Cambridge Architecture 89

89 Cambridge Architecture

Spring/Summer 2025

Celebrating diversity and innovation

RIBA East Awards Saluting the best in creative design from around the region

GCDC Awards

Showcasing the Greater Cambridge Design & Construction Awards 2025

89

Contents

14 18

24

Contents 4-5 News

Maggie's Centre approved; North East Cambridge latest; mosque in research; Neil Ruffles tribute; events

7 Make room for ambition

Are we missing the wood for the trees, asks CAA chair

8 The Cambridge Room

Free resource opens to the community

9 Let's talk about...

The Beehive Centre development is centre stage

18-22 Shining lights

RIBA's winning projects from across the East

24-26 Rewilding landscapes

Designing with uncertainty and letting nature lead

28 Top tips for retrofits

Cambridge Architecture

Cambridge Architecture is a review produced by the Cambridge Association of Architects, the local branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The views in this magazine are those of individual contributors (named and unnamed), and not of the Association.

ISSN 1361-3375 Any comments or for a copy of the magazine, contact editors@cambridgearchitects.org EDITORS Adam Griffiths, Susie Lober, Susie Newman and Hannah Snow ADVERTISEMENT SALES Marie Luise Critchley-Waring (advertising@cambridgearchitects.org) Published by CPL One www.cplone.co.uk

Larger or heritage properties can be a challenge

29 Who picks up the bill?

The Building Safety Act is spreading responsibility

30-31 Technical changes

Technology sponsor

JJ Waters reflects on the future of science parks

What will revised fire safety standards and the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill mean?

12-13 Perspectives on practice

32-33 Work in progress

14-17 GCDC Awards

34 Your view

CA89 was made possible by generous grants from the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry and the RIBA Local Initiative Fund

10-11 Unlocking the campus gates An architect and student discuss their work journeys

Celebrating our region's best projects and people

A spotlight on projects by Chartered Practices

Letter to the editor about 'Louis Kahn in the city'

The CAA thanks the following sponsors AC Architects Cambridge Ltd Archangel Architects BCR Infinity Architects Caroe Architecture Ltd Cowper Griffith Architects Easy house EIKON Architecture and Design Feilden + Mawson Freeland Rees Roberts Graham Handley Architects Mart Barrass Architect Ltd

MCW Architects Mole Architects N J Twitchett Olivier Design Studio Owers Warwick Architects Purcell R H Partnership Architects Ltd Saunders Boston Snell David Architects Stephanie Norris Architects Studio 24 Architects

Cover photo: © Richard Fraser Photography Close up of Mirror Pod Extension

by Mart Barrass Architect Shortlisted for the Greater Cambridge Design & Construction Awards 2025 and the 2025 RIBA East Award

Cambridge Architecture 3

Welcome and news

News Plans for new Maggie’s Centre at Addenbrooke’s approved

The editors

4 Cambridge Architecture

Unlocking North East Cambridge expansion Plans to relocate Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant to make way for new homes were approved on 8 April. Anglian Water has permission to replace its current facility, near Milton, with a new plant on land known as Honey Hill, in the green belt close to Horningsea. The government approved the plans, despite the examining authority recommending that consent should be withheld. Land at the former plant site would be redeveloped as part of the North East Cambridge development. A planning application is expected to be submitted later this year to create a new urban quarter in Cambridge, with 5,600 new homes, shops, workplaces, schools, community and leisure facilities as part of the Hartree by Landsec, U+I and TOWN.

© Greater Cambridge Shared Planning

Cambridge Architecture 89 is all about celebrating the fine work that is being produced around the region. As summer arrives, so do the Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards, and the RIBA East Awards.

Alongside the award announcements, there’s plenty to discuss. The Cambridge Room opened earlier in the year, and we hear about its growing schedule of events. We get insight into one such event from a local architect who sat in on a ‘Let’s talk about...’ planning discussion.

We also hear from a landscape designer on the importance of opening up to the community in science campuses, as well as rewilding approaches to landscape design. We look at the latest in retrofit, with advice regarding larger heritage properties. And we discover the lessons learnt from a seasoned local architect and the ambitions of a young architectural student at the beginning of their career.

All this sits alongside our regular features from our favourite technical experts in construction and legal fields.

We also feature a new ‘Letter to the editor’ section. If you’d like to contribute and get your voice heard on the built environment in Cambridge, do send your letters to editors@cambridgearchitects.org.

© Níall McLoughlin Architects

Welcome

Níall McLaughlin Architects has been given the go-ahead for a new 484m² two-storey, timber Maggie’s Centre at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. The purpose-built structure will replace an existing, temporary Maggie’s Centre which, since 2012, has been housed within a converted key worker residential block. The new facility aims to ‘provide people affected by cancer with comforting and inspiring spaces to decompress from the clinical hospital setting, seek support and take part in activities’.

It will house a ‘warm and welcoming’ kitchen area, a winter garden, rooms for one-to-one support and larger spaces for group meetings and exercise classes. Construction work is expected to start next year and the centre is expected to open by 2028.

Location of the North East Cambridge site in red

Welcome and news

Events City centre mosque features as case study in research into benefits of mass timber A new study led by dRMM in collaboration with Edinburgh Napier University and the Quality of Life Foundation has highlighted the low-carbon and wellbeing benefits of five mass timber buildings in the UK. Cambridge Central Mosque by Marks Barfield (worship sector) is one of the case studies in the report. The report highlights the potential of mass timber to meet or exceed the RIBA’s 2025 targets for whole-life carbon emissions. In addition to presenting the findings, the study introduces an open-source tool for developers and designers to measure the carbon impact of their buildings. https://timberdevelopment.uk/measuring-mass-timber/

ARCSOC (University of Cambridge’s Architecture Society) Traces of Making Exhibition Date and time: Thursday 26 until Sunday 29 June Location: Kettle’s Yard and Castle Street The exhibition opens on the morning of 26 June and entry is free.

CFCI Waterbeach New Town meeting Date and time: 2 June 6-8pm Location: Clare College

It is with deep sadness that we reflect on the death of Neil Ruffles, one of the founding directors of Barber Casanovas Ruffles (now BCR Infinity Architects). Neil worked as an architect in Cambridge for decades and was recently spearheading the Cambridge Great Park concept.

Neil’s vision for the Cambridge Great Park was particularly dear to him – an ambitious project that sought to create a ‘regional park’ for Cambridge.

Though his death is a great loss, his work, ideas, and his passion will endure.

© Keith Heppell

Neil Ruffles’ ‘ideas and passion will endure’

CFCI Annual Debate: This House believes Cambridge should grow up (not out) Date and time: June 23, 6pm-8pm Location: Cambridge Union Society Tickets available online

CFCI Chair’s Garden Party Date and time: 23 July 5.30-8pm Location: Trinity Hall

CAA Punting Picnic Date and time: 6 August Location: See CAA website for further details

Cambridge Architecture 5

Allen Pyke Associates Landscape architects

Designing distinctive places for communities in Cambridge

Coulson Building Group Progress House, Rowles Way

Swavesey, Cambridge, CB24 4UG Tel:

(01223) 423 800

Email:

enquiries@coulson.co.uk

Website: www.coulson.co.uk

Working with Chesterton Methodist Church, Cambridge to design a community garden for the church and other charities Find out more at www.chestertonmethodist.org.uk

Unit 8, Office 4, Gwydir Enterprise Centre, Gwydir Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LG - T: 01223 358055

www.allenpyke.co.uk

design@allenpyke.co.uk

Local planning, development, heritage and townscape expertise with a national perspective We bring deep thinking, smart strategy and expert delivery

8 Quy Court Colliers Lane, Stow-cum-Quy Cambridge, CB25 9AU 01223 810990 turley.co.uk @turleyplanning linkedin.com/company/turley

GreenChase Construction

r e n o v a t e - b u i l d - e x t e n d

Letter from the chair

Make room for ambition Chair of the CAA Patrick Usborne reflects on the recent mayoral hustings for Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority. While we focus on getting the basics right, do we run the risk of not seeing the wood for the trees? © Matthew Smith Architectural Photography

WORDS PATRICK USBORNE

O

n a Wednesday evening in late April, while my children were deciding what bedtime book to read, I had my earphones on listening to the mayoral hustings for Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority. Not exactly prime-time television you may think, but I was captivated.

The event focused on housing for Cambridgeshire and the infrastructure required to deliver more affordable, sustainable and higherquality homes. What struck me was that each mayoral candidate responded to questions in the here and now, with a real focus on issues we’re experiencing today: potholes; Mill Road bridge; a new tramway. There was little room to discuss future housing, which was the premise of the hustings.

Last year, The Case for Cambridge guidance was put forward by the previous government, rightly identifying Cambridge as the potential ‘Silicon Fen’ of Europe. While the report acknowledged the historical significance of the city, this was counterbalanced with a plea to ‘fall back in love with the future’ and for the city to grow with ‘beautifully designed houses and neighbourhoods’. The ‘Shared Ambition’ for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough was subsequently launched in October and we’re only now peering around the corner with how Cambridge will look in years to come. So, returning to the hustings, while we focus on getting the basics right, do we run the risk of not seeing the wood for the trees?

In March, we finally saw the opening of the new Cambridge Room (Ze’ev Feigis talks more about The Cambridge Room later in this edition). With the physical and virtual room, residents, businesses, academics and us architects now have the space to help shape the city’s future. We need to nurture this opportunity with both hands and allow the urban room to grow.

Active participation in decision-making and the design process through deep collaboration is the only real way to create a resilient and sustainable future while enhancing the city’s rich heritage.

We’re hoping local architects and designers will be an integral part of this process, whether attending debates or spending a few hours each week manning the room – together, we are in the unique position to drive change for the better.

Beyond collaboration, what architects and urban designers are excellent at is bringing that vision to life through exemplar projects. In March, the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning service, alongside the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry, announced its annual award winners. Congratulations to all the project entries,

Opening of The Cambridge Room

“Beyond collaboration, what architects and urban designers are excellent at is bringing that vision to life through exemplar projects”

many of whom are shown in this issue, as they paint a clear vision of what our future can be: inspirational and transformative – and without a pothole in sight.

