Cambridge Architecture Gazette CA69 by Cambridge Association of Architects

DELIVERING DESIGN QUALITY

CAMBRIDGE ARCHITECTURE Cambridge Association of Architects Gazette CAMBRIDGE ASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTS GAZETTE

SPRING/SUMMER 2015 www.cambridgearchitects.org

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WELCOME

CONTENTS _4 NEWS

DESIGN REVIEW

The why, how, and when of the process, plus a local case study

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#BUILDABETTERBRITAIN

Will our local parliamentary candidates commit to RIBA’s campaign?

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CAMBRIDGE STYLE

We consider how developments in the city reference the past while looking to the future

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RENDER VS REALITY

Are architects more focused on the presentation board than the finished article?

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ABODE, GREAT KNEIGHTON

Examining the award-winning development

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CRITICAL JUNCTION

First-year architecture students take on a design challenge

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PUBLIC ART

What’s the key to success?

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WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON? An overview of some of our current projects

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SPONSOR INTERVIEW

This issue, we catch up with Peter Rawlings, Director of Peter Rawlings Architects Ltd

Cover Photo: Studio24 Architects

WELCOME

Cambridge Architecture has changed. It’s grown, and we’ve included new regular features: Sponsor Interview and What Are We Working On? Cambridge, the city, is also growing; it’s a city with a need to deliver more housing, rejuvenate urban sites, extend city fringes, and spawn new areas for development. We can be sure that the construction industry will step up and deliver, but will the design quality be high enough? In this issue of Cambridge Architecture, we look at some of the procedures that can guide and influence the design of our built environment. These procedures include the growing national process of design review panels, public art contributions, and what future policymakers have to say about better built design. We explore the ‘gap’ between what is promised on paper and some of the realized buildings we see around us, and review a multi-award winning city extension.

- The Editors CAMBRIDGE ASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTS GAZETTE | 3

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NEWS

SPONSORS AC Architects Cambridge Ltd

NEWS

Cambridge Association of Architects Gazette News

AECOM Andrew Firebrace Partnership

THE MARQUE REVIEW PUBLISHED

Archangel Architects Barber Casanovas Ruffles Limited Bland, Brown + Cole LLP Caroe Architecture Colen Lumley RIBA Cowper Griffith Architects LLP David Adamson Freeland Rees Roberts George Davidson Architect Goose Architects Ltd James Campbell RIBA Photo © Christian Smith

M Reynolds RIBA Mart Barrass Architect mosescameronwilliams architects

THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW INTO THE much publicized Marque development on Hills Road has been published. Carried out by Barry Shaw Associates (planning consultants), the review found only minor errors on the part of the council. The report highlighted that a combination of a demanding design, circumstances surrounding the project, and weaknesses within the planning process had resulted in a scheme that failed to deliver on the high standards it set out to achieve. The report acknowledged that this was “an unusual and difficult scheme”.

UPCOMING EVENTS

N J Twitchett

– The Legacy of Walter Gropius, Impington 75 Festival. 25th April, 10am, Impington Village College – Launch of Phenomenologies of the City, edited by Henriette Steiner and Max Sternberg, 28th April, 6.30pm, Heffers Bookshop

Patrick Lawlor Peter Rawlings Architects Prof I Smith Purcell R H Partnership Architects Ltd Rob Howard MA RIBA Robert Thomson RIBA studio24 architects LLP Verve Architects Wrenbridge

RIBA EAST

AWARDS SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

CAMBRIDGE ARCHITECTURE GAZETTE Cambridge Architecture Gazette is a review produced by the Cambridge Association of Architects, the local chapter 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 free copy of the magazine, contact riba.caa@gmail.com EDITORS Ann Bassett, David Adams, February Phillips, Tom Foggin, Mark Richards, Ze’ev Feigis ADVERTISEMENT SALES Marie Luise CritchleyWaring (critchleywaring@talktalk.net) Published by Bright Publishing. www.bright-publishing.com

Schemes based in Cambridgeshire are: ■ Abode, Great Kneighton by Proctor & Matthews Architects ■ Alconbury Incubator Building, Huntingdon by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris ■ UTC Cambridge by Hawkins Brown Architects ■ Addenbrooke’s multistorey car park, Cambridge by Allies and Morrison & Devereux Architects ■ EMBL – EBI South Building, Hinxton by Abell Nepp LLP ■ Eden Street Backway, Cambridge by DPA Architects, Cambridge ■ EF school, Cambridge by NRAP, Cambridge Cambridge-based practices Cowper Griffith, 5th Studio, and Mole are shortlisted for projects in neighbouring counties. The awards were announced on Thursday 16th April – unfortunately after our print deadline passed, but we wish all the entrants the best of luck!

ENGLISH HERITAGE

SPLITS INTO TWO

From April 2015, English Heritage will become a charity looking after the National Heritage Collection, whilst its other former functions will be dealt with by a new government body, Historic England.

