a r c h I I t e G t u r e
A quarterly review of current a rch itectu ral, u rbanist a nd environmental issues and events in the Cambridge area produced by the Cambridge Assoc i ati o n of Arch itects. The views in this gazette are those of the individual contributors and not of the Association.
New Hall started its life in a pioneering, post-war spirit as the third foundation for women and admitted its first handful of undergraduates in 1954. When I came up seven years later as its first architecture student, the college was already a remarkable place, not least because it was not actually a 'place' at all. Scattered across Cambridge in five or six large houses, its very dispersion was a physical embodiment of its outwardlooking atmosphere.
ln today's world of virtual communities that dispersed model would be Catherine Cooke
deemed avant-garde. ln the sixties however, convention demanded a unified complex of buildings. When Chamberlin, Powell and Bon were appointed they were already engaged on the Barbican and New Hall acquired some similar features. The entrance was in the wrong place - so wrong, at the far end, that it was luckily never built. The circulation was indeterminate in route and constantly confused between inside and out. Over-ingenious twostoreyed bedrooms were as ill-adapted to student life as the Barbican Gallery is to showing art. The domed dining hall and basilican library were aptly described by Nicholas Taylor in Cambridge New Architecture at the time as 'Byzantine whims' and the whiteness as 'breathing the purity of the nunnery'. For thirty years, inadequate funds have meant that this unresolved and other-worldly air were compounded by incompleteness.
The imaginative new partnership with Japan's Kaetsu College for Women has not only brought funds to complete the whole complex around its linear spine. lt has fortuitously brought in an architectural aesthetic that can complement and clarify the original without too cruelly spotlighting its vagaries.
Lasdun's rigour at Fitzwilliam next door, as at UEA, has proved itself ideally complemented by later work in newer idioms. New Hall however were wise to seek out Frank Woods of the original design team, now at Austin Smith:Lord, and to aim for resolution of the unfinished project.
At neither end of the central artery was the problem easy. A new conception of the entrance now addresses the city and an awkward conjunction of routes and volumes has been sensitively resolved. The result is a graceful sequence of courtyard, foyer and lobby that links the college spine to the main artery of the city but affords it a protective valve. As a suburban interpretation of the traditional forecouftand-gatehouse sequence at Trinity or Kings, this is a masterly enhancement of the college's physical presence within the University.
Stylistically the entrance is a seamless extension of the CPB original. At the far end, by contrast, Kaetsu's own building inflects it with that Japanese crispness of edge and elegance of proportion that has had such a positive influence on many younger and cosmopolitan British practices in recent years. When not in use by Kaetsu the handsome multi-purpose auditorium in its rotunda is shared with New Hall, to whom the whole new wing will pass after sixty years. CPB's legacy is preserved here, in some circulation strangely ill-adapted to the sharing intended, in a grand access ramp that links to neither carpark nor gardens and in a tearoom garden rather casually fenced off the walkway roof.
More important than details, however, is that mix of confidence and repose which the new elements restore to the organism of the college. With a President newly arrived from a key role in reviving the university life of Eastern Europe and this Japanese presence on site, New Hall looks set to retrieve the outward-looking spirit in which it was founded.
Holiday lnn
A seminar on 27lh June initiated by the Gity's Director of Planning offered a unique opportunity for sharing opinions. Cambridge Architecture presents two views of the event from a practising Cambridge architect and a former member oi Planning Committee.
Peter Studdert, the City Council's Director of Planning, opened the discussion by outlining national and local planning policies. This included the difficult area of the importance of skilled advisers versus the wider debate, a recurring theme throughout the afternoon. His message to everyone was to encourage effective partnerships between the Local Planning department architects, developers and the wider community. In particular, he encouraged architects to use the planning department "as a free resource" and to discuss development at an early stage. Likewise he encouraged planners to discuss issues with developers "in a clear, positive and timely manner" and to use judgement in looking for innovative and imaginative design. His hope was that planning policies would set up a framework for good design without preventing imaginative solutions.