Looking ahead to 2025 The committee is always interested to hear from members about what we can do better.

If you have any ideas, please contact me at chair@cambridgearchitects.co.uk.

This year, we’ll be reintroducing our member meet-ups to discuss issues that matter to you, so please look out for dates by signing up to our fortnightly newsletters.

Cambridge Architecture 7

Urban room

Cambridge Room for everyone © Matthew Smith Architectural Photography

Free resource for local community opens with history of city’s activism WORDS ZE’EV FEIGIS

© Matthew Smith Architectural Photography

T

he Cambridge Room pop-up space celebrated its opening with an intimate launch event at the Grafton Centre on 5 March 2025. This new community space is the outcome of months of collaborative work between the CAA, the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, and City and South Cambs councils.

In September 2024, The Cambridge Room was set up as a not-for-profit charity. Its mission was to advance education for the benefit of the public in matters pertaining to planning and design of the built environment in Greater Cambridge, as well as promote good citizenship by encouraging participation in democratic planning processes. The charity is run by eight trustees and is guided by a local advisory group consisting of various community organisations, which advise on the Room’s activities and share valuable local insights.

The space at Unit 57 was leased free of rent from the Grafton Centre as part of Section 106 planning obligations related to the centre’s extension and change-of-use application.

The design of The Cambridge Room was realised following the winning concept from Allies and Morrison’s competition entry (see issue 87), with tables and presentation boards made of repurposed OSB boards originally from the Fitzwilliam Museum and chairs generously donated by the Department of Architecture. Additional bean bags and a curtain were added to allow more intimate and child-friendly corners within the Room.

The opening exhibition is chronicling Cambridge’s rich history of participation and activism, from the late 1920s to the present day. Visitors are encouraged to contribute to this timeline by adding their own notes about significant events and groups, creating a collaborative documentation of the city’s activist heritage. A screen showing historic movies

“Local architects are welcome to use the shop as their hot-desking workspace while helping with operating the Room”

Legal expertise to build success 01223 532731 | www.hcrlaw.com HCR Hewitsons is a trading name of HCR Legal LLP which is authorised and regulated by the SRA

8 Cambridge Architecture

of ‘Town’ and imaginary maps of Cambridge drawn by children (loaned by Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination) provide alternative views of how we perceive our living environment.

The Cambridge Room operates as a free resource for local community groups whose activities align with the charity’s core objectives.

The space hosts a diverse programme of events, including the ‘Let’s Talk About’ series, exploring current matters, history workshops with local historian Antony Carpen, and retrofit advice from Cambridge Retrofit Hub. Currently, the Room is open two days a week, and its operation is supported by University funding, which enables the employment of experienced research associates Dr Ruchit Purohit and Dr Zhuozhang Li, alongside a team of volunteers. Local architects are welcome to use the shop as their hot-desking workspace while helping with operating the Room.

Future challenges include establishing selffunding mechanisms, pursuing grant applications and setting up a donations system. The team is also planning to offer community consultation services following the Quality of Life Foundation’s code of conduct , ensuring ‘best practice’ community engagement for developments.

The Beehive Centre

Community dialogue on redevelopment

WORDS TONIA GKOUGKOULI

T

© Ze’ev Feigis

Local architect Tonia Gkougkouli shares her thoughts on the first ‘Let’s talk about...’ meeting in The Cambridge Room, where local residents, politicians, architects, researchers and planners gathered to discuss the Beehive Centre development

The ‘Let’s talk about…’ Beehive meeting in The Cambridge Room

© Leonard Design

3D visuals, I felt as though I was in another city, not a neighbourhood in Cambridge.

This meeting made it clear that balancing growth with community needs is a complex challenge. The Beehive redevelopment has the potential to bring positive change, but it’s also a reminder that thoughtful planning, early engagement and clear communication are essential to making any project work. © Leonard Design

his was the first of a series of conversations organised by The Cambridge Room on hot planning topics in the Cambridge region. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet planning professionals, residents, fellow architects, and researchers from the University of Cambridge, to discuss one of the most-debated planning topics in the area at present: the Beehive redevelopment.

The Beehive Centre proposal has been developed by Railpen with a team of specialists in sustainability, landscape architecture and urban planning, led by Leonard Design.

Located approximately 1.5km east of the city centre, the project aims to transform the existing retail park into a mixed-use district, integrating office, laboratory and retail spaces. The proposal outlines plans for improved transport links, including new bus routes and cycleways.

An outline planning application was submitted in August 2023 for the development, followed by consultation with the council and local community.

A new outline application was then submitted in August 2024.

The application went to the planning committee for determination on the 12 February 2025. In a surprising twist, just 30 minutes before the committee was set to discuss the proposal, the Secretary of State ‘called in’ the project. This meant that the decision was taken out of local hands, leaving many attendees questioning the process.

While the idea of redevelopment is generally supported, the Better Beehive Cambridge Group, made up of neighbouring residents, have raised significant concerns about the scale, massing and further impact of the development. The proposal is up to 35m tall, a significant increase compared with the existing buildings.

Concerns highlighted by the group include: the reduction of sunlight to surrounding buildings (mainly residences); increased congestion; contamination from the labs; additional energy consumption; the inadequacy of the existing water supply to support the new use; and the impact on Cambridge’s historic skyline.

At the event, local civic campaigner Antony Carpen highlighted the lack of strategic transport planning, and the disconnect between employment space proposals and workforce capacity. Peter Studdert, former director of Planning at Cambridge City Council, questioned the logic of placing one million square feet of office space in a residential area, calling the design ‘too fat’.

Katie Thornburrow, executive councillor for Planning, Building Control and Infrastructure, shared concerns about poor transparency, including late-stage ministerial intervention and limited access to consultants. Dr Tumi Hawkins, lead cabinet member for Planning at South Cambridgeshire District Council, cautioned against imposing developments without thorough and meaningful community consultation.

As a resident of Ditton Walk, I visit the Beehive Centre often. The proposed redevelopment offers opportunities, but it also raises questions – if retail spaces are lost, where will local residents shop?

Does the scale of the proposed buildings fit with the surrounding area? When I saw the elevations and

The Beehive redevelopment site masterplan

Indicative visual of the Beehive redevelopment

Cambridge Architecture 9

Public Realm Campus

JJ Watters, of LDA Design, reflects on the future of science parks and the role Public Realm can play WORDS JJ WATTERS

W

ith the Chancellor talking about creating ‘Europe’s Silicon Valley’ in the corridor between Oxford and Cambridge, and a record nearly £14bn of research and development funding announced in April, it seems the Government is serious about using science and innovation to help drive growth. But how can new environments designed for people to work at their best also be designed to meet wider societal need?

The Global Innovation Index in 2024 named Cambridge as the most intensive science and innovation cluster in the world.

However, despite the wealth of its thriving science ecosystem, it is a city with huge disparities. There is now an opportunity for this to change as science and educational facilities begin to face outwards by providing greater opportunities and inspiring the next generation of innovators, researchers and disruptors. How the public realm is shaped and programmed plays a pivotal role in this.

Unlocking the gates

Traditionally, science parks have been secure environments, with the emphasis on keeping intellectual property under wraps;

an arms-around-your-homework approach that does not promote cross-collaboration.

While lab and tech security will remain a constant, there is considerable scope to open up and do things differently.

Campuses are often on constrained sites, which has led to access and car parking dominating the space, resulting in a ‘travel in, head down, go home’ mentality, where opportunities to connect meaningfully to the local neighbourhoods can be missed.

Landscape is key to creating places that are stitched into the wider environment and that are welcoming and memorable, providing an interface between the private scientific functions and the wider community.

We all meet in the public realm, and our impression of a place comes from its streets, squares and green spaces. The edges and entrances to a park are important.

Activated, lively, better-quality public spaces bring pleasure and foster a stronger sense of place, where openness, creativity and shared endeavour can thrive. They not only attract job applicants, but experienced staff stay longer if they love where they work and good things are on offer that make for a more rounded day – from food pop-ups and markets to outdoor cinema and exhibitions.

Much more can also be achieved by creating an open and transparent physical relationship between the architecture and shared spaces. Doubling the size of University College London is its new campus in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, UCL East, which brings an educational focus to a previously industrial part of east London. When complete, eight faculties will be based here, making cross-disciplinary courses possible and enabling artists, architects, engineers and computer scientists to work more easily together.

LDA Design’s masterplan for UCL East proposed a ‘fluid zone’, where the public and private boundaries are blurred to create new energy and opportunities. Buildings have active frontages that connect the buildings to their surroundings and ignite public curiosity through showcasing groundbreaking research and educational work. The public are welcomed into the buildings and encouraged to move through and up, to enjoy the cafes, visit galleries and use other facilities. Events and installations will be open to everyone.

Changing Cambridge Science Park

Growth and investment in the science and innovation sector mean competition to attract the best people and keep them is keener than ever. So, how is the UK’s oldest science park in Cambridge faring?

Founded more than 50 years ago, Cambridge Science Park is today the workplace for 7,000 people of 170 companies, from labs to tech start-ups. The owners realise they need to make it an enticing place to work, ensuring it can grow and maintain its world-class status. Over the last decade, LDA Design has worked with the Park, firstly to develop an approach to site-wide landscape masterplanning and

“Biophilic design creates environments rich in natural sensory experiences that are essential for our health, wellbeing and happiness”

LDA’s proposal for the Fluid Zone at UCL East, a ground and first floor zone that blurs the public and private boundaries to support cross-disciplinary working and life-long learning

10 Cambridge Architecture

All images © LDA Design

Unlocking the campus gates

The fluid zone

Public Realm Campus

Illustrative masterplan for The Fenway, set within the wider campus parkland

A study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology1 highlighted the positive impact biophilic work environments had on cognitive performance. Biophilia is our love of living things and our innate need to connect with nature in its different forms, and this understanding has an important part to play in all kinds of design.

Biophilic design creates environments rich in natural sensory experiences that are essential for our health, wellbeing and happiness, with the potential to reduce stress, enhance creativity and clarity of thought, and improve wellbeing. Having a sensory connection with nature – such as seeing, hearing or touching water – can boost our mood, making for happier, calmer and more productive working environments.

References: 1 Biophilic office design: Exploring the impact of a multisensory approach on human wellbeing.