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NEWS

Best New Building: Commendation – Eden Street Backway Photo © Michael Cameron Photography

CAMBRIDGE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION AWARDS 2014 – WINNERS ANNOUNCED CAMBRIDGE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION Awards have now been running for three years, picking up from the David Unwin Awards, which were presented for more than 20 years. Both awards have been co-sponsored by Cambridge News, Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry and Cambridge City Council, celebrating new design in the city. The 2014 awards contained 11 entries in three categories. More information on the categories can be found on the website, but here’s an overview of this year’s winners. ENTRIES FOR BEST NEW BUILDING – LARGE ■ Hobbs House, Regent Terrace ■ Eden Street Backway ■ Ceres CB1 The winner was Ceres CB1, which the judges felt was a bold scheme that comprised a confident series of pavilions defining the edge of a new park within the CB1 development and creating a new street with a sense of character. The detailing and design of the buildings showed a thoughtful approach to the largeformat apartment building typology. Eden Street Backway was considered by the judges to be a scheme sensitive to its context through the careful consideration of materials, form, height, and detailing. The scheme shows how new development can fit well into an established context, in this case predominantly a ‘backway’ of garages. It was awarded a commendation for its response to the public realm, most notably in how it works with the established character of Eden Street Backway. ENTRIES FOR CONSERVATION, ALTERATION, OR EXTENSION OF AN EXISTING BUILDING ■ School of Pythagoras, St John’s College Archive ■ Cambridge Arts Theatre ■ Selwyn College, Cripps Court ■ Westminster College ■ Education First, Hills Road The judges awarded joint winners: School of Pythagoras, St John’s College Archive and Education First, Hills Road. School of Pythagoras, St John’s College was felt to be a quality project which was exceptional in every way. Of greatest note was

Best New Buliding Winner - Ceres CB1

New Neighbourhoods Winner – Abode, Great Kneighton Photo © Tim Crocker

the strong attention to detailing, the creative use of space, the careful insertion of servicing, and the clarity of purpose of the undertaking. The Education First language school, Hills Road was thought to have responded very well to its context through the retention of the original house as part of the school and through its consideration of the students with inventive and playful features within the new and existing parts of the building. It was also considered a successful scheme in delivering high-quality accommodation within budget. A commendation was given to the Arts Theatre in this category for its sustainable approach to the works undertaken. The project has helped create a strong new character for the building, with a well-considered approach to new spaces and insertions together with careful attention to detailing. The judges felt that the scheme, at completion, would be worth seeing again. ENTRIES FOR NEW NEIGHBOURHOODS ■ Abode, Great Kneighton ■ Trumpington Meadows ■ Aura, Great Kneighton The first winner of this new category for 2014 was Abode, Great Kneighton. The judges felt this development provided a varied, open, and animated new living space on the edge of the city. They considered it to be well landscaped with a convincing approach to varied building scales. Dwellings were constructed with good materials and detailing.

Entries for the 2015 awards should be submitted at the end of the year. For more information, see the website www. cambridge.gov.uk/cambridge-design-andconstruction-awards.

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN DIES DALIBOR VESELY PASSED AWAY on 31st March 2015. Dalibor was a central figure of the University of Cambridge History and Philosophy of Architecture programme. The launch of Phenomenologies of the City (see Upcoming events) will be a fitting tribute, alongside those from Daniel Libeskind, Peter Carl, and former students and colleagues.

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DESIGN REVIEW

DESIGN REVIEW ■ DESIGN REVIEW IN CAMBRIDGE

Glen Richardson, Urban Design and Conservation Manager, Cambridge City Council GOOD DESIGN OUTCOMES ARE AN iterative process involving lots of players. We are fortunate in Cambridge to have many interested residents, architects and planners, council officers and elected councillors, who care about achieving high-quality design. While there is no town or city that enjoys unanimous public or professional agreement on the success of design quality, one can be sure that buildings in Cambridge will have undergone their fair share of detailed scrutiny. The diagram overleaf illustrates measures supporting design review in the three key planning application stages: pre-application, application, and post-application. The pre-application stage is a dialogue with architect and client about what may be appropriate for a given site; this is the best opportunity to influence the final outcome. The council has many examples of successes after pre-application discussions and reviews, which show a significant turnaround and improvement in design quality. There are two design review panels in Cambridge. Following the allocation of a number of sites in either the Cambridge Local Plan or as part of Area Action Plans, there has been considerable new development on the fringe of the city in the last five years.

EF Language School by NRAP Architects. A project which has been through the design review process with Cambridge City Council Photo © Ranald Lawrence

Cambridgeshire Quality Panel reviews these large schemes. The city's Design and Conservation Panel is a strong force in speaking up for good design and looks at more individual city-based schemes. Both panels are fulfilling the purpose set out for them: to help raise the standard of, and attention to, design. The design review panels can view a scheme pre- or post-application. Their purpose is to act as a ‘critical friend’ to the council. Their reports and conclusions on a scheme are normally included in full to the planning committee for decision making, and are posted online for the public when part of a formal planning application. The panels have been effective in challenging architects, clients and the local authority. The independence of their advice is valued and welcomed. Upon approval, the original intent set out in the approved design is put to the test. The council’s findings in this area are mixed; there are very good examples of architects

completing detailed design and of careful construction, and other examples of where original architects are let go and others are brought in to detail a scheme, with the final result lacking in quality. Avoiding the latter is often down to careful scrutiny of projects as they are built out. The council strongly encourages developers to retain the original architect – a point often raised as part of preapplication negotiations – and is aware there is considerable debate around this. The council operates its own Design and Construction Awards programme with the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry and Cambridge News. Some strong entries were submitted in 2014 and the winners are featured in this magazine. In summary; the significant resources, established process, adopted policies, support, and recognition underpinning design review in Cambridge can match or better that of most cities in the UK.

