The low pitched metal roofs and gleaming rivhite limestone of the new residential building and replacement of Maurice Webb's Master's Lodge at Pembroke stands in marked contrast to the steep roofs and red brickwork of the French chateau style of the Waterhouse building which it faces across the rear quad. Eric Parry's development has closer resonances with the continental classicism of Wren's buildings, on the college front, introducing a crisp and spare elegance to Tennis Court Road, the site of heated architectural exchange in the last few years.
The practice of Eric Parry Architects was appointed in 1987 to look at ways of optimising the number of students living in College and to consider various alter-
natives for the development of the College site. A study of the growth of the Coltege since its ioundation in the 14th century traced the changing character and uses of the buildings and gardens. This led to the choice of the large site to the south of the plane tree avenue, occupied by the Master's Lodge and the Master's and Fellows' gardens, as offering the clearest potential for expansion. EPA were then, some years later, chosen through a further selection process to design the new buildings.
The initial proposals sought to retain the unlisted Master's Lodge (Maurice Webb 1933), a well-built unpretentious neo-georgian villa with prominent "drive in" entrance from Tennis Court Road. But it became clear that this building,
New Master's Lodge and Student Accommodation Building, Pembroke College
Architect: Eric Parry architects, Eric Parry, Philip Meadowcroft, Stephen Witherford, Emma Hucket, HenryTeo, Howard Meadowcroft, Amanda Bulman, Paul Kemba, Jane Sanders, Nello Gregori, Nick Jackson, Robert Kennett
Engineers:
Ove Arup and Partners. London
Ouantity Surveyor: Dearle and Henderson. London
Contractors: RG Carter. Cambridge
Subcontractors and Suppliers to the new building (see advertisments)
more'suburban'than urban in character, with its commanding windows in all directions, was not an easy neighbour and Iimited the effective and efficient use of the site. With the acceptance of the City Listed Buildings Panel and only one public objection the decision was taken to demolish the building. A revised brief provided the opportunity for a new Master's Lodge to be designed in a more flexible way to meet today's needs as a more integral part of the Collegiate structure. The accommodation also includes, in outline, 92 student rooms/ a Fellows set, student common room and rooms for seminars, music practice, computer use,etc together with a small amount of car parking.
The new building is essentially in two wings which follow the periphery of the site, consistent with earlier phases, building to the gentle curve of the street. The north/south wing continues the existing College frontage to Tennis Court Road.The building then returns to the west along Tennis Court Terrace. The College wall is retained on this side, but lowered to its original height. This allows the upper floors of two pavilions to sit above it and engage and mediate between the main building and its smaller neighbours on this side. The intersection of the two wings is marked by the elegant glass lantern over the principal stair, with glass sculpture by Peter Aldridge and the sundial, calculated by Dr Frank King, stone carved by the Cardoza Kindersley workshop on the gate pavilion facing south down Tennis Court Road; both beautiful examples of craft and architecture working together. A tripartite gateway marks a new entrance at this point acknowledging the earliest College entrance to Old Court on Trumpington Street on the opposite corner ofthe site.
The bulk of the building is drawn back from the street, its four pro.iections up to the street edge creating a sequence of peripheral courts with occasional broken views through which mediate between the City and the College interior and help to establish privacy and a spirit of quietitude.The solidity and rich architectural interest and differentiation of the street frontages is a direct reflection of both the context and content of the building, a complex brief and socially rich mix of parts. At the northern end an expansion in the depth of the building provides a raised and cloistered internal'dry'garden as a focus to a group of student rooms (photo top right). This is above ground level parking contained within the accommodation and accessed rather delicately between two plane trees at the north end.
From within the site the building is designed as a backdrop to the College gardens. (photo top lefllhe
relative transparency of the staircase and other elements create breaks between groups of rooms suggesting a series of linked buildings. The new Master's Lodge with its tall elegant windows and balconies on two sides terminates the west end acting as a buffer between the Peterhouse Lodge, beyond the College wall, and the rest of the new building. The open gardens in this part of the College grounds, south of the tree avenue, are reformed reflecting the scale of the five earlier courts built since the 14th century. The Master's and Fellows' gardens, now smaller, are interwoven with a mixture of formal and informal elements and separated by a pergola avenue from a new raised and turfed principal court.