Journal of Environmental Psychology. Volume 77, October 2021, 101682 2 Deloitte 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey: Living and working with purpose in a transforming world.

© Hayes Davidson & LDA Design

then to deliver aspects of that masterplan at a site level.

This has meant creating a modern campus that better meets current expectations. For example, a recent project, ‘The Fenway’, proposes to push all vehicle movement to the site’s perimeter, resulting in a central landscape that is completely car free.

Main entrances manifest as open, generous pedestrian plazas, connecting to green spaces and walkways. This modal shift signals a change in priorities. Ground-floor uses spill out into freed-up outdoor shared spaces, public amenities – such as restaurants and play – are offered alongside workspaces, and free movement is encouraged throughout.

Beautifully planted, the place will feel special, reflecting its wider parkland setting.

A recent Deloitte survey2 found that employees want flexible, inclusive workplaces that prioritise wellbeing and support active lifestyles and different ways of working. Most people thrive on variety throughout the working day and, for the Park, this means introducing distinctive spaces – from leafy corners for quiet reflection to areas with room for group work and activities, or to exercise or for events, including ones to which the public are invited.

Powering-up shaded outdoor spaces means laptops can be used outside, and communal tables make for chatty lunch spots on sunny days. All of this is aimed at strengthening cross-business and interdisciplinary relationships, supporting greater knowledge sharing and creating a more enjoyable, collegiate and satisfying working environment.

The workplace is in a state of continual change and reinvention, with hybrid working offering a different work-life balance. When people come together, they are looking for a more collaborative and engaging experience. For science parks, this means thinking much harder about the quality of their estate and the experience it offers to those who work there and the local communities. For this to move the dial, there needs to be meaningful engagement with all stakeholders throughout the design, construction and operational phases of a project, to ensure a deep understanding of the issues faced by users and designers alike.

View across the retained and enhanced pond within The Fenway’s green core. A car-free central space for collaboration and social exchange

Cambridge Architecture 11

Careers

WORDS JILL BORTEN

Perspectives on practice Dr Nigel Walter, specialist conservation architect and founding director of Archangel Architects, FRIBA, FRSA, and Maggie Porter, third-year architecture student, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, talk about their professional journeys

‘opened up a portal into other possibilities,’ such as a research associate role at the University of York, writing several books, including Narrative Theory in Conservation (Routledge, 2020) and Making Your Church Sustainable: A Practical Guide to Getting to Net Zero (Canterbury Press, 2024),

and becoming Secretary General of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for Theory and Philosophy of Conservation and Restoration.

Nigel suspects that developing a specialism before launching his practice, rather than after more than 10 years, might have led to a higher volume of work. For those starting out he recommends gaining a specialism that sets you apart – provided you believe in it. © Archangel Architects

L

ooking back 30-odd years, Nigel Walter recounts leaving architecture school (University of Cambridge) in 1991. It was, he says, ‘a terrible time to be an architect – there were very few jobs around’.

After gaining enough experience to get qualified, he found an in-house job at Lloyds TSB. Though not at all creative, it provided security for his young family.

In 2000, Nigel took a leap and set up Archangel Architects, focusing on residential design until the practice was appointed on Histon Baptist Church in 2003 through Nigel’s involvement with the local community.

He hadn’t planned to work with churches, wanting to keep faith and work separate. But the project became a turning point when he realised his active Christian faith gave him an understanding and capacity to work with churches in a way they are not often able to with architects.

He reflects that interpersonal skills gained through his training and work as a part-time counsellor have proven useful for all clients, be it church, community or domestic.

The practice’s growing portfolio of historic church projects requiring a conservation architect led Nigel to do a Master’s in conservation of historic buildings at the University of York (2012), followed by a PhD (2017), which he says

Dr Nigel Walter

An Archangel project: St Mary’s Church, Ely

Smith and Wallwork Ltd 50 St Andrews Street, Cambridge, CB2 3AH www.smithandwallwork.com 01223 750 249 contact@smithandwallwork.com 12 Cambridge Architecture

Careers

“It’s not just about the building, it’s about the relationship between the building and the people who use it”

Maggie Porter

A core lesson Nigel takes from conservation is that ‘it’s not just about the building, it’s about the relationship between the building and the people who use it. And that comes back to the counselling skills and being able to listen – to listen and take seriously, and treat as equals, the people who are going to use it... and then you get responsive buildings that are a joy to be in’.

With the benefit of hindsight, Nigel sees that a more strategic approach to his career

Basílica de Santa María approached through the streets of Arcos de la Frontera

We’re here

– figuring out eariler what it is he’s about, and changing work to suit that – might have cut down on the less-than-satisfying times. The path not taken – working in and learning from a greater variety of practices, and deliberately building a network of contacts – might have proved useful in launching his practice, he reckons.

At the other end of the career trajectory is Maggie Porter, a final-year architecture undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, and student representative to the Cambridge Association of Architects.

Moving from Plymouth to study in Cambridge, Maggie was impressed with the buzz of the city. Fittingly, her role with the CAA involves making students aware of wider opportunities and architecture events happening in Cambridge. Last term she organised a careers afternoon with 10 practices (from Cambridge and London) coming into the architecture department to talk about their journeys into architecture, followed by a Q&A, drinks and networking.

Maggie’s ultimate goal is to run her own practice, possibly focused on smallscale residential design – although she doesn’t want to rule anything out – and to work as a tutor at an architecture school.

Her short-term plan is to head for bustling London and absorb as much as possible.

She’d like to do her placement in London, and continue her studies.

A summer internship in a large firm in Plymouth gave her a taste of practice, and helped her recognise that sitting behind a desk she missed the experimentation and mess of making and testing, but enjoyed the opportunity to problem solve with colleagues. This interaction in the studio with students and tutors has sparked her interest in teaching, for which she also credits her family (all teachers), as well as an inspiring tutor in her second year.

This past year she’s seen that taking small steps to try new things and meet new people is both enjoyable and very helpful for her future career.

One inspiring figure in Maggie’s life is Cheryl Pilliner-Reeves, who leads study retreats at Trinity. Each session combines independent study and short breaks, during which invited women speak and lead Q&As. It’s easy to understand Maggie’s admiration: Pilliner-Reeves is an architect and practice director; founder of Archimake, a STEM, architecture and design school for young people; Master’s in Education student at Cambridge; and a mother.

Maggie traces her creativity and awareness of the built environment back to her childhood in Arcos de la Frontera, a ‘white village’ in southern Spain. She says that growing up in a house that might have once been a palace, in proximity to Islamic and Roman architecture, aroused her interest in architecture. In fact, she’s written her dissertation on the village’s Basílica de Santa María, which began life as a mosque, and ‘its intricate and contested heritage’.

Her experience in Spain means she’s not at all daunted by the wider world, and is open to her dissertation supervisor’s advice to travel and live abroad while she’s in her 20s.

As she says: ‘This is just the beginning.

I want to put myself out there, meet lots of people, and experience as much as I can.’

In spite of the digital age and severaldecade gap between Nigel and Maggie emerging from Cambridge, building human connections is as important as ever.

This article was the suggestion of a reader. If you have an idea for a story, contact editors@cambridgearchitects.org

when you need Planning and Development guidance

Find out more at carterjonas.co.uk/planning-and-development

Cambridge Architecture 13

Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards

Celebrating our region’s best projects and people The Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards showcase the best design and construction skills, craftsmanship and engineering in the region WORDS SUSIE LOBER

The Greater Cambridge Shared Planning service (GCSP) and the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry (CFCI) announced the winners of the Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards 2025 at a ceremony on 12 March.

The event was hosted by the CFCI at The Auditorium (former Emmanuel United Reformed Church), Pembroke College, Cambridge. The awards are facilitated jointly

by CFCI volunteer trustees and Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, which is the shared planning service for Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District councils.

Submissions were welcomed from the Greater Cambridge area, which includes Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire. The awards celebrate the best construction projects completed in Greater Cambridge, including new buildings and conservation, alterations, or extensions to existing buildings.

The judging panel is chaired by Dame Fiona Reynolds, former master of Emmanuel College Cambridge and former directorgeneral of the National Trust. The judges visited shortlisted projects in early February to examine the buildings submitted in greater detail and experience the spaces first-hand.

The judging criteria included the context and the brief for the building, the design solution adopted, the quality and difficulty of the construction and the craftsmanship displayed. Accessibility and the creation of an inclusive environment are also vital considerations.

Each scheme is expected to address environmental concerns, including energy performance. In addition, where possible, the projects are expected to contribute to the natural environment, both on the building and in the landscape around the building.

There are also ‘people award’ categories for those working in the construction industry and related professions. The people awards recognise the achievements of those who have excelled in their fields in the design and construction industry.

14 Cambridge Architecture

Award-winning projects People Awards

Apprentice of the Year Winner: Courtney Northrop Commendation: Josh Preater

Young Professional of the Year

Winner: James Morton Commendation: Rachel Earnshaw and Alissya Rudy

Project Awards

Best Conservation/Adaptation Under £3m Winner: Cherry Hinton Library and Community Hub Best Conservation/Adaptation Over £3m Winner: Pembroke Mill Lane Highly commended: King’s College Chapel Roof

Best New Building Over £3m Winner: The Meadows Community Centre Highly commended: L2, Orchard Park

Special Awards

Craftsmanship Award Winner: Pembroke Mill Lane Highly commended: Mill Hide Highly commended: King’s College Chapel Roof Contractor Award Winner: Barnes Construction for Spalding Hostel Highly commended: Cocksedge for Pembroke Mill Lane The David Mackay Award for Engineering and Sustainability Winner: King’s College Chapel Roof Highly commended: Pembroke Mill Lane

Best New Building Under £3m Winner: Mill Hide

Dame Fiona Reynolds, chair of the judging panel said: ‘The calibre of entries this year was truly outstanding, demonstrating an ever-growing commitment to quality, sustainability and community impact. We were particularly impressed by projects that pushed boundaries – whether through bold adaptive reuse, innovative energy solutions, or exceptional craftsmanship. The winners exemplify excellence across the board, and it’s encouraging to see such a strong focus on liveability and resilience in design.