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DESIGN REVIEW 1

DO I NEED PLANNING PERMISSION?

No – build! (subject to Building Regulations)

Yes

The County Council

ARRANGE A PREAPPLICATION CONSULTATION WITH LOCAL AUTHORITY

Formal feedback from council officers, led by planning officers with advice by urban design, conservation, and landscape specialists, etc.

One of two design panels in Cambridgeshire may see a project at pre-app stage

Cambridgeshire Quality Panel

Varied mix of skills in panel members who are appointed using Cambridgeshire Quality Charter: character, climate, community, and connectivity

Reviews large county-wide schemes, often edge of city sites, phase-by-phase review using design codes and related guidance, eg. sites at Trumpington, North West Cambridge or north of the Cambridge Airport etc.

The City Council

Panel members represent a broad spread of skills with eight built environment associations represented. Associations put their own members forward, sometimes with City Council’s input Reviews many schemes in the city, whether residential, commercial, or academic, often where there may be a significant impact on heritage resources

Robin Nicholson, Chair, an architect and senior partner at Cullinan Studio

PLANNING APPLICATION IS SUBMITTED

Planning officers use the full weight of planning and design policy when an application is submitted – national guidance (the National Planning Policy Framework) and the Cambridge Local Plan include a number of detailed design, conservation, sustainability, and other policies, including heritage considerations, cycle parking, amenity space, and landscape

Council officers scrutinise proposals before reporting their recommendations to a committee of council members (or of three local councils in the case of Cambridge fringe sites) or before approving or refusing under delegated authority. The views of the relevant panel are reported publicly at this stage too

DECISION ON APPLICATION REFUSAL OR APPROVAL

Sub-panels of the Design and Conservation Panel are also set up when needed, eg. for Cambridge rail station (CB1)

Di Haigh, Chair, an architect and Director of Allies and Morrison

Both panels are chaired and populated with experienced built environment professionals, appointed by either their associations or the local authorities and can draw on expertise within landscape architecture, planning, and heritage, as well as architecture, in conducting their reviews

Design and Conservation Panel

Panel decisions and discussions are included in officer reports to council

Project may go back to or be seen for the first time by one of the design review panels at this stage too

If approved, conditions are often attached to a planning permission requiring further approval of details such as building materials and detailing, landscape, lighting, etc. The final stage of design review happens following post-application approval and normally revolves around the discharge of planning conditions and meeting planning obligations

■ IS DESIGN REVIEW A GOOD IDEA?

Di Haigh, Chair of Cambridge City Council Design and Conservation Panel, looks at the purposes and importance of design review Why is scrutiny of the design of schemes in the planning system important? Buildings last for a very long time, so it’s worth trying to get new developments right in the first place rather than blighting streets and neighbourhoods in the longer term. A few months’ discussion now can save years of outrage and inconvenience later. Many of the issues that a design review panel raises concern the public realm – the proposed spaces, street frontages, pavements,

and squares. These aspects of the schemes are shared by everyone, so getting them right affects us all. New buildings are generally sited within a context of existing streets and places. A panel will consider how well the proposals fit. Do they respect the existing scale of the street and create a welcome addition – or do they dominate the skyline, block off pedestrian routes, undermine existing shops and spaces? Quite a few schemes deal with the radical reshaping of sites that are currently

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DESIGN REVIEW

New Archive Building, St John’s College by Caroe Architecture. A project which has been through the design review process with Cambridge City Council

We are ready to support architectural excellence and try to ensure that it is recognized and retained

panel. There are always design details that can be mulled over, but we are ready to support architectural excellence and try to ensure that it is recognized and retained through the planning process.

rundown. This might be, say, proposals for new housing on former industrial estates, or for the replacement of office blocks that have become outdated. When dealing with a larger city block, questions of how to establish a new urban scale need to be addressed that will knit this reconfigured scheme into the surrounding neighbourhood. Here the panel would ask questions about the scale, pattern, and permeability of the new scheme. The island mentality of stand-alone schemes would undermine urban continuity of the city, built up over time. How is the Design Review Panel for Cambridge City Council organized? The panel hosts members with a range of skills, interests, and professions. Although bringing a range of disciplines to bear on the proposals, it is important that the panel discussion coheres into a discussion of the key issues so that clear conclusions can be reached. As all members are locally based they know the context for the proposals in Cambridge. Having received the panel papers in advance, panel members will have visited each site before the review session and thus be familiar with the whole context. To avoid conflicts of interest, any panel member with a professional or personal involvement in the scheme cannot participate in or be present at the review.