The student rooms are modest in size but with generous ceiling height, double banked along corridors in a relatively deep plan. These are punctuated by stairs and gyp rooms which provide breathing space and admit Iight. This arrangement was preferred to the more traditional clusters of rooms around staircases as it achieves a greater density of rooms within the buildings' length and opportunities for more diverse social interaction, encouraging gatherings and defined territories. The arrangement has already had a good response from undergraduates in occupation since last October. The rooms are designed-to allow a
by kind permission of Peter Cook
number of configurations of bed and'desk. With staggered storage and washing facilities the rooms I lock with alternative thick and thin dividing walls trllsseO externally. One larger partly translucent window and one narrower shuttered window are set deep into the facade with a long stone lintol to each bay. All this has generated a very satisfying layered order to the principal elevations. Drainage to the bays is by concealed gutters and downpipes and weathering has been carefully considered to maintain a clean consistent appearance to the main face in contrast and distinct from its inset surfaces.
The building is constructed of reinforced concrete and blockwork with limestone used externally as a self supporting skin, neither loadbearing nor cladding. Thin lime mortar joints are used to make the walls read as a series of surfaces. Twenty three quarries and mines were visited in UK and France and with considerations of budget, quarried sizes, , durability, appearance, consistency etc Bathstone was chosen with the more durable French Euville limestone for plinths and lower cills. The stone has an anti-graffiti coating along the Tennis Court Road frontage. Roofs are clad in pre-patinated zinc with pressed aluminium trimmings. Windows are also in aluminium. The interior is fitted out to a standard we have come to expect in modern College building and detailing is sophisticated and immaculate.
Given the buildings strong street presence and close proximity to a number of grade I listed buildings the City Planning Department were closely involved in the scheme. Bidwells were retained as
(top left) New building as a backdrop through plane tree avenue(left) Frontage to Tennis Court Road. (ahove)Tennis Court Road looking south
(tofl The raised'dry' garden. (left) lnterior of Student toom. (bottom) First Floor PIan & Axonometric
planning consultants and were party to all negotiations. The architects acknowledge th€ useful input made by City Conservation Officers at various crucial stages in the buildings' development. The level of consideration and quality of the scheme is no doubt partly the result of the long gestation period and the close and constructive dialogue with the College and its Building Committee - over sixty formal meetings at which ideas and proposals were presented and discussed. ln choosing a practice which at that time was relatively young and unknown the College sought a designer with whom to develop a scheme rather than one who might impose a solution,
David Raven
CROFTERS
LEAD THE WAY
The City Planning Department's on-going work appraising its existing conservation areas (see CAg 40) has meant that new conservation area designations were intended to be put on hold. However a public meeting last year demonstrated that there was general support for a conservation area in Newnham Croft, an area curiously excluded from the earlier designations.
Spurred on by the support at the meeting, the residents of Newnham Croft with help from the City Conservation Team set about looking in detail at their area, analysing its characteristics and thinking about how best to protect the positive aspects and improve the not-sogood.
The result was a public exhibition on 22 April demonstrating the group's findings and the production of a draft appraisal document following the format of The Kite Conservation Area Appraisal June 1996. Local residents were asked to comment on the appraisal document and to express their support or otherwise for the idea of the area being made a conservation area. The feedback will be presented to the City Council's Environmental Committee in June. They will be asked to consider designating the area a Conservation Area.
The close collaboration of residents of the area and planning officers has worked exceptionally well and could provide a model for future work in conservation areas. From the residents' point of view it has helped them understand more about the planning process, whilst for the planners it means that policies have the basis of strong local support.
Jon Burgess
HOUSING WE CAN BE PROUD OF
A conference last November presented jointly by English Heritage, the RIBA Eastern Region and the Department of Architecture, Cambridge, was called to address the perception of failure to provide housing we can be proud of in historic and urban contexts. The participation of English Heritage was particularly significant in view of the stifling effect that heritage mentality and conservationist culture has had on housing design and styles of living in the post modern era. Standards of design, functional, aesthetic and spatial provision have been in continual decline. A prime reason cited, apart from public taste, was that under the market regime, the prime skills go into buying land and becorhing monopolistic providers. We do not have a demanding public for housing, and even with the success of sustainability as an idea to capture minds, there is precious little consumer driven incentive, or critical pressure for providers to give importance to anything that might inhibit the profit motive. "Architects have never been at the centre of housing" and design in the sense that you might apply it to the refinement of product does not occur. There simply is no public debate about lifestyles and the design of housing.