Congratulations to all those recognised this evening.’

South Cambridgeshire District Council’s lead cabinet member for Planning, Cllr Dr Tumi Hawkins, said: ‘These awards celebrate the very best in architecture and urban design, recognising projects that not only enhance our built environment but also contribute meaningfully to our communities. It is inspiring to see how creativity, collaboration, and sustainability are being embedded in projects across the region. We are particularly pleased to see the breadth of entries from beyond the city, and we encourage even more participation in the future.

Congratulations to all those involved in this year’s exceptional projects.’

Cllr Katie Thornburrow, executive councillor for Planning, Building Control and Infrastructure at Cambridge City Council, said: ‘We are pleased to celebrate and showcase the design and construction skills, craftsmanship and engineering which have contributed to the built environment we see around us every day. Along with the other judges, I would like to thank all the teams who submitted entries for the 2025 awards, and to congratulate the winners on the high quality of work that we have seen once again this year.’

Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards

1. Craftsmanship Winner: Pembroke Mill Lane ‘The project needed to apply a vast range of craft skills due to its size, complexity and multi-faceted nature. The Mill Road complex presented huge challenges, and we were impressed by the quality, detailing, diversity and beauty of what has been created. We particularly commend the recycling of materials, including timber and brick; the careful sourcing of new timber; the fact that historic features have been left... and the clever integration of new features.’

Architects: Haworth Tompkins Client: Pembroke College, Cambridge Project manager: Bidwells Cost consultant: Gleeds Cost Management Consultant Structural engineers: Price & Myers MEP consultant Phase One: Max Fordham LLP MEP consultant Phase Two: Joel Gustafsson Consultants Landscape architects: Tom Stuart-Smith Ltd Acoustician: Max Fordham LLP Theatre consultant: Charcoalblue Main contractor: Cocksedge Building Contractors Ltd Planning consultant: WSP Public art: Alison Turnbull Transport consultants: WSP Heritage consultant: Turley Wayfinding consultants: Kellenberger-White

Highly commended: Mill Hide: ‘A domestic project implemented with enormous thought and precision...’

King’s College Chapel Roof: ‘Modern craftsmanship to match that of the past.’

© Clare Banks Barnes Construction

2. Contractor Winner: Barnes Construction for Spalding Hostel ‘This is for a contractor that has worked side by side with a College for a number of years, taking on difficult buildings and equipping them for the 21st century. King’s College has an ambitious refurbishment plan, which itself we commend, and its contractor has proved a huge asset.

Spalding Hostel, on Peas Hill, is an excellent example. It’s a highly complex set of three buildings, which King’s has owned since the 1790s, a rabbit warren of awkward fire compartments and staircases. The result is not perfect environmentally, and cannot provide ideal access, but the contractors dealt with multiple problems that arose throughout the project, cheerfully and effectively, and are our clear winners.’

Client: King’s College Cost consultant/PM: Atkins Realis Main contractor: Barnes Construction Architect: Bidwells Structural/civil engineers: JM Structures MEP: RPA Building control: Salus MEP subcontractor Munro Building Services

Highly commended: Cocksedge for Pembroke Mill Lane: ‘Awarded for the sheer range and complexity of the tasks that faced them, and the quality to which they were delivered.’

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3. The David Mackay Award for Engineering and Sustainability Winner: King’s College Chapel Roof ‘We cannot imagine a better advertisement for “greening” an iconic historic building in ways that not only don’t damage but arguably enhance its interest and reputation.

After one year’s operation, it is performing well, generating 120MW in its first year.’

Client/PM: King’s College Cambridge Architect: Caroe Architects MEP design: Max Fordham LLP Structural engineering: JM Structures Quantity surveyor: Atkins Realis Main contractor: Barnes Construction Scaffolding design and installation: Rise Scaffolding Lead workers: Norfolk Sheet Lead (UK) Ltd Carpentry: RG Carpentry Stonework: Hibbitt & Sons MEP install and PV array: Munro Building Services

Highly commended: Pembroke Mill Lane: ‘The multi-faceted and gas-free Mill Lane, utilising air source heat pumps, PVs, a rainwater harvesting tank, a wildflower roof, natural materials such as wood wool board and it is performing well, achieving an upfront carbon figure of 220kg CO2/m2.’

4. Best conservation/adaptation over £3m Winner: Pembroke Mill Lane ‘Re-using the historic but muddled Mill Lane site, the project has found new uses for old buildings, created new gardens drawing on the character of those on the College’s main site, and created a stunning new performance/teaching/ gathering space in the repurposing of Emmanuel Church and the former School House, now a stunningly beautiful foyer. We very much like the new entry from the street, which is a public thoroughfare, and the careful, understated connection made to the main college entrance over the road.’

Architects: Haworth Tompkins Client: Pembroke College, Cambridge Project manager: Bidwells Cost consultant: Gleeds Cost Management Consultant Structural engineers: Price & Myers MEP consultant Phase One: Max Fordham LLP MEP consultant Phase Two: Joel Gustafsson Consultants Landscape architects: Tom Stuart-Smith Ltd Acoustician: Max Fordham LLP Theatre consultant: Charcoalblue Main contractor: Cocksedge Building Contractors Ltd Planning consultant: WSP Public art: Alison Turnbull Transport consultants: WSP Heritage consultant: Turley Wayfinding consultants: Kellenberger-White

Highly commended: King’s College Chapel Roof: ‘It is an exquisite and hugely impressive project.’

16 Cambridge Architecture

© Barnes Construction

Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards

© Ingleton Wood

Greater Cambridge Design and Construction Awards

5. Best conservation/adaptation under £3m: Winner: Cherry Hinton Library and Community Hub ‘Our winner is a compelling project which has transformed a tired, poorly equipped 1950s community library into a vibrant, child-focused new library space alongside much-needed new community facilities and a café. Using public funds, a little money has gone a long way, and we were impressed by the level of community engagement and enthusiasm (even fundraising!) in the design of the project, although sadly it wasn’t quite open when we visited.

‘The glazed extension is welcoming and accessible, and the internal spaces are adaptable and focused on community needs. Air source heat pumps have been added, and a sedum roof, and we hope the glazed area won’t get too hot in the summer.

‘There are elements that could have been done better, but given the low budget and its powerful community resonance, we loved the way the building has been given new life, and are happy to make it our winner.’

Architect: Ingleton Wood LLP Structural engineers: Ingleton Wood LLP MEP engineers: Ingleton Wood LLP Principal designer: Ingleton Wood LLP Main contractor: DCH Construction building control: 3C Shared Services © Nick Guttridge

6. Best new building under £3m Winner: Mill Hide ‘On a remote rural site, the project had to satisfy the conditions for an exceptional house under PPG7, and we believe it has done so, its weathered Corten steel exterior sitting modestly in the surrounding wetland landscape, and its calm, perfectly proportioned interior providing elegant living spaces.’

Client: Tim and Elizabeth Poulson Planning authority: South Cambridgeshire District Council Architect: Poulson Architecture Structural engineer: Davies Maguire Services: Atamate Consultancy Landscape: Robert Tregay Ecology: MKA Ecology Building control: 3C Shared Services Air permeability: Elmhurst Energy Systems Ltd Carbon: LCD Consulting Management contractor: Poulson Development

7. Best new building over £3m Winner: The Meadows Community Centre ‘The new building was positively humming and genuinely uplifting when we visited: a vibrant community space with everything going on from a young people’s recording studio to a dance exercise class, a toddlers’ nursery to a community café. It was superbly well laid out, fully accessible and easy to navigate, and with one of Cambridge’s few Changing Places facilities. Outside there are play spaces for different age groups which are also well used.’

Client: Cambridge Investment Partnership Contractor: The Hill Group Design architects: Pollard Thomas Edwards Landscape architect: The Environment Partnership Planning consultants: Carter Jonas Energy and sustainability: Create Consulting Engineers Structural engineers: Walker Associates Highways consultants: Transport Planning Associates Air quality consultant: Create Consulting Engineers Principal designer: AECOM

Highly commended: L2, Orchard Park: ‘The design is successful, with a clever choice of brickwork and pointing... a place where people would be proud to live.’

Cambridge Architecture 17

RIBA East Awards

Shining lights Winning projects from across the East of England CITATIONS RIBA EAST JURY

The RIBA Awards have been running since 1966, and recognise buildings in the UK

by RIBA Chartered Architects and RIBA International Fellows.

Earlier this year, 25 projects were shortlisted for the RIBA East regional awards, the winners of which will be considered for several RIBA Special Awards, including Sustainability and Building of the Year accolades. They will

then also be considered for a highly coveted RIBA National Award, which will be announced in summer.

Matt Blakeley, regional director for RIBA Central, said of the shortlist: ‘The East region continues to deliver as one of the shining lights of architectural excellence in the UK, with this year’s shortlist demonstrating a wealth of outstanding projects. From mass housing

to community buildings, and commercial to educational spaces, the diversity and innovation on display is truly remarkable.

‘The sheer volume and quality of the projects that now come forward in the region highlight not only the talented architectural community, but the vision and collaboration of clients, stakeholders and contractors who make these projects possible.’

© Hufton+Crow

The Discovery Centre

by Herzog & de Meuron / BDP

Sunspot by HAT Projects Funded and operated by Tendring District Council, Sunspot stands on a prominent beachfront location in Jaywick Sands, Essex, that was previously the site of an amusement arcade. The new building recreates memories of fun with bold graphics, strong colours and welcoming space for all, including a multifunctional market hall, a café and spacious public toilets. Jaywick Sands is one of the more deprived areas of the UK, with high unemployment. It is a tough environment socially and physically – a seaside promenade in an area with a high (Level 3) flood risk. The architects have taken the industrial aesthetic and played with some well-detailed components to create something to inspire the local community: projecting canopies, shelter for the bus stop, zigzag roof and opaque panels for the market. The design also envisages the possibility of disassembly and relocation should this be required.

The seaside location and flood risk meant a 20-year design life was proposed, so, on paper, the building may appear more carbon hungry than other schemes. The reality is likely to be more favourable, as its structure comes across as sturdy enough to last longer. The project is a thoughtful solution, well executed, good value, inspiring and attracting local people to use it as their place.