What should a sharp-eyed panel member be looking out for? Firstly, not all the claims that are made by developers about their schemes are valid, so panel members can ask questions about the basis for the scheme, the density, the height of the buildings, and its impact on neighbouring properties. Inevitably the pressure for financial viability means that developers will at times try to propose maximum densities that might not lead to the best outcomes or fit within the present context. Secondly, a panel can highlight aspects of the design that don’t work well and would always be problematic through the life of the scheme – deeply shaded courtyards, student rooms that are too tight to fit a bed comfortably, flats which overlook other people’s windows and balconies, planting proposals that can’t hope to survive. In presenting schemes to a panel, architects explain the logic of the scheme and the panel needs to buy in to that. Assumptions can be tested, about the heritage case for the removal of existing buildings, for example. Presentation material is sometimes light on actual detail of what the implications of their logic might be for the facade design or the landscaping and panel members might try to pin that down. It must be said that we see many interesting and high-quality schemes coming to the

What difference does the review make for Cambridge? The key points raised during the discussion are made into the panel notes of the scheme, with the traffic light verdict as conclusion. These are issued both back to the applicants as well as being the record of the discussion that is forwarded to the Planning Committee. If the scheme gets a negative review, a red light response, the applicants often decide to go for a redesign and bring it back to the design review panel before trying to put it to the committee. This must reflect the fact that the Planning Committee allows the design review comments to affect their decision on whether or not to grant a planning application. What is the significance for the city? For a city in a period of such rapid development, it is important to have a mechanism to check that proposals are well designed and will stand the test of time. We are seeing the radical redevelopment of broad swathes of Cambridge that is increasing density and bringing many new residents into the centre. It is surely a most important message to development partners involved in this process that the city has the highest aspirations for design excellence and this will be closely scrutinized by the City Council in the planning process and at its review panel. ■ Di Haigh is an architect and Director of Allies and Morrison. She is Chair of the Cambridge City Council Design and Conservation Panel and was formerly Director of Design Review and Architecture at CABE.

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DESIGN REVIEW

■ CASE STUDY

Alison Brooks Architects' development at Severn Place highlights the value of detailed planning guidance for discrete areas. ALISON BROOKS ARCHITECTS (ABA) WAS approached in June 2011 by UNEX Group to carry out a development study for a site in Severn Place. The 0.498 hectare site, pinned between Compass House at the Newmarket Road roundabout and The Grafton shopping centre, is occupied by disused warehouses and two semi-detached houses. UNEX’s early studies for a residential and mixed use development included the reinstatement of Severn Place as a north-south lane connecting East Road to Newmarket Road, part of this neighbourhood’s historic street pattern. We developed this approach with our own research into the area’s urban history, its local architectural character and grain. Our understanding of the site and its locality was reinforced by Cambridge City Council’s Eastern Gate Visioning Document. This document served as an excellent primer, highlighting key contextual elements of the existing and historical built form, scale, materiality, and massing of the surrounding areas. The document also highlighted key public realm and infrastructure projects to be considered in future design proposals in order to achieve the overall vision for the area. From our investigations, we developed an architectural strategy for the development based on a meandering new pedestrian, cycle, and resident-friendly streetscape. The scheme’s stepped massing – eight identifiable buildings between three and eight storeys – is inspired by the informal character and variety of nearby streets. The shifting volumes subtly

An architectural strategy based on a meandering pedestrian, cycle, and residentfriendly scheme

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DESIGN REVIEW

Views demonstrated the role of the Severn Place scheme in redefining East Road’s urban character

The feedback of the Design and Conservation Panel and the Urban Design Team helped us fine-tune our strategic approach and encouraged us to enhance our proposals subdivide Severn Place into a variety of public, communal, and private landscape spaces to create an ‘extended living room’ for residents. Projecting porches and decks are interspersed by front doors, west-facing porches, and ‘active’ ground floor rooms. Street trees, planters, and benches will bring new greenery and ecology, and a stronger link to Midsummer Common. The staggered plan and frequency of stair and lift cores (generally two/three flats per floor per core) allows more than 80% of dwellings to have dual- or triple-aspect and oblique views along Severn Place. The mixed building heights allow light into Severn Place, create a varied roofline, and offer access for residents to communal rooftop gardens. The primary material is brick with subtle variations in texture and reflectivity, giving each apartment block its own identity. The stand-

alone block to the south of Severn Place is clad in a blue glazed brick that recalls the mosaic and terracotta tiled facades of Cambridge’s 19th century community buildings. We submitted a planning application in November 2014 for a 11,150m2 development of 84 new homes, 25% affordable, two commercial spaces and basement and undercroft car and cycle storage for each building. Pre-planning dialogue with Cambridge’s Design and Conservation Panel highlighted concerns regarding the position and heights of the two tallest buildings, which were eight and seven storeys respectively. Through feedback and design development, the height of the seven-storey building was reduced by one floor. The mass of the eight storey building was also reduced to become more slender. This approach helped ensure

the project had the support of both the Design and Conservation Panel and the Urban Design Team before planning. We commissioned 11 revised Verified Views to identify any impact the scheme might have on distant views from around Cambridge. These views also demonstrated the role the scheme would have in creating a clear street frontage and redefining an urban character for East Road. The feedback of the Design and Conservation Panel and the Urban Design Team, coupled with the pre-application advice of the Conservation and Planning Departments, helped us fine-tune our strategic approach to massing, encouraged us to enhance our proposals architecturally, and supported our team’s overriding ambition: to deliver an inclusive, sustainable, and characterful place for a new urban community.