Colen Lumley of Lumley Architects did not shy away from airing the architects view of the planning system. ln a deliberately provocative talk he rar -t the questions of what good design means aAg/ whom, of how to secure quality without guaranteeing mediocrity and especially how to set standards without meddling in design by committee. He added that most of his experience was outside the city and therefore criticisms were not aimed at Cambridge City Council but at the system in general. He suggested that any reform would need more sophisticated control and a broader application of the system, possibly setting planning briefs according to each area.
The developer's view-point was put by David Hughes of Dencora Homes Ltd. who made no bones about the fact that the developer's bottom line would be profit. He was interested in promoting good design, insofar as this would be a more attractive and saleable product. His view was that design should be led by architects within a cleady defined planning framework. His main criticism of the system, and the main problem for developers, was what he referred to as the "twilight zone" of the timescale in seeking planning permission.
Having set the scene with these three views, two case studies were presented. ln a successful format, the schemes were presented by both the architect and the planning officer, telling alternative parts of the story as the schemes progressed through the planning stages. The first was the Department of Biochemistry in Tennis Court Road, preselted by
Graham Black of RH Partne'rship and Jenny Page, the case officer. Here there was the involvement of the Royal Fine Arts Commission and English Heritage, both of whom had a keen interest in the project. Case study number two was the B & Q retail warehouse on Newmarket Road, presented by Geoff Barrett of Crouch Butler Savage and Diane Lewis, the Development Control case officer. A clearly presented case study, which highlighted the frustrations on both sides.
As in previous presentations, these raised the question of what good design means and to whom and how this question should be pursued. ln addition, should select panels be the judge or should there be a wider involvement? These stirred the beginnings of a fiery discussion, as time ran out all too soon. The event raised more questions than answers and provided a stimulating forum for informal discussion on a subject close to all our hearts.
Jane Carmichael
Most of my years as a member of the Planning Committee coincided with the'anything goes' edicts of Nicholas Ridley, when Local Authorities were allowed little say over matters of style and design. Perhaps this was just as well, since most members then had depressingly conservative tastes, which rlopers were only too willing to pander to. hrfember arguing in vain against the banal massiveness of the Holiday lnn, especially after the majority had been appeased by the addition of the portico and pillars. So it was encouraging to learn that the initiative for this stimulating occasion had come from members of the Planning Committee who wanted to widen the debate over design issues by drawing on the expertise of individuals and organisations outside the Planning Department. This meant that there was a good turnout of councilIors, as well as planning officers, architects, representatives of the development and construction industry, and members of amenity groups, ably chaired by Robin Johnson of the Cambridge Preservation Society.
Peter Studdert outlined recent changes in government policy, which reflected John Gummer's'personal crusade'to increase awareness of design issues, and to promote high quality developments. Further revision to PPG 1 Annex'92 citing 'appearance and relation to surroundings' as material const{elations is expected soon, following the Quality in 1 ,.r and Country lnitiative of 1994, and the Urban D/Sgn Campaign of 1995. The latest Local Plans were required to 'recognise the validity of a wide range of design appearances, encourage excellence and respect the context of sites'.
Another strand of Annex '92 is to encourage Planning Authorities to consult 'skilled advisers'. But too much reliance on 'experts' (which experts?) can be a 'double-edged sword' leading to excessively detailed imposition of taste. However, Cambridge is particularly fortunate in being able to draw on the wide range of experience and local knowledge represented on the Listed Buildings Panel.'
The Planning Department recognises that Cambridge has not issued as many design statements as other historic towns. Now the Local Plan is nearly finalised, they intend to be more proactive as in the Kite Conservation Area Appraisal and the Development Brief for the Department of Mathematics site in Clarkson Road. This will entail upgrading and maintaining the design skills of members of staff. Architects are encouraged to talk to the Council as early as possible and to relate their presentations to the context, in collaboration with landscape architects. They should not be afraid of putting forward unconventional solutions, rather than go for what they think will be acceptable.
Colen Lumley was critical of current planning law, which he described as a guarantee of complacency and conservatism. ln particular, the penalising
appeal system leads to pressure to gain acceptance at all costs. He suggested that 'instead of fretting about the vexed questions of how to define and achieve quality, we should concentrate on how to avoid mediocrity. lt is utopian to think you can legislate for good design, but you could legislate against bad design by insisting that appropriately qualified people are involved at every stage.
