation studies taken from the typology studies show that many existing Cambridge laboratories have layouts and orientation that are not always ideal in terms of glare and overheating. The genericism identified presents the opportunity to use a strict north-south orientation to deal with this.

Reversion to green belt It is also vital to consider the adaptability of the whole site. Some experts believe that as digital communication and working interface improves so colocation of firms as a concept of innovation becomes less important (Wright, 2013). In this case, the modular grid of the arms and spine combination could be retrofitted and repopulated with alternative accommodation. However, application of the Green Belt Subclass C to the site, total reversion to ‘undevelopment’, has other implications. The berm is a relatively permanent creation, as is its retention structure of the crib wall. The expandable arms could be equally retractable with a shorter designed lifespan of 30-50 years.

At the end of its regression, the landscape could return to being totally pastoral, the swales retained and connected as a larger landscape feature, and the crib wall overgrown in a state of semi-wilderness. In this way, the history of the area would continue to be embedded and readable in the landscape.

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Fig. 76 Reversion: the N-S orientated laboratory arms could be completely dismantled in 50 years time when users move on to more appropriate facilities. The modular design of the spine allows it to be retained and adapted for alternative use.

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SOCIAL SPECIFICITY / INNOVATION PRODUCTIVITY

Fig. 77 Write up - circulation zone within laboratory arm and the external walkways form incidental space for social exchange

The general laboratory was original established as a support to teaching theory. Prior to this most experimentation took place in private workspaces. The main purpose of the general laboratory was demonstration, therefore it would usually have an important adjacency to lecture theatres where information was disseminated (Forgan, 1986, p.97). Today’s research laboratories are smaller in scale and more specific in use, but this close relationship to public institutional spaces is equally applicable in a research setting – a formal space for inviting research partners or institutions to disseminate and challenge new findings: “There is no doubt that constant face-to-face interaction can be a boon for the diffusion of knowledge and for innovation, provided that the ideas and the information in circulation are renovated constantly. But if the information exchanged is neither novel, nor varied, repeated local interaction…can also stifle change.” (Fitjar & Rodríguez-Pose, 2011, p.8) Buildings for science have become increasingly interdisciplinary over the last half century (Leslie, 2008), especially those based in the biotechnology industry (Gieryn, 2002). This is reflected in the prevalence of open plan laboratories and an increased investment in the design of atria and shared spaces in order to enhance cross-fertilisation of ideas (Gieryn, 2008; Yaneva, 2010).

Retaining and enhancing this possibility is fundamental to sustaining scientific innovation.

Local buzz & global pipelines The notion of virtual social interaction, or the global network, superseding face-to-face interaction as the main driver for innovation has already been alluded to. On this basis Paul Wright, the Chairman of UKSPA suggested that the research park model would become irrelevant.

Yet Bathelt et al (2004), argue that successful knowledge generation to be a good balance of both ‘local buzz’11 and ‘global pipelines’ within a regional cluster – regardless of the cluster’s physical size (Bathelt et al, 2004, p.38-p.45).

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Fig. 78 Examples of formal (lecture, meeting) and incidental (walkways, balcony seats, informal seating area) space on the middle level of the buildings.

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Fig. 79 The arms enclosing the larger outdoor space created around the pollard oak could be programmed as a south-facing canteen that opens onto this more formalised landscape.

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This efficiency of co-location and visibility is described as being derived and underlined by Bruno Latour’s development of actor-network theory 12 (Latour & Woolgar, 1979). The dispersal of knowledge from laboratory into the world is said by Latour to be where its true power lies (Latour, 1983; Kohler 2008). Latour pays particular attention to the “normal” processes of establishing scientific fact – daily experimental practice, publishing, authorship – the mainstays of life in the laboratory. What this and similar studies reveal is the deeply cultural characteristics of the research institutions (Kohler, 2008).

Global pipelines, on the other hand, are the nonphysical connections that occur between individuals or companies via communications, in other words, the professional virtual social network. The key design issue is manifesting this spatially. While physicality is not an initial consideration, it is important when formalising a connection, for example, meeting a collaborating partner face-to-face. Cambridge, as a result of its world-renowned status, has potential to nurture both local buzz and global pipelines. Association with the University is, in this sense, vital for the health of any park: as discussed in Part I. (Bathelt et al, 2004) The design project aims to provide for this sort of social exchange by programming the spine building that links laboratories as an activity-rich space shared between tenants. This is envisaged as both formal and informal, mixing lecture space, meeting rooms and conference facilities with cafés, social hubs and wireless internet hotspots.

Opportunistic interaction & interior urbanity The design argument that extensive circulation increases the chance of social interaction between scientists, taking place in informal, unexpected places away from the laboratory, is 176

Notes 11. Local buzz is “the information and communication ecology created by face-to-face contacts, co-presence and co-location of people and firms within the same industry and place or region”, which “encourages the development of shared values, attitudes and interpretative schemes, typical for communities of practice, which enable the local actors to engage in interactive learning and problem-solving, and give meaning to complex information about changes in markets and technologies.”