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DESIGN REVIEW

■ DESIGN NEEDS CONSCIOUS VALUES

Sebastian Macmillan describes how the conscious trade-off between stakeholder interests in the design review process can contribute to better buildings MY OFFICE HAS ALL SORTS of attractions. Built in the 1840s, it’s in a converted Georgian house with generously proportioned rooms, high ceilings, excellent daylight and ventilation from tall sash windows, and attractive views across the street to a similar Georgian building. As well as panelled doors and plaster coving, there’s even a characterful old fireplace. Set back from the road, the terrace itself is ordered and well mannered, with attractive Georgian proportions and rhythms to its front facade and of human scale with good brick detailing. It may not have the ‘wow’ factor, but it sits well in its urban context. A perfect building then? Well not quite, because everyone is in their own cellular office and, with solid doors (many rooms were originally bedrooms after all) kept closed to counter fire spread, everyone is quite isolated. All the benefits of a building that supports casual encounters, where new ideas are exchanged, new initiatives discussed, and new projects hatched, are unavailable. So, like most buildings, it’s a mix. It’s a delight to work in but doesn’t support very well our core business, which is knowledge production and exchange. I hope this tiny vignette has begun to

unpack what can only be described as tradeoff. I know in architectural discourse we don’t like to use this term. I am certainly a believer that buildings can and should be both-and, rather than either-or. There is no reason why we can’t have a functional building that is also beautiful (and keeps out the rain). But people who commission buildings, those who design them, and those who then live in them, work in them, visit them, or just look at them, value different attributes. Developers want to maximise market value and see a high return on capital. Business owners want to promote their corporate identity or brand image, or illustrate their commitment to innovation, or recruit top-flight staff. Personnel managers want to support organisational aims, like staff productivity and the motivation, health and well-being of their staff. A good building will contribute to ‘outcomes’: patient recovery rates in health care, educational attainment in schools and colleges, footfall in the retail sector, and so on. There is a substantial, though not widely known, literature about all of this. Individuals, communities, and their municipal representatives, of course, want their built stock to support their community

Buildings can and should be both beautiful and functional

aspirations, to provide a range of attractive housing and employment opportunities, and promote civic pride and inward investment, while preventing crime and vandalism. Civic leaders want to create a sense of place, and perhaps use their buildings to demonstrate a commitment to open government. Our most revered buildings and places become cultural icons, generating positive press coverage and tourism. Those committed to environmental sustainability, meanwhile, want to see buildings sit lightly on the ground, embody materials which minimise their impact on the global environment, and require very low levels of applied energy (lighting, heating) to make them habitable. So, the values that different people – developers, planners, designers, the public, occupiers – hold are many and varied. Much as we may feel committed to the notion of both-and, it is a challenge to deliver in practice and a lot of the buildings we use every day, like my office, don't deliver on all fronts. The overwhelming benefit of a design review process should be to elicit the different priorities held by stakeholders so that, even if not every objective can be met in full, at least the basis on which they are traded off is conscious and explicit.

Many buildings have attractive qualities, but they’re not always perfect. It's often a trade-off, like Sebastian Macmillan’s Georgian office

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BUILD A BETTER BRITAIN © Colab London / RIBA

#BUILD A BETTER BRITAIN Can we rely on our local parliamentary candidates to support a better built environment in our community? WORDS TOM FOGGIN

WITH THE GENERAL ELECTION JUST around the corner, we approached each of the five parliamentary candidates for Cambridge and invited them to comment on the RIBA’s goals, as set out in the #BuildABetterBritain campaign announced last year. Summarizing the campaign to our five local candidates, we asked them if, ahead of the election, they would commit to the pledge: ‘I promise to champion a better built environment for every community in my constituency to #BuildABetterBritain.’ From the biggest cities to the smallest villages, what we decide to build shapes every aspect of our lives. By asking the candidates to support the campaign, we were asking them to demonstrate that they would promote a better built environment for every community within the Cambridge constituency. We asked them to show that they were committed to building good homes, supporting well-planned places and spaces, and encouraging healthier, happier spaces by thinking about older people’s homes. Alongside commitment to the pledge, we also invited candidates to answer the following questions, building on the campaign’s theme of design quality:

1. Describe three actions they would undertake to improve the built environment in Cambridge. 2. Describe how they would deliver a higher quality built environment, in the context that quality is often undervalued in the market place which can negatively impact on living space, quality of life, and sustainability. 3. Explain whether they believe Cambridge would benefit more from better space standards for housing, or the creation of more sustainable buildings. Two parties responded to our enquires: UKIP and the Liberal Democrats. The first response was from Martin Hale, branch chairman of UKIP Cambridge and South East Cambridgeshire, who replied on behalf of their candidate to confirm that “UKIP candidates do not endorse third-party campaigns.” Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, responded positively, just minutes before our deadline. His full answer is on our website. “We need communities that are built around people, not just roads,” he suggested. “Good design can create spaces that make people feel safe and connected to their

neighbours; we need to encourage that model of development. A connection with the environment is also critical, with green spaces throughout developments. We need better standards for buildings across the country, concerning lifetime homes, decent living spaces, and environmental standards. We will work with local communities to build 10 new garden cities in England. This will provide a golden opportunity for good inclusive planning and design, setting expectations for the rest of the country.” Despite promises, neither the Green nor Conservative party has provided a response to date, and The Labour Party did not respond at all. We had hoped this page would provide an interesting cross section of the parliamentary candidates’ views, discussing the value they place on a good quality built environment – but it seems silence still speaks volumes. We will be updating our website with any further responses. ■ For more information on the RIBA’s #BuildABetterBritain campaign, see the website at www.architecture.com/ BuildABetterBritain.