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© Jim Stephenson

Echoing the shape of its site, the scheme adopts an innovative curved triangular plan that helps to create a stronger street presence than typically found in science parks. In the centre, serviced by a well-positioned canteen, is a generously proportioned, publicly accessible courtyard (referencing Cambridge college quadrangles). Here, on warm days, the facility’s staff can choose a place to sit depending on the level of sun or shade required. Echoing the sawtooth roofline, the strict geometry of the continuously serrated glass façade offers a variety of breakout spaces along the inner and outer perimeter walls for meetings or conversations. The corners of the triangle serve as open-plan offices.

There is more than a nod to placemaking here. The building’s shape forms a generous triangular interface between it and the adjacent hospitals – the Royal Papworth and Addenbrooke’s – that it serves. Visually and ecologically attractive, the space includes a green wall and a range of uncommon native apple trees. The overall effect is that of welcome, on a campus that is otherwise businesslike and workaday.

RIBA East Awards

© French + Tye

Cast Corbel House by Grafted The Cast Corbel House project involved renovating the ground-floor rooms of Grafted co-founder and partner Redda’s parents’ detached Victorian house, up to current insulation standards, while also adding a dining-room extension to the kitchen area and revamping the rear garden. Modest in scope, what makes this scheme, on the edge of Norwich’s popular ‘Golden Triangle’ district, worthy of note is that it was not just designed by the architects, but also built by them.

Both partners in Grafted were working on site in Norwich for more than a year while also juggling their architectural practice and home life in London. The quality of design is superb and includes timber cabinetry and furniture made by the practice. However, the real stand-out elements are the red-tinted cast concrete components on the exterior frieze. Fabricated through computeraided design and manufacturing, using a range of custom-made moulds, these tie the extension beautifully to the existing house, itself of red brick and Victorian masonry detailing. There is also a specially crafted open downpipe made of cast elements, with some of its concrete pieces polished to expose the aggregate.

Everything the architects undertook on the project is laced with this level of enthusiasm, energy and experimentation. © Paul Riddle

Knights Park by Pollard Thomas Edwards and Alison Brooks Architects

© Taran Wilkhu

As a large and visually striking brick-built estate that caters to demand from middle-class residents in the suburban hot spot of Eddington, this scheme sets a very high standard for ‘net zero carbon’ housing design. The estate’s 249 units are designed by two architectural practices, not in the form of separate zones on the 3.7-hectare site, but instead with the different dwelling types being interwoven closely with each other.

Negotiating the constraints imposed by a masterplan that had been fixed in advance, the two sets of architects have managed to create an eco-friendly public realm with a housing density that is deliberately higher than found in most suburban schemes.

The result is a notably hybridised feel that sits between urban and suburban sensibilities, the latter being most obvious in the car-based transport on which residents are required to rely.

Harpenden House by Emil Eve Architects The clients seemed to have understood the balance between retaining the original rooms of this house – which previously operated as a nursery and needed a total refit – and details that define the existing house’s character, and the need to make bold moves for modern living. The front gives away no secrets; this is just a Victorian villa with a sympathetic extension. Only as you step deeper into the front hall is the first surprise delivered: in the centre of the plan, the extended entrance hall is double height, served by an east-facing window and overlooked by a library at first floor.

Elevating this ‘atrium’ to a double-height space is inspired and brave, given that it required the loss of a room at first floor. Around it are all the key functions of the house – entrance, stair, utility room, kitchen-dining room, the play space and the living room. Not only are they all connected to the hall, but – with the exception of a small study/gym – they interconnect with one another as a sequence. The interior space is broken up not only by the functional uses, but also by how the light is modulated through four different-sized roof lights placed within the sawtooth-shaped roof. The client is relishing living with the changing pattern of daylight and expressed her enjoyment of watching the movement of light across the spaces.

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RIBA East Awards

© Peter Landers Photogrpphy

Housestead by Sanei Hopkins Architects This fun and eclectic weekend home is for its architects, Amir Sanei and Abigail Hopkins, and their children to use. Set on a breathtakingly beautiful piece of land overlooking a coastal inlet near Aldeburgh, it is part of a larger estate owned by Hopkins’ architect parents. Their design consists of an experimental, joyful set of distinct building elements.

The glass-walled living room has a massive thatched roof supported by lightweight pink steel columns and trusses. The children’s bedrooms form a single-storey block, with improvised solar water-heating panels as the roof, and a glazed south-facing corridor featuring a Trombe wall (designed to absorb solar heat and then release it back into the space). A curved-roofed, steelsheet barn that contains the services offers a sublime updating of a wartime Nissen hut.

Most striking of all, a brick base contains the main bedroom, yet above it – atop a pylon structure – sits a 360-degree glazed office that feels as if it is a viewing tower for gazing at the river estuary beyond.

© Peter Landers Photogrpphy

Jankes Barn by Lynch Architects A former barn in rural Essex has not only been saved, but also carefully nurtured, such that it is an exemplar of conservation and renewal. The main barn sits inside the gated old farmyard, which has become a landscaped courtyard garden, where none of the overall scale has changed. The details of windows, doors, guttering, downpipes and paving, however, are all explicitly modern, while sympathetic to the building. The main entrance is via the old barn doors, flung open to reveal the new glazed screen, door and the barn structure. Inside, the painstakingly restored original timber structure is fully revealed, with replacement components, also in oak, left square in contrast to the older, more worn elements.

The scale is both domestic and awe inspiring. Flooring is of bricks beautifully laid in a grid structure that continues without mortar externally. With the client in charge, and having stripped everything back to the timber frame, master carpenter Dr Joseph Bispham restored and made it structurally sound above the retained brick ‘ground’. Only then was a contract placed for the main building works, supervised by the architects. The side volumes contain bedrooms, also birch-ply lined. Dynamic bathroom pods sit within the space of each, offering privacy doors that fold out and translucent ceiling ‘lids’ to let daylight in or create opportunities for backlighting. © Kilian OSullivan

North Sea East Wood by Hayhurst & Co Architects Hayhurst & Co have been deployed to remodel a 1980s pattern-book bungalow, on a steeply sloping site in Norfolk, for practice founder Nick Hayhurst’s parents. The essence of the remodelling is in the subtle reshaping of the western wing of the existing H-plan bungalow. Previously an inward-looking arrangement that possessed no real views, now there are a series of pictureframed windows carefully aligned to look out across the town and its church tower to the expanse of the North Sea beyond.

For the new extension’s external elevations, the blockwork core is faced here and there with flint, making playful use of a traditional Norfolk building material while also introducing a visually relaxed feel to the scheme. An ingenious three-way timber glazed door that slides and pivots enables the dining area to be opened up to the outside or closed off as desired. This is undoubtedly a bungalow with a twist.

20 Cambridge Architecture

RIBA East Awards

© David Butler Photography

Dovehouse Court Almshouses

by Mole Architects Girton Town Charity already owned 13 almshouses in this village parish, north-west of Cambridge, before deciding to add a further 15 units, plus a permanent office for itself. Using the annually accrued profits from a substantial medieval bequest – the charity dates back to 1521 – the resulting scheme, for residents aged over 55, is welcoming and quietly impressive. The site’s challenges were notable, replacing a cul-de-sac lined with 20th-century bungalows that were not suitable for single older people. The location of an adjacent cottage that is set well back from the street front also restricted the heights of the blocks, to minimise overlooking.

The almshouses are admirably designed and, at 62-65 sqm each, commendably spacious. Timber-framed and white-rendered, with vividly coloured front doors, they are arranged as a long, singlestorey run between two double-storey wings.

All are built to Passivhaus standards, their operational carbon astonishingly low at 34.1 kWh/sqm each year. This is lower than the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge. House numbers are boldly carved into entrance plinths. Bright doors were specified because colour is one of the last features recognisable by those with dementia. © Nick Guttrige

Mill Hide by Poulson Architecture

© Jim Stephenson

Mill Hide has surprisingly high sustainability standards – not what one might expect from a robustly modern villa with geometries that are an interpretation of the iconic 16th-century Villa La Rotonda near Vicenza, famously designed by Andrea Palladio. The site is carefully located on the edge of a magical RSPB nature reserve.

The ambition was to avoid interfering with this natural setting beyond the boundaries of the villa – and to enjoy the views into it from each orientation of the house.

The first geometry you experience is the sweep of the semicircular drive, slightly raised above the marshland. The house sits modestly on the site, surrounded by the natural landscape but with cut lawn reaching up to the colonnade on the south-east and south-west faces. The colonnade is made of small triangular columns set at 1.5-metre intervals, except for the wider central bay. These are elegant and appear very thin as you pass through the space – a real piece of magic that belies the tough surface material. As well as providing passive shading, the colonnades break the overall form and allow light to modulate the massing.

A contrasting but similar effect must be created at night from the large windows within.

Clayworth by ArkleBoyce Architects The client had found it increasingly challenging to look after his disabled wife in their old home. During the jury visit, he was keen to extol the virtues of writing down a clear brief. This has served them very well, as they have achieved everything they aspired to – living comfortably, with a carer on site but independently located. The house sits down low, virtually invisible until you venture down the drive. It uses the site of the previous 1970s cottage. The entrance hall provides a singular linear route, off which the open-plan living space, bedrooms and bathrooms are easily accessible and enjoy garden views. The kitchen-dining-living room is a generous and sophisticated space surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass, well shaded by a simple monolithic overhang. Electric solar blinds for all windows are hidden in the ceiling.

The bedroom is spacious enough to have guests visit the bedside, and the bathroom is large and joyfully clad in large-chip terrazzo. Nothing about these rooms reduces quality in the effort to ensure accessibility. A good-sized gym for medical exercise, a shower/changing room, utility rooms and a grown-up ‘play room’ – with an impressive wine-storage wall – extend the space in the deliberately more utilitarian basement rooms, all accessible by lift.