(Bathelt et al, 2004, p.38-p.45) 12. This was developed as a result of Latour’s earlier work with Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts - a detailed ethnography of the daily workings at Louis Kahn’s revered Salk Institute - is amongst the most influential works that deal with sociology of science which is tied to place (Latour & Woolgar, 1979).

based on phenomena noted in early industrial laboratories 1940s (Leslie, 2010). Whilst laboratories over the last fifty years have progressed from enclosed to open plan spaces, the bulk remain hermetically sealed and often devoid of daylight. Yaneva presents the atrium with is openness and sky view as the antithesis to the laboratory and hence a space to seek out. She reflects on Rafael Viñoly’s Janelia Farm where “personal comfort is a priority, and care is taken to maintain access to natural light and external views in order to reconnect scientists to the external environment.” (Yaneva, 2010). However, Yaneva’s assertion that “…[the atrium’s] architectural form sets houses of science radically apart from austere and faceless campus buildings” is surprising (ibid.) The atrium can be seen as a corporate symbol, and thus despite its environmental benefits, may in fact endow the research institution with the studied “placelessness” of shopping centres and airports (Gieryn, 2008). That the notion of atria as generators of opportunist and organised social interaction, can and should logically extend to landscape and site design, is the central argument of this thesis.

Such debate reiterates that suitable social space is worth equal if not more consideration than the laboratory itself.

At the turn of this century, architects such as Frank Gehry and Viñoly demonstrate the new and extensive effort being put into designing social space. They championed urban concepts of ‘streets’ and ‘neighbourhoods’, which are now commonplace in the design of research facilities (Bonetta, 2003, p. 720)

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PRODUCTIVITY AS GENERICISM REVERSION

Reversing green belt & research park genericism The idea of the green belt as a generic intervention within England has been already been alluded to, however Amati’s (2008) discussion of the green belt as an internationally replicated device raises its own questions.

Uniform application of the green belt is at odds with the extreme diversity of its sites. Amati argues that it is an inherently Modernist approach to planning; maintaining strict divisions in land use and searching for universally applicable planning truths (Amati, 2008). Pointedly, this thesis argues that this genericism has impaired the green belt concept, rendering it relatively monofunctional. In the past, some more specific initiatives such as Local Landscape Designations (LLDs), which have been used as locally driven additions to SSIs and ANOBs are seen to have failed (see Selman, 2008). Generating a modified approach to Cambridge green belt development rooted in regional specificity, the Subclassification system proposed by this thesis could be an effective way of reconciling the green belt and locally supported nature corridors with city expansion.

At this point we return to considering how this intervention allows ‘nature’ to benefit the city and its inhabitants. In the case of the proposed landscape treatment of the Madingley Road site, its proximity to the new social core of the urban extension will mean a pastoral landscape near a social core, preserving a typical Cambridge characteristic. To see beef cattle graze in close proximity to human activity is a normal sight fot a Cambridge resident; by using Subclass B enough land is retained as pastoral on the site to be actively grazed. This could feed into a strategy for the North West Cambridge landscape buffer (proportionally aligned with Subclass A).

Grazing also enables a lower maintenance landscape. For the park site management team this means less time on the lawnmower and more stimulation via working towards the 180

Fig. 80 A maintained hedgerow provides habitat for endangered bird species such as yellow hammers and corn bunting.

A cattle slat path is a low maintenance and low impact solution for an accessible pathway.

A productive hedgerow offers recreational fruit picking opportunities - for example blackthorn and blackberries.

Fig. 81a-b (overleaf ) A genuine pastoral landscape is a characteristic, locale-specific alternative to the mown lawns of American pastoral capitalist siteplans.

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enhancement and conservation of a meaningful landscape.

This doubles up as training more specialist skillsets for aiding local nature conservation.

Equally, incorporation of hedge planting that bears edible fruit is another way of encouraging a low-key productivity as a means of stimulating interaction with the landscape.

This is supported by the fact that a diversity of planted species must be maintained to prevent a monocultural hedgerow, where typically the strongest species will oust the others (Muir, 2000). In addition to the traditional blackthorn; blackberry bushes, damson, crabtree and elder are among those suitable for planting. These need not be limited to the hedges of the site; this productivity strategy extends to the Rights of Way intervention along an agricultural hedgerow boundary.

This would necessitate a margin wider than 2m, so that a fast (cycling) ‘lane’ and slow (foraging) lane could be incorporated. Where new trees might be planted on development sites to thicken boundaries there is potential to use fruit-bearing orchard trees to further this landscape productivity. This would be in support of the notion that the outdoor environment of a science campus should be another realm in which opportunistic interaction occurs.

Providing a function on an external circulation route (accessed during a lunchbreak or on a cycle route home) would be a novel take on incidental space social interaction, but also afford a deeper interaction between human and nature.

These opportunities for productivity in the grounds of a research park create a heterogenity that argubly increases the robustness of the landscape retention strategy.

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SUMMARY

“The point at which culture begins and nature ends is often unclear.