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CAMBRIDGE STYLE

CAMBRIDGE STYLE Ze’ev Feigis looks at how contemporary developments refer to the past while forming the future of our city WORDS ZE’EV FEIGIS

TODAY CAMBRIDGE IS STANDING LIKE Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History; eyes staring, mouth open, wings spread as the wind blowing from paradise irresistibly propels him back into the future. Progress is pushing our city forward, but it seems our faces are still turned to the past. When we examine the recently completed projects in the city a thought might sneak into our minds: is it good enough? Do these projects suit a city like ours with its glorious past and established high status? Cambridge definitely has a distinguished character based on its function as a university city, developed from a market town, located on the river in the wetlands of East Anglia. But what about the modern masses rising at CB1, Trumpington Meadows, or Darwin Green? How do they fit into this idyllic picture? It seems that the same challenge is bringing the architects working on contemporary schemes to wonder, is there such thing as a Cambridge Style? Many design and access statements of recent planning applications refer to local examples mentioned for their merits. The reference to already accepted criteria of ‘quality’ settings which have stood the test of time and form – what we recognize as the genius loci (spirit of the place) – is an

attempt to claim that new developments are a continuation of the good that we already love and cherish. If Angelus Novus could focus his eyes for a minute on the heroic ’60s developments in, say, Arbury or on the other hand Highsett, could we say that these places were conceived in the same local spirit, and do they form part of it today? One could ask whether there is a sincere attempt by architects to gain inspiration from historic precedents or use them merely as part of a pitch aimed at the assumed conservative tastes of the masses. The planning stage is the last foothold to secure architectural quality before designs are thrown into the whirlwind of value engineering and profit margins during the tender and construction process. Since building is a profit driven matter, it is a well-proven paradigm that quality has an inverse relation to construction time and cost, and therefore it is always questioned.

Now the question that should be asked is: are the references to days of glory past sufficient to enforce those aspirations and promises of beauty fought for and ‘secured’ pre-planning by local design codes, planning officers, and review panels? To conclude, let us not wait for the angel to pass over and look back at us as we are today, but brave some Promethean foresight and try to envisage the legacy we will leave behind after 2031, the Local Plan horizon. By then plans on paper will all be built and probably many more. What kind of era shall this be remembered as? Will it be praised as a time of great recovery from the ruins of destructive post-war town planning and Béton brut, or as a low risk, profit driven, and car driving society of the spectacle? Luckily, by endowing the gift of creative fire upon humans the titan has also taken the ability to know our future, hence we shall keep flying forward whilst our eyes are transfixed back.

Will this era be praised as a time of great recovery from the ruins of destructive post-war town planning, or as a low risk, profit driven society of the spectacle?

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CAMBRIDGE STYLE

1.1

2.1

2.2 1.3

1. COMMON BUILDING PRECEDENTS 1.1 King’s College Chapel east elevation 1.2 View along Trinity Lane 1.3 Adobe development ‘gate buildings’ resemble college gatehouses 1.4 Queens’ College Gatehouse 2.3

1.2

2. FREQUENTLY REFERRED LANDSCAPE AND STREETSCAPE TYPOLOGIES

1.4

2.1 Christ’s College as a prevalent example to court architecture 2.2 The Market Square is referenced as a civic centre model 2.3 Accordia Development, now listed, is used as a precedent in its own right

3.1

3. MATERIAL REFERENCE 3.1 Buff Brick - Typical vanilla architecture in Trumpington Meadows 3.2 Yellow Stone – A French Jaumont limestone in the Sainsbury Laboratory 3.3 Beige reconstituted stone – Contemporary prefabricated cladding panels with pigmentation on the Fire Station

3.2

3.3

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RENDER VS REALITY

Microsoft Headquarters, Station Road. Image © Chetwoods Architects

In today’s modern world, advanced software and computing power enable even the smallest of practices to produce aspirational images to a high quality. However, the question is, in a world where visual impact is currency, are architects more focused on the presentation board than realising the completed project? We’d like to think that the examples here suggest that, with hard work and a strong design team, architects are still able to deliver on their promises.

Ceres CB1, Station Road. Image © Pollard Thomas Edwards

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CRITICAL JUNCTION

Photograph © David Churchill

Photograph © Tim Crocker

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GREAT KNEIGHTON

A GREAT KNEIGHTON

THE TILES

Abode in Great Kneighton continued Cambridge’s winning streak in new housing when it was awarded Supreme Winner in the recent Housing Design Awards. Bobby Open takes a look WORDS BOBBY OPEN