The problem Cambridge faces is the shortage of building land inside the green belt. A problem compounded in the interwar years by the wasteful use of land for generally poor housing under relatively weak planning controls. Post war mass housing is dominated by the maximisation of land value, where housing is simply a commodity, meeting the needs of individual purchasing customers and disregarding broader social goals. The consumer is not always the best judge of what is good for long term needs. The lack of experimentation, trade secrets and absence of shared data conspire to support the status quo. The private sector has not exactly been forward in advancement of housing design and stands in poor comparison to continental inititatives. There is a a failure of the vernacular, and development control is clearly not capable of ensuring qualitative design.
The Span housing development which is the exception in the UK, represented by Highsett in Cambridge, was driven by architects. The ideas and capability are there; we need a radical agenda and reform of planning law and new forms of patronage "a new source of authority" as stated by one of the key speakers at the conference. ln this issue of CAg we look at some of the housing issues in this broader context and in recent government pronouncements of the demographic impact on housing requirement in the next twenty five years. We ask, aside from the numbers game. does Cambridge get the kind of housing it deserves? We witness the withdrawal of patronage for mass housing, demonstrably illustrated in one of the articles, the omnipresent surrender of responsibility to private developers, because of the absence of appropriate funding mechanisms, political organisation and public will. ln subsequent issues we shall examine the question of capacity in relation to stated planning policy for the City and question the techniques that are being used to address this. The question of building stock, its adaptability and suitability to changing social need; questions of intensification in conjunction with public transport policy; of mixed development. restoring a more rounded range of functions within the neighbourhood - the creation of faubourgs with their heterogeneity and multiplicity of activities characteristic of true urban existence, rather than the wall to wall Brookside and suburban sprawl of Cherry Hinton and Milton.
Herman Ewticks
When I visited the headquarters of Dencora Homes in Newmarket the place was abuzz. David Hughes, managing director, explained that one of the staff had just had a baby. "We're a young company and this is our first, just like one of the family!" Hughes beamed as he unwrapped a cigar. lt was impossible not to be carried along by his enthusiasm and easy to see how his company has been so successful in recent years. But it has not all been plain sailing.
After a good start in 1986 the recession hit and in 1991 parent company Dencora PLC nearly pulled the plug. Hughes, who had recently joined the company (an accountant with a background in marketing battery chickens- no unklnd comparisons please), pleaded for a chance to turn the company around. He was given nine months. The company had not really been active in Cambridge but Hughes realised that when recovery came this was where it was likely to begin.
Sure enough their first development in Cambridge. on the Whitehill Road Cooperative site, broke even and Hughes'future was assured. The chance then came to acquire the old sorting office in Mill Road. lt had been bought by a speculator who, anxious to maintaiq value of other sites earmarked for student accomm! tion, sold it to Dencora on condition that it would be used for private housing. Petersfield, a prestigious site overlooking Parkeris Piece, was the perfect launch pad. Twenty five flats were sold off the plans in a single weekend, mainly to Far-Eastern clients, and Dencora's fortunes were transformed.
"ln August 1993 I stood on the roof of the former Royal Mail sorting office" the sale particulars quotes Hughes in expansive style "and contemplated a vision of a residential development of real significance that would take its place amongst the great buildings of Cambridge. Now I stand and look at the vision made real..." Hyperbole of course, but although it is hard to see Petersfield up there with Gibbs and Wren, it is not difficult to see it taking its place beside such honest-togoodness speculative developments as Charles Humfrey's New Square. We might question the awkwardness of its skyline or the overstretched windows but there is no doubting its originality or its urbanity, and in a world where pastiche is the developersf stockin-trade we should be thanlcful for that.