Nature and culture are perhaps then better thought of as a seamless continuum.�

(Dee, 2012, p.37)

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This thesis has made clear the correlation between expansion and innovation in Cambridge. The loosening of the green belt to protect ‘innovation heritage’ demonstrates that the latter has recently taken precedence over the landscape setting of the city. The productive imperatives of the surrounding agricultural landscape have been discussed as drivers for a lower landscape quality in the Cambridge green belt. In the northwest of the city this is reinforced by poor recreational accessibility. Yet the poetic reverence and public attachment show that the Cambridge green belt and its corridors are values as significant resources to residents.

This thesis’ Subclassification strategy has been proposed as a means of dealing with these disparities.

Preservation and protection Subclassification promotes a spatial design-based approach to rural-urban fringe improvement. This is seen as a longterm strategy, taking a ‘prevention not cure’ attitude to ensuring an innovative fringe and accessible countryside.

Using the Subclass B has necessitated high-density development juxtaposed with open landscape, suited to the requirements of research facilities. This generic strategy must be driven by specific, detailed analysis of the local landscape context in order to be successfully the realised on individual sites. On the Madingley Road site, the understanding of the historical layers legible in the landscape has emerged as a design driver. The Subclassification proportioning of landscape is also beneficial for engaging with preservation, enforcing a more intimate, cohesive landscape-building connection that the looser urbanism of the park typology could not allow.

Specifically the main spine building has been designed as a piece of landscape, but one that works hard to protect the site from its adverse motorway setting.

Access and ecology The design has exploited this to improve agriculturalecological balance. Adopting a strategy of agricultural heritage landscape preservation has been shown to be a subtle improvement exercise. The proposal for Madingley Road uses a denser conglomerate building approach for more efficient vehicle and pedestrian access than the typical park model. The multifunctional approach of exploiting site features via new structural elements and ecological enhancement whilst ensuring the landscape becomes active and productive, has been argued to generate a more 187

meaningful landscape. The Subclassification strategy has been presented as one way in which landscape accessibility can be addressed, by providing open space in a site proposal but also using this space as a gateway into a wider network of leisure routes. While a linear intervention like the spine could be critiqued as speaking of monofunctionality, it has been demonstrated that it can be designed into a multifunctional element, creating a structural edge to the site that deals with the rising levels necessary for motorway bridge access but also streamlining vehicle access to prevent the sprawl of roads.

Adaptation and productivity ‘Pastoral capitalism’ has been shown to have roots in the academic campus, a community of buildings benefiting from the wellbeing of a landscape setting . By returning to viewing a research park as a campus – i.e. placemaking through landscape – the Madingley Road proposal has demonstrated that a holistic approach to site design can maximise the benefits of co-locating business as well as genuine landscape setting. This has also been argued to be more socially cohesive; a shared spine allows buildings and hence users to have a direct interface with one another through shared facilities. Through design, social specificity can be used to bind generic and modular laboratory buildings. Employing simple but effective site landscape improvement, could begin a dialogue of wider landscape improvement at the fringe, including providing open space for recreation and a more interactive vision for Countryside Rights of Way. Further design research Further research could look into testing the semi-generic replication of the spine proposal against other highways in Cambridge (see drawing overleaf ). In the case of the Madingley Road site, while the principles have been designed, greater detailed design of social spaces and their visual or physical connection to landscape would ensure a deeper exploration of the themes of social interaction.

Understanding the issues pertaining to innovation as well as the body of research around the rural-urban fringe, accounts for the broad nature of this study. As a result some theory, sociological in particular, could be explored in further detail. In addition, the notion of extendibility needs further addressing, especially what sort of effect the land take would have on the preservation of 188

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landscape. At the other end of the scale, an exploration of how Subclassification could be applicable to other modes of development, such as housing, would enable a broader discussion that engages with issues pertaining to future growth. At a policy level, the implementation the Subclassification strategy would require more work for both planners and designers. Therefore further research could involve discussion of the Subclassification concept with Cambridge City Council to engage in their own dialogue about how to make the green belt work harder and better.

Rural-urban fringe development has centred on lowering costs and ‘optimising’ sites, forcing modularity, repetition and vehicular access so strategised that it became generic at every level, especially spatially. The same could be said for the green belt. It is sensible as a generic policy, but in application it must be specific. The context of government decentralisation is the opportune moment to enact this. The heterogeneity explored in implementing the Subclassification approach has been argued to be supportive of both social and environmental sustainability, with specific regard to encouraging biodiversity and improving green belt access. Ecological-driven campus development is a salient and stimulating alternative to reclaim this zone from the profit-driven template of park typology. The hybridisation of building and landscape has been demonstrated to whilst creating a social environment that maximises the benefits of a landscape setting for leisure and recreation.

In exploring fringe issues through design for innovation, this thesis has emphasised that there is an exciting field of play for the designer at the rural-urban fringe. This points to the key finding of this thesis: for the rural-urban fringe is to be sustained a contextually-driven design strategy and process can help address the neglect that is symptomatic of poorly applied genericism.

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