He maintained that the terms of reference of Development Control are political rather than cultural. Planning Committee members tend to be too much in awe of monumental and elitist developments, and pay insufficient attention to the interrelationships of sites and buildings. Members should be allowed to hear directly from architects and other experts rather than having all their advice filtered through the officers. At the other extreme, there is too much defeatism about commercial'wallpaper' developments. The approach is so piecemeal that it leads to officers making 'misguided design interventions' in an attempt to mitigate bad design. Often this results in the addition of 'false features' such as the blind windows and patterning on shed-like buildings in Newmarket Road.
ln many cases the planning application stage is too late to achieve the best result - applicants should be made to work within a more sophisticated overall design context. This implies a political commitment to quality expressed through coherent city-wide design strategies.
David Hughes, Dencora Homes plc
Dencora had identified a need for high density urban housing, particularly for students. High land prices in Cambridge made it hard to make a profit, and all their schemes so far had presented tough challenges. Obviously, they were in it for profit - their shareholders were impressed by fat dividends, not by design awards.
Dencora now employed the same architects for all their schemes, because they were cost-conscious and flexible about different forms and methods of construction. Once they have been briefed in terms of the market, density and cost, they are expected to take complete responsibility for the design and then for negotiations with the planners, which Mr Hughes described as 'the twilight zone'. Every day of the process has a price tag, and schemes can often be killed by unexpected delays. The aspect over which developers have least control is exterior appearance, and they get particularly frustrated by the imposition of design conditions. They feel that planners should not impose their own 'personal tastes' for this or that brick or tile, and should have more consideration for commercial factors.
Dencora's most successful project has been Petersfield, where many of the flats were provisional-
Viennese born Australian architect Harry Seidler, 1996 RIBA Gold Nledallist, was passing through Cambridge recently to check out new buildings and old haunts. At the outbreak of war he found himself at the age of sixteen a refugee in Cambridge. He learnt brickwork, metalwork and carpentry at the local tech to make himself useful and has clear memories of the finishing stages of the Gropius/Maxwell Fry lmpington Village College buildings, to which the tech ran a visit. He remembers visiting the Checkley houses in Conduit Head Road on his bike, down the road from the house of Lady MacAllister in Lady Margaret Road, in which he lodged. All these sites were revisited on this occasion, if somewhat difficult to uncode after such an absence.
Returning one evening to Barmore, his lodgings, he was greeted by two policemen who kindly requested him to report to the police station in St Andrews Street. He chained his bike outside and found the interior lull of German and Austrian expatriates. From police station to internment on the lsle of Mann, and subsequently Canada, he ended up at Harvard studying architecture under Walter Gropius and working for Marcel Breuer, before visiting Australia to design a house for his parents who had emigrated there. He never left, and what happened next is the story behind his Gold Medal. ln a breathless visit we did not have time to discover whether his bike is still tethered to the railings in Andrew Slreet.
ly presold before planning consent was granted in March 1994, and most were occupied as soon as they were completed. Paradise Street, the Kinema and Occupation Row projects had been more problematic.
Case Study 1: Cambridge University Department of Biochemistry, Tennis Court Road
Graham Black, RH Partnership
This development, now nearing completion, highlights the difficulty of fitting a large building onto a small infil site. The surrounding Design and Build Pharmachology Department and Wellcome CRC buildings had conformed to the original 19BG Masterplan, but had been criticised for poor quality. RH were expected to come up with solutions to the very specific needs of the client - particularly for specialist laboratories, delivery circulation and extensive basement storage * within the constraints of a sensitive site in a conservation area.
A particular problem was posed by the varying levels of the buildings edging the site, along Trumpington Road, Tennis Court Road, and Lensfield Road, compounded by the retention of the two-storey Kellet Lodge. (The University did not dare apply for demolition). A crucial decision was taken early on to indent the access points in the Tennis Court Road frontage with courtyards and planting, and to step the levels from two-storeys upwards.