Cambridge Architecture 21

RIBA East Awards

© Jack Hobhouse

Young’s Court Development at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, by Stanton Williams The architects have delivered an infill scheme for Emmanuel College that sits comfortably and effortlessly on site. The programme starts with a glazed courtyard bar and social hub for students, and a landscaping treatment that refers to the older university quads in its feel. Through a series of deftly inserted and exquisitely designed blocks, of many scales and using different material palettes, the architects have succeeded in discovering – or, perhaps more accurately, recovering – a great deal of ‘found space’ to exploit. Red brickwork is used for many of the new exterior walls, but the bond patterns are varied – horizontally, vertically, perforated, etc – to offer an added visual richness. In doing so, the project demonstrates a truly commendable sensitivity to its place.

The architects have also been able to bury a two-storey car park, which relies upon a mechanised vehicle lift. There is also a generous double-height subterranean room that is ideal as a club/ performance space, not least because the sound can be damped out entirely. Surrounded on three sides by the college’s Grade II* listed park and garden, great care has been taken to draw in key landscape features to reinforce the Cambridge courtyard layout. © James Retief

Amento by James Gorst Architects The clients, whose children had moved out, bought the field behind their previous period house in this small Suffolk village to build a future-proof, single-storey dwelling that would work comfortably when it came to retirement. But they didn’t want it to look or feel like a typical bungalow. The design revolves around two dominating brick walls that run through the plan like spines, perpendicular to each other, appearing initially to form a standard cross shape.

However, when viewed from above, a more complex arrangement emerges: the longer wall is in fact staggered, suggesting a pinwheel layout. These enormous spines are made of soft white clay bricks in lime mortar, a full 700mm wide and almost 5m tall. In the quadrants between the spine walls are timber lean-tos, each with its own domestic purpose.

To the north-west and north-east are the quadrants for the family bedrooms and garage respectively, while the guestrooms are to the south-east, and the main dining and living spaces to the south-west. Here, the interior aesthetic is at its most successful, giving off the calm and airy atmosphere of post-war Scandinavian architecture through its fair-faced brickwork, Douglas fir rafters, open-plan arrangement, and continuous full-height sliding doors opening onto a small patio. © Architype Jack Hobhouse

The Entopia Building by Architype, Feilden and Mawson, and Eve Waldron Design Buildings carry the potential to serve as experimental test beds.

In the case of Entopia, this is achieved through the clever reuse of a disused 1930s Cambridge telephone exchange – which itself had been partially altered during the 1990s. Architype’s design demonstrates how far one can go in terms of retrofitting, not least because of its principled decision to retain every one of the building’s usable existing features – even those it would have otherwise chosen to redesign. A clear objective was to minimise the amount of additional carbon emissions that would be created by the refurbishment process. To that end, many of the light fittings were salvaged from a London café, and the main entrance desk was repurposed from one that had sat in Netflix’s UK headquarters.

It creates an eclectic aesthetic that the architects clearly revelled in. In terms of operational carbon, the Entopia building is outstanding. The solid exterior walls are insulated internally with ‘breathing wall’ bio-based materials. New high-performance windows were installed even though, if considered from a conservation standpoint, they look incongruous compared with the original interwar sash windows.

22 Cambridge Architecture

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Rewilding landscapes

Moss on a wall © All images Emily Haysom

WORDS EMILY HAYSOM

Designing with uncertainty – letting nature lead in a living landscape

Emergence and uncertainty

L

ife is emergent, yet the design of our environment is based on separation and control. This approach has not served us well in relation to the security of human life on this planet. Outcomes and conditions of nature and human existence are unpredictable, particularly in the light of climate change. We exist within nature, within dynamic systems. Could uncertainty present an alternative approach to design?

All around us are little pockets of life: moss on a wall, weeds, evidence of informal play, even graffiti on hard, ugly infrastructure. These are processes of change, small colonisations from the ground up. Bare land will naturally regenerate with minimal management.

Nature just happens. Open grassland gives way to herb, which gives way to scrub; subtle layers with intertwining plant and animal life, and below ground in the root systems, fungi, and soil. It’s alive. A human path, a line trodden over many years, is criss-crossed by smaller animal paths. Dog rose and brambles protect little saplings from deer, self-sown beech trees grow among prickly sloes.

Post-industrial sites are just as subject to emergent growth. Scottish writer Cal Flyn, in Islands of Abandonment, highlights the diversity within decimated or

24 Cambridge Architecture

abandoned landscapes destroyed through war, or contamination, places disturbed and initially devoid of life, some of which are now the most biodiverse sites in the world.1 Life emerges in abundance when land is left alone. In terms of biodiversity, ‘doing nothing’ should be our first call considering our interactions with land.

Processes of succession and regeneration are evident all around us.

The difficulty is that we look at these

Natural regeneration, Ely common

systems as if from outside. In The Second Body, Daisy Hildyard observes ‘…humans continue to think of themselves as separate. Where there is no clear boundary between human and animal, there is a sense of fear.’ 2 And yet we are nature, we are animal, and we live within the same fragile ecosystem as every other living thing.

Landscape is never finished because of the effects of time, seasons, plant growth and unpredictable weather.

Communities similarly evolve and change – people move and age – so in spite of the more static qualities of architecture, the built environment is similarly subject to flux and change. In nature, an ecotone is the edge where two ecological habitats meet, more dynamic and diverse than either of the habitats themselves. Richard Sennett takes up this idea in his concept of the ‘Open City’ in which he advocates porosity and spaces that avoid a singular use. As in nature, he identifies the essential life of society as occurring on the active edge.3 Since the 1970s, a marginal space beneath the Royal Festival Hall has become occupied largely by young people, skateboarding and bmx-ing, creating their own unique social environment (see picture top right). In 2014, after facing huge public opposition to proposals to develop this space for commercial use, the Southbank Centre agreed to retain its function for

Rewilding landscapes

free public use for skateboarding and other informal urban activities. Working with the original activists, the Southbank Centre has renovated and now celebrates the Undercroft Skate Space as a highly successful creative and social hub.

We erode the ‘active edge’ through a focus on control: through designing zoned areas for single activities; fencing off playgrounds; we use technical software for sustainable urban drainage (SuDS) that doesn’t allow for indistinct edges to support plant growth or play; software for biodiversity net gain (BNG) that gives a number to scrub or meadow and not the overlap, the life-filled fuzzy edges, and where child’s play and walked paths are not regarded as part of the ecosystem.

Challenging the hard line

In the construction industry, we are required to have a certainty of line and accurate measures. Design is computer generated, culminating in a ‘fixed plan’, the god-like view from above. The earth is reduced to a sheet of paper or computer screen. The trouble is that both the plan view and the screen distance us from the living materials that we are working with: the soil, the animals, the plants, the people.

When we design interventions in the land, we should be thinking about the stuff of our own ecosystem, our own habitat, where in reality we may be less certain.

French landscape architect Gilles Clément, proponent of ‘the Garden in Motion’, describes the role of the landscape architect as a gardener ‘in conversation with the garden’. He advocates giving up ‘the violence of architectural reshaping, to initiate a dialogue, where the gardener addresses nature’s genius before intervening’.4 South African artist William Kentridge identifies what he calls the ‘violence inherent in certainty’: ‘If you work with a thickish stick of charcoal... the thickness of your thumb, you have a fair idea of how it will hit the paper and how the mark will work, but if you work with a piece of charcoal... the thickness of your wrist with a blunt edge, you can’t actually see where it’s going to hit the paper, so you have to rely on your arm and shoulder and the charcoal having this conversation to find it’s own way on the sheet of paper.’5 Making and using our hands brings an empathy with materials, with space and time. Process is time-bound to the materials. Fine art, albeit with more scope for experimentation, can help us examine the certainties of our current design methods.

‘Geometry and formal reduction serve the heroic and utopian line of architecture that rejects time... materiality and fragile form evoke a sense of humility and duration,’6 says Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa.

Bringing back making and hand

Southbank Undercroft Skate Space, London

drawing to the design process can bring empathy with our environment by grounding our understanding within the process of time and our bodies with material.

The indistinct and unfinished can allow for engagement and change. In my own practice, I find less-finished sketches and photos can enable people to understand the slow processes being proposed and invite imagination and input

“Landscape is never finished because of the effects of time, seasons, plant growth and unpredictable weather”

from others, particularly when engaging with the public. Below, a character sketch used during public consultation and the planning process, shows the intention of a multifunctional wetland landscape.

Unfortunately, like many, this SuDS basin ended up as a fenced off feature, likely because of deep water and steep gradients that were not part of the landscape concept, thus omitting amenity use as part of its function. The sketchiness of the vision often becomes reduced through detailed design and construction processes. The inflexibility of working drawings created in software designed for hard engineering often reduces living systems to a sterile and singular zoned space. Many SuDS basins cannot even accommodate plant growth because of the steep gradients and uniformity of the groundworks due to the rigid engineered form. Work in multidisciplinary teams to co-ordinate the requirements of amenity use with water management, and biodiversity net gain remains an ongoing challenge for all parties involved.

Increasingly, I produce landscape management plans that allow for change over time, rather than maintenance plans that presume a static outcome. I focus on reigniting or simply giving space to natural processes as well as social connections.

An early mowing plan of the public space for More’s Meadow almshouse, by Haysom Ward Miller architects for Great Shelford Village Charity, shows the intentions at the outset to manage the landscape as a living natural system. It helped audiences

Character area view for wetland SuDS, West End, Haddenham

Cambridge Architecture 25

Rewilding landscapes

understand the process of time and how varying land management allows for diverse characteristics and habitats. The charity has remained committed to the idea of an ‘evolving’ natural landscape, commissioning a detailed landscape management plan to continue to support the processes of nature and community use.

A living landscape has a complexity of layers horizontally and vertically, it holds light and dark as the sun moves over and seasons change. Life emerges and we can create space within it. With respectful uncertainty, the designer can propose minimal interventions. Hedges and indistinct edges allow different conditions and routes for wildlife. From a social perspective, a city with open routes and unfinished edges allows for unexpected and varied interactions, and community activity to self generate. Uncertainty is written into these generative conditions.

If we allow more space for uncertainty within our design processes, we allow for emergent life in the spaces we create.

Emily Haysom is a landscape architect and artist based in Cambridgeshire.

Her landscape practice focuses on housing and public open space with a commitment to supporting natural systems and biodiversity, regularly working in multidisciplinary teams on SuDS, BNG and masterplanning.

This article is based on a talk given to Cambridge Architectural Research in 2023. All images by Emily Haysom unless otherwise specified.