DESIGNED BY PROCTOR AND MATTHEWS, Abode forms part of the new 2250-home Great Kneighton development near Trumpington. Developer Countryside Properties – no stranger to awards after its Accordia development on Brooklands Avenue won 2008’s RIBA Stirling Prize – has provided 300 homes on a site straddling Addenbrooke’s Road, linking the hospital to the M11. The numerous new housing developments in Cambridge, further away from the city centre

than Brooklands Avenue, are developing their own architectural character, whilst dealing with arterial roads, high density, and high levels of allocated on-plot parking. The Abode site has some interesting yet challenging edge conditions. The guided busway runs along the north-western edge, screened by a plantation of mature trees, and Hobson’s Brook runs to the east, now part of a new 120 acre country park. Neighbouring developments include those by Skanska and

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GREAT KNEIGHTON

A rich palette of building materials is twinned with a sophisticated landscaping scheme Bovis Homes, with new primary and secondary schools being built along with other mixed use developments. Proctor and Matthews developed PRP’s early master plan into a site strategy that moves from formal to informal, urban to rural. This is structured around three distinct character areas: the Great Court, Urban Mews, and Green Lanes, inspired by Cambridge colleges, city streets, and Fenland villages. These areas are in turn characterized by a variety of architectural forms, with monopitched blocks of houses and apartments defining the central court; flat-roofed houses and apartments defining the mews streets and courts; and pitched-roof houses relating to the lanes running westward towards the trees. Supporting this formal variety, there is a rich palette of building materials with brick, metal and glass around the court, working towards black-stained timber cladding and a mixture of roof tile colours and types further into the site;

and this in turn is twinned with a sophisticated hard and soft landscaping scheme. Abode Cambridge follows another Abode scheme by the same architect and developer, at New Hall in Harlow. The two schemes have a similar feel, particularly in the intimate scale of the streets, the creativity of the building elevations, and the use of highquality materials. In Cambridge, expanses of brickwork are detailed with the use of projecting split black bricks (Ibstock Himley Ebony Black) interspersed with the nowubiquitous Cambridge Buff brick (Ibstock Ivanhoe Cream in this case). This patterning seems to be a way of achieving some of the finer detail of historic buildings without 'Great Court' © Tim Crocker

resorting to faux sash windows and the like; indeed, the windows are high-quality VELFAC with aluminium/timber composite frames in two colours: a kind of french grey contrasted with what at first glance looks like stained pine but is in fact also powder-coated aluminium. Abode has a mixture of housing types and tenures, with 40% affordable housing, and dwelling types ranging from studio flats to fivebedroom detached houses. The development, interestingly, has a similar density to the Gwydir Street area of Mill Road in Cambridge, 48 dwellings per hectare, but the two parts of city feel very different. In the planning application design and access statement, Proctor and Matthews acknowledged that “the new Addenbrooke’s Road poses a particular challenge as its size and the new roundabout serve to undermine the significance of this arrival space and diminish the importance of the spine road which is the main entrance to Great Kneighton.” The strong form of the Great Court, referencing the historic court at Trinity College, goes some way to counter the impact of the road, by creating a robust enclosure announcing the entrance to Great Kneighton. There remains, however, a sense that the overall solution – of both road and housing form – might have been quite different had there been greater integration from the beginning: one thinks perhaps of Ralph Erskine’s Byker housing. Although Proctor and Matthews mentions Parisian boulevards in the design statement, the Addenbrooke’s link road severs Great Kneighton in two, with each

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GREAT KNEIGHTON

Section through Urban Mews (left) to Great Court (right)

development trying to deal with the rush hour queues, idling cars, and noise pollution. Hence the glass acoustic screens of the Skanska development have been “enhanced through the use of public art”, and both Skanska and the Bovis Paragon developments have chosen to create their own access roads running parallel to Addenbrooke’s Road: roads upon roads upon roads. Abode deals with these issues in more intelligent ways, creating a

New and well planned house typologies handle car parking in innovative ways

‘bosquet’ (formal plantation of trees) in the court to screen the cars and winter gardens to buffer the noise, and trying to locate noise sensitive rooms away from the road, but most of the dwellings on the court necessarily still have at least one bedroom on this side. In addition to the road and roundabout, Abode accommodates car parking at a rate of around 1.5 car spaces per dwelling. Compare this with Gwydir Street’s 0.5 parking spaces per dwelling, and this has a significant impact on how 48 dwellings per hectare feels. One has to hand it to Proctor and Matthews for its ingenuity in designing new and well-planned house typologies that handle car parking in innovative ways, including ‘undercroft’ mews houses each bridging three parking spaces (one belonging to the house) and surrounding

a landscaped parking courtyard. Where the early phases of Prince Charles’s Poundbury in Dorchester were criticized for having rear parking courts, which served to drain the life out of the streets (everyone entering through their back doors), Abode endeavours to make places out of these spaces, balancing front street with service court. In considering a scheme like Abode, one wonders how we should design new primary streets to be more than roads, if on-plot parking is such a holy grail to aim for, and if such sites can’t accommodate more than the three-storey average height. It is important that good architects are given the chance to consider these types of issues in new housing design, and it is a credit to Countryside that it continues to support this process. Architects: Proctor and Matthews Developer: Countryside Properties Transport, civil and structural engineering: Ramboll Landscape design: BBUK Studio Acoustics and sustainability: Environ Code for sustainable homes: Mott MacDonald

ADDENBROOKE'S ROAD

GREEN LANES

URBAN MEWS

GREAT COURT

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CRITICAL JUNCTION

Architectural education isn’t all about drawing plans and sections. February Phillips sets the scene around installations carried out by first year architecture degree students for one of the city’s major arts centres WORDS FEBRUARY PHILLIPS