The original concept had been a series of pavilions visible above the surrounding buildings. The Royal Fine Arts Commission criticised the pyramid roofs as 'looking like Housing Association flats'. English Heritage found the plans too constrained-looking; the buildings should proclaim their function as laboratories. So the roofline was lowered and redesigned to look more fluid and continuous.
Meanwhile, the Listed Buildings Panel advocated a three-storey elevation on Lensfield Road, while the main concern of the Planning Department was that the scheme should fit in with the surrounding buildings.
This case study provides a complex example of how the planning officers have to filter a barrage of conflicting advice before making recommendations to members. lt underlines Peter Studdefi's reservations about the role and identity of the 'skilled advisers' they are required to consult. As Graham Black pointed'out, The Royal Fine Arts Commission and English Heritage have a major role in supporting high quality design, but often behave more like arbiters of taste than expert consultees. lt also raises further questions about the nature and provenance of the 'suitably qualified advice' advocated by Colen Lumley.
Case Study 2: B & Q Warehouse, Newmarket Road
Geoff Barrett, Grouch Butler Savage Jenny Page, the Case Officer, outlined the context of the site. Newmarket Road was a major transport corridor zoned for non{ood retail and the motor trade, so the Council's efforts to get general environmental improvements had been largely frustrated. The best hope was through individual developments, and the huge new B & Q presented a golden opportunity to get more landscaping. This meant that negotiations between the planners and the architect took far longer than is usual for commercial buildings - the Section 106 agreement took a year - while the actual construction was completed in eight months. lt is hardly surprising that retailers think that commercial buildings are far too expensive because of slow and cumbersome planning processes.
In this case, the architect was not helped by several changes of mind by his client. B & Q (who he cheerfully nicknamed 'the gorilla') expanded and shrunk the floorspace twice, moved the garden centre from the front to the back to the front again, and at one stage decided to build in solid brick and tiles rather than steel and cladding. The final stumbling block was the Council's insistence on re ing ine size and stridency of the signag". d\.=*'' Barrett found himself caught between two irreconcilable parties, but eventually prevailed on his client to accept most of the amendments.
The planning officer and local councillors felt that the end result justilied all the time and hassle spent on this huge site. Local residents were mostly concerned with traffic problems rather than design issues, but find it a great improvement on the Marshall's depot that was there before. And the architect was happy to report that B & Q are so delighted with the result that they are offering it as a wedding location in their latest competition! Several key issues emerged from these contrasting presentations. There was some debate over the relationship between function and design. Need commercial buildings be brutal and/or garish? Patient persistence by planners can cajole even B & Q to produce a better design. Some of Tesco's and Sainsbury's most recent stores were more individual and site-sensitive. Meanwhile,_ some 'elitist' functional buildings such aq Darwin Library have elegant interiors and work\r# for users, but like Christs, Robinson and other university projects, present a blank face to the street frontage.
The debate kept coming back to the question of Development Briefs. There was general agreement that there should be more guidance at the outset for developers and architects about what would or would not be accptable. But development briefs should not be too prescriptive; Peter Studdert stressed that good urban design could only come from partnerships. ln some cases, idealistic development briefs prove unacceptable to owners and developers, so are ignored or circumvented. There was general agreement that more use should be made of the expertise of amenity groups. The Listed Buildings Panel and the Cambridge Preservation Society perform a useful reactive consultative role, but there was also a need for more wide-ranging proactive contributions from design specialists and interested members of the public. The Urban Forum has proved to be a promising avenue for a fruitful sharing of disciplines and ideas. lts Chairman Viren Sahai concluded that the seminar had been a good start, which should be followed up by further study of specific areas and issues'
- Liz Gard
The Mary Allen Building, recently completed for Homerton College in Hills Road, provides the teacher training establishment with a new auditorium, library and teaching rooms. The college's older buildings, including a delightful nursery tentatively attributed to Maxwell Fry, and more recent additions by Christopher Grillet suffered badly in the 1987 gales and rather than repairing them the college decided to sell the northern part of the site for housing and use the proceeds to redevelop on open land to the south.