References: 1 Flyn Cal, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post Human Landscape (Harper Collins, London 2021) 2 Hildyard, Daisy The Second Body, (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017) 3 Sennett, Richard, ‘The Open City’, 2006. https://urbanage.lsecities.net/essays/ the-open-city. Accessed 01.05.2025 4 Clement, Gilles, ‘In Practice: Gilles Clement on the planetary garden (The Architectural Review, February 2021) 5 A Brush with: William Kentridge (interviewed by Ben Luke) https://shows.acast.com/a-brush-with/ episodes/a-brush-with-william-kentridge http://www.gillesclement.com/ 6 Pallasmaa, Juhani, in: Bowring, Jacky, Melancholy and the Landscape, (Routledge, London 2017)

26 Cambridge Architecture

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Retrofit

Top tips for retrofits Larger or heritage properties can be a challenge for architects. Help is at hand...

WORDS JONATHAN MCGREGOR

The experts at Genous, who specialise in this area, have five key pieces of advice:

1. Look for pragmatic options Sustainability can easily get expensive, but what look like the best solutions aren’t always the most pragmatic. Some clients may want to reach Passivhaus or Enerphit standards, but for those who don’t, better to understand the core client motivation (energy cost, payback, environmental considerations, thermal comfort?) and design the best affordable and practical solution for that.

The aim should not be to assume a perfect system and ultimately have to throw it out when it doesn’t meet practical or financial constraints, but to determine a solution that will work as early as possible.

The large roofs of bigger properties are good for the installation of solar panels

Renewables in particular may have an impact on architectural design: how big and where to site a plant room, where a heat pump can or can’t go, how to minimise piping and wiring complexity – ©All Photos by Dom Thompson Expoja Photography

Customers with large, complex or heritage properties often expect their architects to be able to advise on how to improve the efficiency, comfort and/or sustainability of those properties when they are renovating or extending, but this is a complex field, and can be challenging for nonspecialists to navigate.

2. Set the right approach early

these all need to be thought about early to avoid rework later.

On timing, for larger properties you may be looking at larger solar arrays (possible ground-mounted), and more than one heat pump, at which point a number of permissions are required, and some enabling steps (for instance, upgrading electrics to three-phase power) may be essential to deliver on the vision. Sequencing these appropriately is key to not delaying the broader project.

3. ‘Fabric-first’ is often not the right answer for heritage properties External wall insulation is normally inappropriate on heritage buildings, and stripping back internal walls for insulation can risk losing period features.

Performance glazing may be precluded and taking up and insulating under period floors may be unattractive.

This doesn’t mean that insulation and glazing – the traditional ‘fabric first’ steps – shouldn’t be considered, but it’s often not easy to do and a focus on renewables instead can sometimes still satisfy the client requirements while keeping the spirit of the building.

4. Integrating retrofit with broader project goals Enabling costs for renewables like scaffolding and electrics upgrades can be avoided if they are happening anyway, reducing effective cost. And if the client is looking at re-roofing, an in-roof solar array can reduce the cost of slates or roof coverings required.

5. Big properties can create big rewards Large properties tend to have large roofs (good for solar), off-street parking (needed for EV chargers) and high electricity consumption.

Underfloor heating (good for heat pumps) is more often specified.

Also, more affluent customers can afford to buy better products (which can sometimes offer lower run-costs than more value-engineered products) and the value of energy savings are more financially attractive to higher rate taxpayers with savings, as they are an after-tax benefit.

Retrofit can be a great investment in the right situation, and shouldn’t necessarily be seen as needing to come out of another part of the project budget.

28 Cambridge Architecture

© www.istock.com / CasarsaGuru

Legal

Building safety works: who picks up the bill?

How the Building Safety Act 2022 is spreading the net of responsibility following Grenfell Tower fire WORDS COLIN JONES

When it comes to building safety defects, parties beyond the original development team, including any architects involved, can now find themselves on the receiving end of a claim when those affected seek compensation.

As a result of the Building Safety Act 2022 (“BSA”), a range of new remedies have been introduced to spread the net of responsibility for building safety risks, such as where the original development parties have been wound up or are otherwise no longer able to meet such a claim.

In the recent case of Grey GR Limited Partnership v Edgewater (Stevenage) Limited 2025, a claim for one of these new remedies was made against the original developer and a group of other associated defendants. The development in question was a property in Stevenage called Vista Tower.

The defendants were ordered to pay more than £13m in damages between them to compensate the landlord of the building, who had himself been ordered to bear the cost of building safety remediation works. This form of order is known as a “BSA remediation contribution order”.

Vista Tower was built in the 1950s as a 16-storey office block, which was then converted into 73 flats.

The work was undertaken by Edgewater and the property was later sold to Grey GR. Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, a fire safety review of Vista Tower by the local authority found hazardous combustible materials in the building. Later investigations identified combustible glazing, panels and a lack of cavity barriers or fire stopping. Temporary safety measures were applied,

including a ‘waking watch’ while safety remediation works were undertaken.

In the subsequent legal actions, claims were made for damages to cover the costs of the building safety remediation works. A number of key principles relevant to such claims were covered.

Relevant defects: the court that determined the case, known as the First Tier Tribunal (the “FTT”), held that a defect to which the new remedy was to be applied was “anything done (or not done) or anything used (or not used) in connection with relevant works” which “causes a building safety risk”.

Non-compliance with the Building Regulations was “merely one, not the only, way in which something could be a ‘defect’”.

A ‘building safety risk’ is defined under the BSA as “a risk to the safety of people in or about the building arising from (a) the spread of fire or (b) the collapse of the building or any part of it”. The FTT considered that any risk above ‘low’ risk may be a building safety risk. ‘Low risk’ is understood as the ordinary unavoidable fire risks in residential buildings as an assessment that fire spread would be within normal expectations.

‘Just and equitable’: another key requirement is that a remediation order can be made where the court decides it is “just and equitable to do so”. Previous decisions of the court on that point were based on providing a remedy for remedial works, with the emphasis “on protection of leaseholders/residents and helping to expedite remedial action”.

It was considered to be helpful to ask whether the relevant remedial works or costs were within a

reasonable range. In particular, while it was accepted that some of the remedial works at Vista Tower were not proportionate, the advice to Grey GR was that they were necessary.

As to whether any respondent should be subject to the order, the court accepted that the just and equitable test is broad. It allowed for flexibility in determining liability to ensure funding for necessary remediation work is accessible and prompt or “so that the money can be found”. It also noted that the financial status of respondents should not significantly influence the decision to issue a remediation contribution order.

Edgewater, as the developer, was a “key target, at the top of the hierarchy of liability”. It was found that Edgewater had known of combustible materials in the external wall and had failed to address any defects itself.

Grey GR was also found to be a defendant on a just and equitable basis having been on notice of the fire defects, but which purchased Vista Towers a year after the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

There were more than 90 other parties who were potentially to be included in the list of those responsible. Ultimately, all but 15 of that group were made subject to the remediation contribution order.

In doing so, the court worked its way through a corporate web of companies in order to determine how to apply the new remedy which applies in respect of “associated persons”.

The BSA continues to be developed and applied regarding the issue of building safety defects, and as to how it applies to those only indirectly associated with the original development team.

Cambridge Architecture 29

© www.istock.com / AzmanJaka

Technical

Revised fire safety standards for residences Recent alterations to BS EN 9991:2024 have implications for how residential and care homes will be designed. They come ahead of an expected phased change to Approved Document Part B. Nick Kendall, learning and development specialist at LABC, explains some of the changes to the standard and how the industry will need to adapt WORDS NICK KENDALL

The much-anticipated new BS 9991 arrived at the end of 2024, but it would be impossible to include all 14 revisions to the standard in this short article. There is, however, a summary of the changes in the document’s foreword. Some of these align with what we already know from the current – and helpfully colour coded – version of Approved Document (AD) B. For example, the use of sprinklers in flats with a floor above 11m in England.

It might seem that we need these new standards, but I want to put this in context and start with some positive news. The introduction

“We started by reassuring ourselves we were doing OK, but we can all still do better, and the guidance of BS 9991:2024 will help us in that”

to BS 8629:2019+A1:2023 for evacuation alert systems in blocks of flats with a storey more than 18m above ground level – a newly included reference from BS 9991 2024, and already cited in AD B – says: ‘ Every day, in England, around 20 to 30 fires occur in blocks of flats, but the need for occupants of flats, other than that in which the fire occurs, to evacuate is very uncommon.’

New details on care homes are also provided in a new section 10, so if you are dealing with these buildings, registered under the Care Quality Commission, this is essential reading. While there are similarities to the guidance of AD B, be aware that there are also differences, including increased travel distances and alternative fire strategies beyond progressive horizontal escape, such as simultaneous and ‘delayed’ evacuation.

BS 9991:2024, in the context of care homes, states: ‘Delayed evacuation. Exceptionally, in some situations it might not be practicable to evacuate some residents immediately... It might therefore be appropriate for such residents to remain in their rooms while the fire is dealt with, and the danger has passed.’

‘Delayed evacuation’ is not a concept with which I was familiar, but I wonder if considering this might cause a mindset change and allow an insight that better describes a normal approach – that the fabric of the building is keeping occupants safe until evacuation is necessary. Maybe, in reality, we should be designing for that event.

Be aware though that BS 9991:2024 expressly states: ‘Delayed evacuation is not to be confused with a stay-put strategy, as it is a strategy for individuals rather than for a whole building.’

However, if we consider inclusive egress, as we must, beyond care homes, with things such as personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) in blocks of flats, maybe this is an option. Section 4.6 in this new BS 9991 lists 10 groups that might need to be considered.

Don’t forget BS 9991:2024 details the requirements for evacuation lifts, which may become a requirement on 30 September 2026, as forecast in the purple colour-coded boxes of our current AD B. But don’t start planning your next scheme with this in mind just yet. Evacuation lifts in section 7.4.2 of BS 9991:2024 discuss either driver-assisted or automatic evacuation, both to BS EN 81-76, which at the moment does not exist.

Public comments on the draft have been through approval, and publication is awaited, but there is no date yet from the British Standards Institution, so watch this space.