Sad, then, but not surprising, that Dencorais nearby developments on East Road fall into exactly this trap. The first, built soon after Petersfield next to the Baker's Arms, looks like a conversation between the Planning Officer and the architect where they were obviously at cross purposes. The Planner may have been thinking of something by Philip Webb. I am not sure what the architect was thinking of but the result is an unhappy one with masses of heavy white joinery upon which the aggressive environment of East Road will show no mercy. The second, completed last year on ihe corner
Petersfield Mansions \ DEVELOPERS'DELIGHT
of Dover Street goes the whole mock-Georgian hog, with rusticated base, sash windows and pediment; a really quite lumpen, joyless affair.
What makes these two developments interesting is the commercial basis on which they were conceived. Effectively sheltered accommodation for students, they offer bedsits with ensuite bathrooms for rent, a service charge being levied for shared kitchen and Iaundry facilities, and the whole managed by an on-site Warden. Not particularly unusual, until you realise that this is all done completely independently of any colIege, and Anglia, whose students mainly occupy the buildings, have nothing to do with them. This is university accommodation in the post-Thatcher era. We're not talking about the cash-rich colleges on the other side of Reality Checkpoint, obviously.. not yet anyway. But where there is demand, and no institutional supply, the private sector has gladly stepped in to fill the gap, assisted by a planning policy which dictates a certain proportion of "social" housing and minimal car-parking. A convenient arrangement which appears to suit everybody but which would have been inconceivable fifteen years ago.
Another such development, just completed, is the Kinema site on Mill Road. A brownfield site if ever there was one, the decrepit cinema building was used by Sindalls as a warehouse for years. Anglia, still desperately trying to win planning consent for its hall of residence, helped with the brief but then withdrew. Undeterred Dencora pressed on and "Scholars' House"provides, through a management company, 'rmmodation almost exclusively for language stu\-rts. lt is planned with great skill, its 61 rooms arranged around a small but pleasant coufiard, quite an achievement on this tiny site. The architects have made the most of the limited frontage but the appearance of blutacked brown paper on the ground floor street windows shows the consequences of plot ratios being stretched to the limit.
Dencora's latest site is Occupation Road. A giant crane has been swinging above East Road as this sizeable 301 bedroom student hostel takes shape. Again Anglia were involved in the development of the scheme and again backed out due to lack of funds; instead Dencora will build. market, and probably manage the entire venture. Hughes, excited by the prospect of completing their largest scheme yet, recounts how a chance to switch from timber windows to uPVC, in contravention of a planning condition, was mooted. The builders were convinced that no-one could tell the difference but Hughes insisted on calling the planners to view samples. They were delighted, apparently, and everybody is happy. lt demonstrates something of Dencora's philosophy; their good name with the City Council is preserved and.a considerable amount of money is saved.
"l couldn't be an architect.." Hughes tells me as we 3oodbye "..having to sacrifice artistic integrity just \r6atisfy economic imperatives, it must be heart breaking". Ouite so, here at the sharp end where plot ratios and investment returns are, naturally, high on the agenda, some sacrifices are inevitable. At their best, however, Dencora manage to maintain an integrity which sees them go from strength to strength. I will be looking hard at those PVC windows though...
Jeremy Lander
Dover Street / East Road corner building "Varsity House" Ocupation Road First Floor Plan
BARON OF BEEF
Most would agree that a good Public House evolves rather than is made, gathering its character from the personalities of landlords and regulars. Its particular evolving character may be recorded by commemorative photographs and general wear and tear.
Although not a frequent visitor, have enjoyed the odd evening in the Baron of Beef on Bridge Street with its rawness and parlicularly elongated plan. As with most pubs, there was a separation into distinct areas of particular character and mood; a place to play bar billiards, for regulars to converse and for others to meet or to sit alone at the bar, etc,
The recent alterations to the Baron of Beef prompted my latest lunchtime visit. Those who know the Baron will remember the front area with its two projecting windows, separated from the long narrow bar beyond with a timber screen. This has now been removed. Sitting at the old tables in front of these windows, looking out at the bustle of Bridge Street, is a joy. But, looking back inside you are now confronted with a cacophony of confused images. The ceiling has become strewn with fishing keep nets and -wicker baskets, whilst the walls are decorated with old advertising panels for Shell oil'and Humber bicycles, side by side with reproduction sporting prints and country scenes.