Administratively Homerton has always been on the periphery of the University and its suburban location has reinforced this impression. lt is now seeking closer ties with its big sister and this new development may reflect these aspirations. This is not central Cambridge however and the leafy open spaces on this side of town suggest an ambience which is more campus than cloister.
A combination of financial and programme constraints meant a desperately short design period and W. S. Atkins were appointed Project Managers a ' Cost Consultants. Architects Sibley Robinson Lr pat of RMJM) were asked to prepare designs for planning permission and indicative details for a design and build contract. This was won by R. G. Carter and construction began in April 1995.
The design places two blocks at right angles; the library in one and teaching rooms in the other, with a large multi-purpose auditorium at their apex facing Hills Road. The main entrance is inserted between the auditorium and the library and this contains a new porters' lodge. This is intended to be the new main entrance to the college but it remains to be seen how well this will work. The new block is essentially a daytime building and at night-time the porters' old lodge is used. This may change when the new accommodation block (now being designed by the same architects) is built behind Mary Allen but in this security conscious age a more prominent position for the lodge might have been better.
The impression on entering the building is one of light and generosity of space. This may be unusual in design and build but the architects cleverly re"alised that space (i.e. voids) comes virtually free. - re right the library is revealed in a single grand $:dre through a huge glass screen. The library rises like the choir of a small French cathedral, aisles stacked around the central space, vaulted ceiling high above (in this case steel ties and birchfaced ply panels) and at the end a double flight staircase and book hoist as altar-piece.
Circulation is obviously important here, in fact it is celebrated in the flowing staircases and art-deco lift cages, but one or two problems present themselves. The glass link through-way to the courtyard behind has been compromised by locked doors (to combat draughts) and the disabled access to the upper lev-
els of the library is by means of cdrd controlled doors off the stair hall. This tends'to diffuse the drama of the glazed screen. Penetration of such an important element is bound to carry great significance but for the majority the way is barred leaving a slightly desolate feeling on the broad landings. Reconciling the need for disabled access with library security is no easy task.
One bugbear feared by most architects in this country is design and build but here it appears to have been used to good effect. The process may have caused the architects some anguish but design priorities were clearly established and largely adhered to. The quality of finish is very good, detailing is simple and bright and key elements such as the Velfac wlndows were retained by the contractor, cheaper options thankfully discounted. True, in the rehearsal room the mother-of-all-ducts comes crashing through a wall in unreconstructed D & B style but who can say this hasn't happened on the most traditional of contracts?
The building is clad in sumptuous Bovingdon red brickwork and reconstituted stone. The style is vintage RMJM Collegiate if you're being kind, RMJM Correctional if you're not. Either way you cannot dispute that it is well-mannered and well thought out, although in time there may be a weathering problem under the flush sills. The palette of materials relates well to the older buildings in the college and along Hills Road. As a blank box the auditorium is more difficult to handle and perhaps to compensate it announces its presence with a symbolic glassblock cupola. Unfbrtunately, as it does not appear internally, symbolic it remains. Despite such lapses this is a good, honest building, Salieri rather than Mozart perhaps but within the constraints a worthy achievement and a welcome addition to the college.
At a meeting of the Women in Architecture Group in September, Jane Huck and Sophie O'Hara-Smith, City landscape architects spoke about recent schemes. St. Andrew's Street improvements were financed as part of the county's lransporlation programme. A complete cataloguing was made first of existing surfaces and fittings, followed by brainstorming sessions with shop owners, taxi dnvers, cyclists and the disabled. A model was lhen used to fine-tune the proposals. A similar procedure for improvements to King's Parade is now in the final design stages.
The Histon Road Allotments housing and neighbourhood centre required site planning, including design and layout of housing units, for the outline planning application. Circle 33, the appointed housing association, retained this overall plan, but redesigned the units to a tight budget. The landscape architects designed the external works for the Community Centre which resulted from the Planning For Real exercise in 1994.