We started by reassuring ourselves we were doing OK, but we can all still do better, and the guidance of BS 9991:2024 will help us in that.

Remember, Dame Judith Hackitt said: ‘We know that the culture can change, and that good performance will follow.’ Just as BS 9991 has changed, let’s change together!

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30 Cambridge Architecture

Planning

‘Major milestone’ in planning reform What changes will the Planning and Infrastructure Bill bring about?

WORDS DUNCAN MASON

Fresh off the back of December’s revised National Planning Policy Framework, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner wrote to local authorities on 12 March introducing the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the latest ‘major milestone’ in Labour’s planning reform programme.

The goal is to achieve quicker, more streamlined decisions to meet the government’s aim to build 1.5 million new homes, secure 150 infrastructure decisions, and accelerate the transition to clean energy in this parliamentary term. The bill has cleared its second reading in the Commons and is now at committee stage, where MPs will scrutinise the details. Measures include allowing councils to set their own planning fees, a national scheme of delegation to enable more officer decisions, mandatory member training, and strengthening new town development corporations.

Cross-boundary strategic planning is to return in the form of Spatial Development Strategies.

The devolved mayoral combined authority of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will be required, therefore, to set out the strategic vision for Cambridge’s growth focus.

Natural England is to identify natural features that could be negatively affected by development and a new Nature Restoration Fund will allow developers to offset impacts with a levy towards more strategic environmental initiatives. Reforms are also proposed to the compulsory purchase regime, to speed up the acquisition of land.

Industry groups have broadly welcomed the proposals as long-overdue reforms. The Home Builders Federation stated that the measures represent ‘a very welcome and positive step towards increasing housing supply’.

Environmental groups and some politicians have, however, cited fears that the proposals ‘would weaken environmental law’ and constitute ‘environmental regression’. Some worry that delegating decisions to officers could reduce local input. Divided opinion on the bill suggests it will continue to attract controversy as it progresses.

There is little mention of design, architecture or quality generally regarding ‘the biggest building boom in a generation’ that is intended to follow in its wake. It is not surprising, therefore, that the RIBA has recommended to the government that councils use revenue from application fees to access design expertise, include design in member training, and ensure that spatial development strategies contain a ‘design vision’.

While the government is clear on the intention of the bill, its potential impact remains less certain.

As comments such as the RIBA’s highlight, success as ever will hinge on implementation.

Certainly, the proposed bill is no silver bullet for the challenges at hand and there remains a need to work constructively with local authorities towards a decision, not least in the subjective arena of design.

The government suggests that local authorities have ‘not just a professional responsibility, but a moral obligation’ to see more homes built. What remains to be seen is if this call to arms is mirrored on the local stage, which, in the end, is where the effectiveness of the bill will lie.

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Cambridge Architecture 31

Work in progress WORDS SUSIE LOBER

© Nora Walter Images

Darwin College pump house 5th Studio 5th Studio has received planning and listed building consents for an energy centre at Darwin College, pioneering the use of the River Cam for a low-carbon water source heat pump system, which will supply a central heat network to provide heating and hot water for most of the site.

The Pump House, due to start on site in winter 2025, foregrounds its sustainable technology and is conceived as a ‘building for the river’, joining a family of idiosyncratic historic industrial buildings, in what was once a busy working environment powered by the Cam. The project is part of Darwin’s wider decarbonisation of heating energy, with the ambition to achieve a zero-carbon estate by 2032 through a ‘fabric first’ approach to the existing buildings.

© UTF-8CA89

Council Operational Hub Lanpro Design Studio

Let there be light… and space MOOi Architecture MOOi is working on proposals to extend and reconfigure a Victorian property in central Cambridge. The proposals seek to improve the natural light and generosity of space throughout the ground floor, which is currently dark and meandering, with a series of small spaces. The existing kitchen, which is squeezed into a narrow area adjacent to the side return, has been replaced with a new utility area, WC and side entrance, with the proposed kitchen and dining room positioned in a new enlarged rear extension.

Externally, the proposals seek to rationalise and combine the additions into one contemporary gesture, with gault brickwork and light-grey aluminium.

The rear extension is asymmetrical in form, derived from the side infill roof slope, which then intersects with a larger, south-facing roof, upon which solar panels will be installed.

Internally, the scheme has an exposed timber structure, feature cranked beam and bespoke dining booth.

32 Cambridge Architecture

© Lanpro

The nearly completed Operational Hub will create a dedicated facility for Cambridge City Council’s operational service and supports the council’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2030. The hub will offer high-quality workspace set within a landscaping scheme, providing safe pedestrian movement and a ‘green’ backdrop to increase biodiversity locally.

The proposed scheme refurbishes an existing building, with the addition of an extension to create modern workspaces to meet the needs of the council.

The internal arrangement provides flexible spaces, and includes office accommodation, breakout areas and training spaces, as well as dedicated staff changing areas and welfare and accessible facilities.

Spotlight on projects by Chartered practices

© Photo Matthew Andrews

Emerging Whittle Laboratory R H Partnership (rhp)

© Richard Fraser

Work is progressing well at the New Whittle Laboratory, which will soon become the world’s first zero-carbon aviation research facility. rhp is proud to be executive architects on this transformational project, designed to accelerate the transition to clean aviation by bringing together researchers, industry partners and policymakers under one roof.

The structure is now visibly taking shape. A recent site visit with SDC Builders offered a great opportunity to see the progress first hand.

Further updates will follow as the project continues to develop.

St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London Purcell Purcell is repairing and restoring the Grade I-listed North Wing of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, a renowned teaching hospital in London, rebuilt by James Gibbs in the 18th century. The project includes urgent repairs to the double-height Great Hall’s ornate gilded plasterwork ceiling, donor boards, stained glass, and fireplaces, as well as conservation of the main staircase with its floor-to-ceiling William Hogarth paintings. Sensitive upgrades to lighting, heating and audio systems will enhance usability. Roofs, gutters, chimneys and windows are also being overhauled, ensuring longevity for the intricate plasterwork. The restoration aims to preserve heritage while creating welcoming spaces for staff, patients, and visitors, with completion due at the end of summer.

© PIP Lyndewood

Harmonising heritage and modern living PiP Architects PiP Architects’ latest Lyndewode Road project showcases its distinctive approach to conservation area renovations.

The single-storey rear extension introduces a contemporary aesthetic while respecting local character through thoughtfully selected materials. Vertical buff brick creates elegant continuity with surrounding properties, while timber battens offer modern contrast.

The design features vaulted ceilings with exposed timber rafters, a living sedum roof, and full-height bi-folding doors that flood the interior with natural light.

A seamless indoor-outdoor connection is achieved through corner sliding windows and a unique built-in bench.

This careful material palette and attention to transitional spaces exemplifies PiP's signature balance of tradition and modernity.

Cambridge Architecture 33

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In this letter to the editors, a reader reflects on whether the style of ‘architectural demigod’ influenced the ill-fated University Library extension

Louis Kahn in Cambridge

editors@ cambridgearchitects. org

@ Cambridge Association of Architects

@riba_caa

(Image from In the Realm of Architecture)

© William Fawcett

There aren’t any Louis Kahn buildings in Cambridge, but there used to be a close approximation, in the University Library extension designed by Gollins Melvin Ward & Partners (GMW) in the 1960s. The extension was at the rear of Giles Gilbert Scott’s original Library of 1934 and was mostly for book storage. It had a blank elevation facing west to Grange Road, but its narrow elevations facing north and south had three boldly designed bays of a seemingly Kahn-like character. The extension opened in 1972; if GMW’s plans for the Library had been continued, a further six bays of the same design would have been added to the north and south elevations and fifteen across the west elevation.

Testing the impression there was a Kahn influence on GMW’s elevation design, I looked up a chunky book on Kahn*, and was struck by the First Unitarian Church at Rochester, New York State (1959-63).

Only a small amount of Photoshop work was required to transform Kahn’s Unitarian Church elevation into GMW’s Library elevation. Did this Kahn precedent influence the design team at GMW? The dates work: GMW’s first proposals were badly received by the Library in January 1964, but revised proposals were accepted at the end of the year. Between these dates, in July 1964, Kahn’s First Unitarian Church was published in the RIBA Journal. Although we can’t be sure about direct influence, I think the Kahnlike character of GMW’s Library elevation is confirmed.

The First Unitarian Church at Rochester, New York State (1959-63), designed by Louis Kahn

I happened to work as a year-out student in the Gollins Melvin Ward office in 1971-72. I was attached to the team that had just come off the University Library job, sitting at the next desk to John Lapthorne who is now living in retirement in France.

I recently asked him about the Kahn influence, but he had no involvement in the design concept; as in many large offices, different architects were responsible for design and delivery. John recalled his efforts to reconcile the designers’ dislike of copings at the top of the brickwork with the need to avoid unsightly weathering.

In the late 1980s, the University Library embarked on further expansion, not designed by GMW but Faulkner-Browns.

By this time, the confident modernism of the 1960s had crumbled. Faulkner-Browns feebly resorted to replicating Giles Gilbert Scott’s 1930s elevations for their new extensions. Not only that, they actually demolished GMW’s Kahn-like elevations.

So Cambridge lost its approximation to a Louis Kahn building.

Soon after GMW’s Library extension was completed, Louis Kahn (1901-74) put in an appearance in Cambridge. At the end of the 1972-73 academic year, he gave a talk in the Department of Architecture, repeating his familiar themes about bricks wanting to be arches, and so on. Near the end of the talk, Sir Leslie Martin (19082000), on the point of retiring as professor of architecture, joined the audience. It was inspiring to be in the presence of these architectural demigods.

DR WILLIAM FAWCETT * D Brownlee and D De Long, Louis I Kahn: in the Realm of Architecture. Rizzoli, New York, 1992.

The Kahn-like south elevation of Gollins Melvin Ward’s extension to the University Library, designed in the 1960s and opened in 1972. The photograph was taken in 2002, when building work was in progress on Faulkner-Browns’ later Library extensions. Soon afterwards, the GMW elevation was demolished

34 Cambridge Architecture

Photoshop transformation of Kahn’s elevation for the First Unitarian Church, turning the sculptural brickwork bays upside-down. The result is a close match for GMW’s elevation of the University Library extension

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