Like any business, Greene King are seeking to attract the punters, and have no doubt targeted the tourists visiting Cambridge. The interior re-fit, perhaps, attempts to capture some bygone age, which, of course, cannot be created (acknowledged by the empty nets). Sadly Greene King have removed that unique charm developed over the lifetime of the building; replacing it with a package formula, so familiar all over the country.
I would suspect the average visitor can recognise this collage of ersatz material for what it is. Despite the recent "improvements", the pub is still worth a visit, but only if you manage to get a seat at the wonderful tables in front of those windowsl
Carl Rowland
"Varsity House" Perspective of East Road frontage (now under construction)
"Scholars House" on the Kinema Site
BUILDING OF THE DECADE?
The Judge lnstitute of Management Studies by John Outram Associates has won the David Urwin Award for Cambridge's Building of the Decade 1988-1998. Local people voted it the runaway winner from a shortlist of six selected by a jury from a list drawn up with public consultation. The joint runners-up were the Fitzwilliam College Chapel by MacCormac, Jamieson and Prichard, and the Ouincentenary Library, Jesus College by Evans and Shalev. The other shortlisted schemes, in voted order, were the Crystallographic Data Centre, Union Road by Prof. E Sorensen; Burrell's Field, Trinity College by MacCormac, Jamieson and Prichard; and the Robert Beldam Building, Eagle Yard for Corpus Christi College by Nicholas Hare Architects.
The award was given in parlnership with the Cambridge Forum for the Construction lndustry and the Cambridge Evening News, and presented at the Cambridge Forum's Annual Dinner on 26 March.
John Preston
HOUSING STOCK TRANSFER
Cambridge City Council is considering transferring its housing stockto a community housing company. Latest estimates suggest that over 45 million worth of repairs and improvements are needed to bring the Council's 9000 homes up to modern-day standards; under current Government rulesthe Council is only being allowed to spend f1-2 million per year on such improvements. The community housing company, on the other hand, would be able to borrow enough money to carry oLrt at lea$ fl million worth of catch up repairc and improvements over the first five yearc ofthe company's life - at least five times the current level of investment. The Council also stands to gain a large lump sum from the transfer of its housing stoclc after the payment of outstanding debts. All council tenants who transfer will take with them the right to buy their home. The tenants will vote on the transfer in January 1999; a series of neighbourhood question and answer sessions are being organised. The change will only go ahead ifthe tenants vote for it.
David Poole, Director of Community Services, Cambridge City Council
POUNDBURY
PRINCIPLES INTO PRACTICE
street and space is a place in its own right; is catered for, it does
lssues of Context and Creativity came to mind when lpassed Dorchester recently and visited Poundbury, the Duchy Estate development on the outskirts of the town. I wanted to see how the Prince of Wales's ideas were being put into practice and Poundbury does address issues of place, grain, diversity of building types, and coherence of design. whatever one's view of the architecture. For me, the most striking features are firstly, each distinctive and recognisable and secondly, while the car not dominate. lt is a brand new development on the edge of a county town, yet it has its own grain, in a way which feels unforced and natural as you walk around. There are a variety of different spaces, with buildings of different types and sizes. The layout forces drivers to be careful; pedestrians become more alert to the sound of cars about to emerge from narrow entrances. By day, the streets feel safe and pleasant, although there has been some police concern about safety at night (l have not had the opporiunity to judge this, but there appears to be scope for additional street lighting if necessary). The residents I spoke to and visited were extremely happy. The form and density suggest a large village rather than a model for urban development, but gardens are very small.
The buildings are traditional and predominantly vernacular in their form. Detailing and well tried natural materials, with prominent chimneys enrich the already lively roofscape. They have the qualities of good "pattern-book" architecture in that individual features are well-proportioned in themselves and contribute to an attractive whole (speculative builders please note!). A variety of materials has been used, but these are consistent on each building. There is no hint of the arbitrary use of materials characteristic of so much speculative housing. The gardens are enclosed by walls; part of an approach which shows care for the smallscale as well as the large. There is also an absence of visible wires, vent pipes, meter boxes, etc. lt was a joy to be in a place uncluttered by such afterthoughts, or no-thoughts. The least convincing design is the tallest and grandest; a very
odd tower and mansarded building at the entrance to the site, a church, due to form part of a later phase.