The Madingley Road Park and Ride, a joint council initjative, is a llagship project lo launch the city's Park and Ride policy, on a site acquired from the University. Concentric rings of parking spaces, highly cost-and-space-effrcient, have become the prototype lor other sites, including Newmarket Road and Babraham Road. RFAC grants funded artist-designed street furniture, and the site is already attracting 370 cars on Saturdays. The wind-swept site centres on the security building .(Project Architect, Rona Fleming), whose design acknowledges the only other built landmark, Michael Hopkin's Schlumberger complex Margaret Reynolds
*For those who missed lhe exhibition at the Royal Cambridge Hotel, or the Guildhall in the following week, it will be on show at the Architecture Gallery, 6 Kings Parade trom 13 December until 18 January.
The Cambridge Urban Forum's joint public exhibition- with the County and City Gouncils on proposals for the Trumpington Road/Lensfield Road junction in October, were generally considered to be a great success. There was a steady flow of visitors to the Royal Cambridge Hotel over the 7 hour period, mainly interested residents and business people from the Newtown area but also people from other areas, representatives of the County and City Gouncils, Cambridge Preservation Society, Hobson's Conduit Trust and students from local colleges. Separate questionnaires were available for visitors to complete on both the traffic signals scheme and associated environmental improvements and the Forum proposals for Hobson's Place. The results of this consultation exercise are presently being analysed by the County for reporting to a meeting of the Cambridge Joint Traffic Management Sub-Committee in December. lf the signals scheme is approved it is planned to start work in February.
The public response to the Forum's proposals varied from the very positive and supportive to the extremely negative. Perhaps predictably people living closest to the area, in Brookside and Saxon Street, were generally less supportive fearing the effects of any change and had particular concerns about increased pollution, noise, late-night vandalism etc. These concerns have to be addressed. As a first step our proposals have to be seen in a broader context. European standards on pollution are likely to become progressively more stringent with mandatory controls on exhaust emissions etc. lncreased subsidies on both public transport and the use of rail freight will undoubtedly come with political changes. The development of the Park and Ride service from just a Saturday facility is currently being looked at by the City Centre Manager. The reform of our archaic drinking laws with the 10.30/1 1.00pm curfew is long overdue. The English Pub is then likely to become more like the continental Bar resulting in more relaxed drinking habits and a reduction in late night vandalism etc. There are already established ways of tackling graffiti on public buildings and historic monuments and these methods can be applied to Hobson's Conduit.
The proposed new city square, Hobson's Place, should be seen as both a paved setting for the monument of symbolic value in itself, whether or not it is used, but also as a practical space for a variety of uses which will evolve over time given the facility. People will tend to gather where they feel comfoftable, or not at all, according to the time of day, variable traffic levels, weather conditions, etc. The Cross Keys frontage may be the only comfortable place to sit at busy times. lt works well at present, even with its limited seating and proximity. to Brookside traffic. All this will be improved.
David Raven
Cowper Griffith Brimblecombe Associates were appointed by the owners of Abbey Farm, lckleton in 1992, to design and obtain planning consent for a research and development facility on the site of the old farn4rard. Abbey Farm is located outside lckleton within a designated area of special landscape. The electronics and bio-genetics research based in and around Cambridge, provide a natural environment for any incoming or expanding business. Hinxton Hall, for the Wellcome Trust and the Sanger lnstitute, have provided similarly based research into the immediate area.
Abbey Farm comprises a farmhouse and couftyard of flint barns convened to residential use and a farmyard some distance from the house containing a Grade ll- double aisled barn and 14 other barns. The barn is the oldest of its kind in Cambridgeshire and comparable to those at Coggeshall, Cressing and Widdlington in Essex. The scheme for the site had to provide sufficient funding for its restoration.
The scheme involves the demolition of all ad.iacent and existing farm buildings and the construction of new olfices arranged around a central courtyard, total available space at completion will be 2.^'3 square metres. A cost analysis prepared by \ Langdon and Everest and a commercial mafr6( appraisal produced the minimum amount of new office space necessary as an 'enabling development' for the restoration of the great barn. The scheme endeavours to both preserve and enhance the great barn with new buildings grouped on the south side only, connecting the already converted residential unit, the main farmhouse and the village. The barn is therefore in open view from the north, east and west. The new buildings cut into the ground opening onto a lowered courtyard and the perimeter view is further reduced by eadh banks up to the window cill levels. Large steep, pitched roofs with ridges below the great barn maintain its dominance. The new-build will appear as a group of subservient 'agricultural barns' in three separate buildings.
