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CAMBRIDGESHIRE ROWING ASSOCIATION/ CAMROWERS BOATHOUSE Next door to the Combined Colleges boathouse, and almost complete at the time of writing, is Saunders Boston’s Cambridgeshire Rowing Association/ Camrowers boathouse, providing much-needed new-built facilities where previously there were none. It references the materials of the adjacent boathouse, with a single-storey steel frame wrapped in brickwork at lower level, timber cladding above, and finished with a simple steel roof. Most of the area is allocated to boat storage, with a tea room, training area, and changing rooms in one corner. It may be the smaller of the two but this building is a noble demonstration that rowing can be for all, with funding from numerous sources: Cambridge City Council Section
and expressing the steel frame within. The column is wrapped where people might come into contact with it, reducing a large building down to a human scale and introducing the joinery elements of the upper storey. The forked design of this column also alludes to the rigging of the boats. Upstairs to the front of the building, a large gym is lined with rowing machines facing the river; if necessary, this can be subdivided by a sliding screen. Timber brise-soleil shade the glazed screens which open onto a suspended balcony, whilst air handling equipment means the doors can remain closed during busy training sessions, keeping noise to a minimum for the surrounding residents. Male and female changing rooms occupy the centre of the plan and four separate club rooms face north across the lower part of the boat store. On the river elevation, R H Partnership worked with glass artist Kate Maestri in the design of the balcony balustrade, a silk-screened pattern of stripes evoking the elegant movement of oars through the water.
Simple and effective © Saunders Boston Architects
106 planning contributions, the Landfill Communities Fund, Sport England, the D G Marshall of Cambridge Trust, club funds, member contributions, and fundraising.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY BOAT CLUB ELY BOATHOUSE At the other end of the spectrum – and indeed, the other end of the river – is the new Cambridge University Boat Club Ely Boathouse by Jeremy Bailey Architects with Baynes and Mitchell. Whilst the University retains its Cambridge presence with the Goldie boathouse – now the oldest – this is used for land training, with a physiotherapy treatment centre and offices. The serious water training happens on the River Great Ouse in Ely; less crowded, the conditions tougher, and with an uninterrupted straight section of wide river conveniently matching the length of the Boat Race. The Ely Boathouse provides muchneeded new facilities for the both heavyweight and lightweight classes of the men’s and women’s clubs of the University of Cambridge. An architectural competition was held for a site slightly further north than the final building,
involving Jeremy Bailey Architects with Baynes and Mitchell, Hopkins Architects, the Manser Practice, Mole Architects, and Panter Hudspith. The competition was won by Jeremy Bailey Architects with Baynes and Mitchell. Jeremy Bailey had also previously designed the extensions to the Goldie boathouse in Cambridge, completed in 2003 and 2013. The new boathouse is located on a prominent site to the east of Ely known as Fore Mill Wash, off Queen Adelaide Way. Here, the city gives way to the landscape of the Fens, with the Middle Fen Bank flood defence separating river from road. The building is a prominent marker in this expansive landscape. Indeed, this was one of the starting points for the design: to create a sculptural presence in the landscape, with the roof being imagined as a lighter folded plane sitting above a massive plinth carved into the flood defence bank. This established the familiar arrangement of boat storage with rower facilities above. An early concept model illustrates the design, with the folded roof planes referencing a bird’s wings flitting across the water.
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