While Poundbury's buildings offer lessons that some speculative builders might do well to emulate, its real value as an exemplar is in the approach to layout, spaces, and place-making, and in the commitment to quality in small things as well as the large. lt is a joy to be in a place where the car and highway standards do not rule the roos! you only have to look towards the 1950s housing estates to the east to see how well justified the effort has been. Don't be put off by the architecture: the underlying principles could be applied in very different (and perhaps less expensive) architectural idioms. Where are the enlightened clients to respond to this challenge?!-
John Preston
Willow House Conduit Head Road
CITY HOUSING
Local Authority or Housing Association schemes have always felt more successful in urban rather than suburban Cambridge. Cambridge Design's 1980's schemes in Carlyle Road and Shelley Row were very positively enmeshed and integrated as were the City Architects Department designs off Castle Hill and Mill Road, later.
Out on the City fringes on part of the former Histon Road Allotments, the main benefits are fresh air from Bedfordshire, good connections to the 414 and the opportunity to work one of the still undersubscribed but now heavily defended allotments.
The plans for this land were doggedly fought over 4 years ago. Cambridge Urban Forum, at a weekend workshop for instance, came up with formally selfconscious and socially idealistic proposals (see CA27 Spring 1994). Allotment holders had turned out to h.ve not only green fingers but also purple tongues. r al ooliticians had bickered to a stalemate. Yeturning there now one's worse fears, although realised, are tempered by a certain pride that our society does not leave the materially and physically disadvantaged to rag-picking and shanty towns but provides robust wholesome homes. Circle 33 who made a winning bid for the site have all but completed a development of one, two and three storey housing, working to the City Council's master plan. This comprises closes, avenues and squares and combines with and relates to a new community centre, a retained recreation ground and the allotments. Open space dominates the housing. This is partly because two or three cars are planned to park outside each dwelling and partly because there are as yet no trees.
The pattern of the layout is not legible. There are no focal points and no landmarks. There is an arbitrariness in road layout and direction which achieves informality but is otherwise irrational. Variety in building is achieved by a clear distinction in the way different households are accommodated: large families in 3 storey houses, old people in single storey cottages, disabled people in communal bungalows with large car ports, singles and couples in two storey "s with external stairs. Buildings are well detailed \-l constructed although, again somewhat arbitrariIy, their various designers do not speak a common language. External spaces, at least where finished are designed with attention to detail.
Have solutions to social housing evolved? There does not seem much difference between the Whitehill Road estate of the 1950's and this. Perhaps the Governments insistence on'brown-field' development will lead to more ingenious and inventive solutions where the community and its surroundings are more tightly bound in.
David Yan-dell
26, Millington Road.
MODERN MOVEMENT HOUSES
Cambridge has some good Modern Movement houses of the 1930's, notably in Conduit Head Road, including two by George Checkley (White House of 1930, and Willow House 1932, Hugh Hughes's Salix (1934) and M J Blanco White's Shawms (1938). Willow House and Shawms are grade llx, the others are grade ll. Other listed houses include D Cosens'9 Wilberforce Road, 1937, and Marshall Sisson's 31 Madingley Road 1932 (both grade ll). Sisson's 26 Millington Road of 1934, built for the present owner's father, has recently been added to the list. ln Millington Road, nos 11 (19221,7&9 (1923) and 36 @1924\ all by Hugh Hughes, with steeply pitched roofs, are worth a look for comparison with his Salix and 2 Sylvester Road, 1936 unlisted.
The first to be listed were the White House, Willow House, and Salix, all in 1992. Salix was refurbished 2 years ago by the local architect Michael Walton; Willow House to the north has been undergoing staged repairs, now by John Winter, with the help of grants from the City Council. Previously planning permission had been granted for the redevelopment of the White House but Nicholas Hellawell persuaded the developers to retain the original building and put the new in front on the only available site - anyone looking at the intrusive flats on the corner of Conduit Head Road should bear this in mind. ln 1981 outline planning. permission was granted for 2 houses on the garden to the north west of Willow House, and, on appeal, for one on the tennis court to the south east. The designation of the Conservation Area and listing of Willow House provided the basis for successfully refusing the renewal of the permission for 2 houses, then, on appeal, t house in the garden.