It is planned to conceal the car parking as much as possible, and to present the development in a rural setting. A new access road on the north edge of the site is landscaped into an existing tree belt and a large new meadow is created, as a rural setting for the new development and the existing farmhc' Parking is concealed within the lowered celvr courtyard and to the north east of the barn, in a well landscaped area. Excavated material from the lowered court is used to create a low bank forming an arc to the east of the development which, when planted, will form a substantial screen to the village. The new buildings are grouped around the lowered courtyard with dormer windows at first floor level, and an arcade of timber posts to the court. The curved building closes off the development from the countryside and presents a coherent group. Their shape and form are deliberately traditional but will be built of tensioned steel umbrella supports to timber laminated portal frames. The southern ends of the side buildings are cut back under the roof canopy, to reveal the first umbrella structure as the main entrance. The buildings are clad in panels and timber joinery with plain tile roofs. The avenue of trees running through the scheme make the main entrances to the curved building and the great barn.
The courtyard remains incornplete on the south west side, providing for future expansion.
The conversion of the great barn has been the subject of detailed discussions with the planning department and English Heritage. Eight bays exist, the first four western trusses date from the late C13th, the remaining from C15th. The barn is an aisled structure, and records indicate a ninth bay at the west end which is reconstructed in the scheme. Main entrances or'streys' were present in the central bays of the building and these are rebuilt, introducing natural light into the building. lt is intended that the main frame elements, rafters, plates and studwork be restored insitu, with the minimum of bracing and strengthening. New work to the main structure would be carried out in oak, band sawn to the same sections.
First floors are inserted within the barn at each end to be used for meeting areas with service areas below. The first floors are supported by fin shaped steel columns, providing free standing elements of structure unconnected to the historic timber frame to be clad in oak slats, presented as elegant hull shaped structures within the void of the barn. lt will be possible to view the whole of the interior with minimum visual intrusion and preserving the drama and scale of the original building. The barn will form th^ reception area for the development with exhibi\-,and meeting areas to each side. Large new wtndows to the east and west ends will light the first floor meeting areas.
The development will present a unique opporlunity for a research and development company seeking both a scheme of character and good design and an exceptional location in South Cambridgeshire.
Cowper Griffith Brimblecombe Associates
A New Quiet Area has been constructed in the grounds of Mayfield Primary School with a grant from Prince Charles' Trust. After a year of fundraising, Mayfield Association of Parents and Staff (MAPS) was awarded a matching grant from the Local Project Fund of the Civic Trust, supported by the DOE.
The design, by architect-parent Margaret Reynolds, is a stockade of 8-inch logs forming paved seating bays and raised planters. The paved area includes a large chess board at the centre.
Children were the chess pieces in a life-sized chess game held to celebrate the opening of the Quiet Area by Andrew Baxter, new County Director of Education. The school's ZUGZWANG Chess Club has weekly lunchtime meetings, and MAPS hopes in future to provide patio chess and draughts sets.
The stockade and plantefs design evolved through discussions with staff, children, governors and the City Council's "City Service" team. The idea proved flexible enough to survive 4 changes of budget and a committee that included an astronomical engineer, an lonica manager, and a second parent-architect.
Cambridge City Services were asked to construct the Quiet Area during school hours, in full view of 200 eager young clients - a deliberate decision by Head Jaspaul Hill. The children shared their playtime safely with chain saws, tipper trucks, and a JCB digger. They also grilled the contractor on completion dates. The total cost of the project to date is about e5,000. Plants for the evergreen, winter-flowering garden were the gift of Churchill College, with advice on layout and drought-resistance from Cambridge College of Agriculture and Horticulture. MAPS still hopes to raise the t420 quoted to construct gates linking thg area to the deck of the school's outdoor swimming pool. 200 children have painted a mural of "Sea Creatures" around the walls supervised by three architecUartists, with parent volunteers and a grant from the city's Community Arts Office.
At the request of the children, the planting scheme includes miniature Juniperus virginiana trees in memory of the s-storey Leylandii cypress on the site. Juniors carried out an environmental audit of the derelict site before construction, which the Civic Trust want to use for their brochure. Eric Marland, parenV carver from Kindersley's Workshop, will carve the Quiet Area name in a section of the cypress trunk. There is talk at Mayfield of a second design scheme, for the Infants Playground, and for artistdesigned benches and litter bins, and maybe a future artist-in-residence. The quiet garden may flower in wintertime and in drought: artworks in our schools could flourish under the care of local architects and artists in the community. This is ludicrously hard work with today's financial strangulation of school budgets. There is much design interest and good will to be gained from the work of architects in schools and mutual benefit. eg the potential of run-down school grounds and facilities for community development, could be the object of future education policy.
The inferences of injudicious expression and deployment of police power at lhe Reclaim the Streets (ally focussed in Mill Road this summer, calls for some continuing communal reflection. MP Anne Campbell's comments on the overreaclion of the police were timely, and raised much correspondence in the local press. Some of the 'people before motor vehicles' action in Mill Road was undoubtedly of a youthfully anarchic nature, but at a time when political and sectional interests are pursued by some groups and individuals through extremes of direct action and violence, the community has to be more vigilant that the necessary counter-measures for civil erder in the extreme behaviour say in relation to animal rights and bypasses, are not allowed to colour our whole existence.
Tolerance in our responses to public initiatives that express criticism, or question currenl law are part of a wider process reflecting a healthy community, along with acknowledgement of the dynamic processes for and resistance to change- There are many paths to Rome. Those who virtuously seek to keep all those paths open all the time in the wider public interest need to be less literal and more heedful of the metaphoric connotations, if we are not to take one more step down the other path to a self-serving police state.
8. January CPD lecture and visit to Gonville and Caius College. Donald lnsall Associates, Bateman Auditorium. Trinity Street, 5-7pm. Entry t2.00. Students f1.00 including refreshments. Details from Roger France. Tel: 358236.
3. February Eastern Region Members Evening at RIBA HQ, 6.30pm. Tickets t4.00 + VAT. Details from Regional Otfice. 12. March 5-7pm. Legal Aspects of Construction led by Chris Calcroft. 6 Kings Parade.
A travelling exhibition is being organised during next year to celebrate 30 years of the Begion. Each Branch is expected to contribute 4-6 panels. CAA will host the Exhibition in September. Please contact me to register your interest. I would also like to hear trom members about what they regard as the most important topics and suilable ways in which the lnstitute can further our interests. After all, the Regions were set up in response lo irequent complaini "they in Portland Place don't kr. whai we want'. Now is your cha'fiif Please write to me at: 39 New Road, Barton CB3 7AY Fax: 263599.
Viren Sahai
4-12 December. Fielden and Mawson - work ol lhe practice. 13 Dec - 18 January. Pugin to Buttress - drawings from the archive of Battee & Kett builders.
13 Dec - 18 January. Hobson's Place, Cambridge - urban design improvements. 20 - 25 January. Buttress, Fuller, Alsop, Williams - work of the Manchester practice. 1-22Febtuary. Newmarket Roadexhibition ol urban design workshop event.
Many CA readers will know Jon Harris's paintings and drawings (including his aerial views produ^^a for the Galeway to Cambridge Newmarket Road workshops). l-r 14 January to I March 1 997 the Fitzwilliam Museum will be staging an exhibition in the Octagon Floom ol his work produced over 35 years residence in Cambridge. There will be a concurrent exhibition of his architectural drawings and illustrations in the Architecture Faculty, Scroope Terrace.
CONSERVATION AND IDENTITY IN EASTERN EUROPE
John Preston's exhibition has been postponed until the Spring. Details in the next issue ol CA.
Letters and contributions to Cambridge Architecturc arc welcomed. Copy deadline for Winter lssue,27 January 1997 tssN 1361-3375
Editorial Board: David Raven \co -editOrs Uolen Lumley I Anne Cooper
John Preston David Yandell