"KEEPING IN KEEPING" WITH THE MODERN MOVEMENT?
When a detailed design for the Willow House tennis court site was submitted, it was obvious that the site was too small to accommodate a new house in a wholly satisfactory relationship to the original building. Ralph Carpenter of Modece Architects tackled the problem for the new purchaser, producing a new "white" building of simple form with a principal living volume and a lower bedroom wing alongside and projecting forward down the garden. The client wanted a house of 1930's Modern Movement character; some consultees argued in favour of a truly contemporary approach, but this site was so small and so close to Willow House that any contrast of architect.ural idiom would have made the new building even more intrusive. Regrettably, the client and her architect parted company, and the new house was completed by other hands; in the process some of the clarity of Ralph Carpenter's design was lost.
Broadfield Construction Limited
OBITUARY
It is with great sadness that I have to report the death of Brian Marrows, a mainstay of Cambridgeshire County Council's Design Group (now Property Management Services) for a number of years until his retirement early last year due to illness. Brian will be known to many readers with his involvement with the Cambridge Association and his wide circle of contacts amongst architects and school communities in the area. Working initially under Viren Sahai he was responsible for a sustained rise in quality of school architecture in the County during a time of change in the structure of school education. His achievements can be seen in schemes such as the Performing Arts Centre at Hinchingbroke School (1992) and the redevelopment of Netherhall School (1997) as well as many new primary school buildinos around the countv such as th5se at Papworth Everard (1996) and Great Wilbraham (1994).
Brian Marrows was born in York in 1942 and left school early to become a joiner's apprentice, working on repairs to York Minster. He trained at the Bartlett as a mature student, and thence took a iob with Derbyshire County Council. One of his best known works for that authority was Highfields School, Matlock, which oained an RIBA Commendation in icge. He moved to Cambridgeshire in 1987 and became head of the Design Group in 1992.
Brian was well known to colleagues, clients and school commuhities throughout the County for his incisive intelligence and an abilitv to understand the essence of a p'roblem and to solve it quickly and without fuss. He particularly learned from his Derbyshire experience of planning sloping sites, and from his joiner's eye for practicalities. lndeed the skills he learned as an apprentice stayed with him until the end of his life, and not long ago I was delighted to be shown around the full width conservatory he was building from reclaimed timber on the rear of his home in Shelford. He was appreciated for his modesty, his extreme calm under pressure, his warmth and his sympathy towards less experienced members of staff. I can say that without exception Brian is sorely missed by everyone who knew him. He was a devoted family man, and our sympathy goes out to his wife Linda, their four children and three grandchildren.
De Stijl. Conduit Head Road
John Preston
Anil Barnes
BOX PRODUCTS LID : LIGHTING - PEMBROKE COLLEGE
Box Products are grateful to have been involved in lighting this imoressive
rowrzl"*rly k
We are proud to baue beem associated uitLt Pembroke College im Cambridge
We caruy out all types of resilient flooring ulorks including carpets, lino, taood, tiles, cork etc.
12 June gaaTHAA combined Summer Ball "Fanfare at Fanhams". Fanhams Hall, Ware. Details fax J. EMs-Miller 01223 359900.
ARCHITECTURE GALLERY
5 June - 4 July Tayler & Green retrospect;ve exhibition curated by Alan Power, Prince of Wales lnstitute of Architecture 9 - 3t July Exhibition of the work of Women Architects in the Eastern Region August to be arranged September - Town & Country. Exhibition of paintings and ceramics bV Simon HaV October Exhibition of ior porary Russian architectu,v arranged by Robert Mull EBEG EI/ENTS
Details GoER 01234 796194 24 June Sem ina r: Sustainability, Robinson College, Cambridge t t Sefiember Future Programme Workshop: Madingley Hall Cambridge
The views in this gazette are those of the contributors and not of the Cambridge Association of Architects Copy Deadline lor CA42 Summer is 31 July 1998 tssN 1361-3375
Editorial Board: DavidRaven ]co_editors Loren LUmtey J Jane Carmichael Jeremy Lander John Preston