This large percussive instrument enlivened the main entrance, referencing the activities within

CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION WAS CONCEIVED in the late 1980s as a live music venue. In its early incarnation it was a lonely ‘shed’ in a car park on the old cattle market. The Junction moved the then rowdy youth music scene away from the Guildhall and the sensitive historic city core. It was extended in 2005, adding a theatre and rehearsal space. It now

sits as a somewhat diminutive presence at the end of a public square, bounded by Cambridge Leisure Park and a Travelodge hotel. The recent development of the area – including The Belvedere, Kaleidoscope, and The Marque, as well as the proposed densification of CB1 and Clifton Road industrial estate – means that the Junction is no longer a peripheral presence on

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CRITICAL JUNCTION

The unravelling of a large plastic sheet showed how the perception of a space can momentarily transformed

the Cambridge map, but the central feature of a major public space in a dynamically reinventing hub of the city. First-year tutors at Cambridge University Department of Architecture Julika Gittner, Mark Smith, Beth Hughes, and Jim Ross identified the Junction as a place with potential for a design project for their students. The brief for the project was developed with Daniel Brine, Director at the Junction. In total, 42 students entered a design competition and two designs were selected for further development. Students explored the building, the square, and connections to Hills Road bridge – including how the spaces were used and perceived by visitors to the Junction. The two installations, funded by Karakusevic Carson Architects and the Cambridge Association of Architects, with support from Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture, were constructed by the students. One took the form of a three-week long installation of a large percussive instrument made from suspended plastic water bottles – enlivening the main entrance elevation and giving the building a temporary dynamic facelift, referencing the activities within. The second project was a more temporary performance

piece, developed by identifying the steps down from Hills Road as a difficult yet interesting bottleneck. The students’ initial propositions to augment the steps from the bridge were somewhat thwarted by the difficulties of ownership; they’re owned by the City Council, not the Junction. The design was revised and the concluding piece was the unravelling of a large plastic sheet – demonstrating how the perception of a place (the routes through it, changing light conditions, and sense of scale)

can be momentarily transformed through the intertwining movement of people and a large, flowing, semi-transparent object. The two projects temporarily altered public perception of the Junction – allowing it to cascade out and enliven the public square on which it sits. Maybe these temporary augmentations could inspire a more permanent transformation of this much-loved Cambridge arts centre, bringing extra vitality to this recently transformed, and still growing, part of the city.

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PUBLIC ART

THE STATE OF THE ART

As Cambridge forges ahead with construction, more and more pieces of public art populate our newest spaces. But what, asks David Adams, is the key to success with such projects? © Z Feigis

WORDS DAVID ADAMS

CAMBRIDGE IS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN unprecedented expansion, with CB1, Great Kneighton, Northstowe, and North West Cambridge all under development or soon to be, and public art forms a key component of such major projects. Cambridge City Council’s Percent for Art policy requires provision of public art within major new developments under the Public Art Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), which is generally paid as part of Section 106 agreements between developers and planning authorities. The SPD defines public art as “permanent or temporary works of art in any media created for, and in the context of, the public realm”. It should be simple: artwork, that traditionally accretes over time, can offer inhabitants of a new development something truly unique. Special, contemplative, perhaps even fun spaces can enter the dry world of property development. And there is creative freedom beyond sculptures, mosaics and wall decoration: landscaping, play areas, water features, cycle racks or even bollards. That’s not to say it’s easy. It isn’t. Beyond the fickle nature of public taste (the playful bronze bollards by Harry Gray at the University Library raised the ire of alumni Germaine Greer in The Guardian), public art is typically located outside and exposed, requiring strength and durability. Public art does not come cheap either, with most budgets sitting between £50,000 and £100,000. Creating public art is typically complex. From concept to execution, there are many meetings and interviews between developer, artist, public art consultant, contractor,

engineer, architect, and planning consultant. The robust system to govern it usually consists of a steering group (the developer-led entity responsible for overseeing implementation), the planning authority, and the Design Review panels. Is there a potential weakness with that many cooks? Too many objectives pulling in different directions? Public art has occasionally failed to reach the standard required, perhaps artistically, perhaps technically. Recent examples might include the rapid deterioration of the Snowy Farr memorial in Market Square, or The Telegraph’s public condemnation of The Don, a £150,000 bronze of debatable provenance. Close to where I live are several interesting new examples of public art: Supercomputer, by Jem Finer (CB1), Translucent Drawing by Antoni Malinowski (CB1), and "Bits of the world ..." by Jennifer Tee (The Marque, shown top right). Supercomputer was described at the planning stage as ‘a digital computer built from hydraulic switches… enclosed within an elegant glass pavilion’. It seems in reality to be a collection of plastic tubing and plywood, all sitting in a modified silver-painted shipping container. It is currently not working, undergoing some fine tuning. These contentious projects aside, the news is generally positive. Cambridge has a history of delivering good artwork and has a high standard. The etched metal plates at the Sainsbury Laboratory by Norman Ackroyd are simple, thought-provoking pieces; the Corpus Clock, funded by John C Taylor, gradually and eternally eats time; and MUD, by 30 bird and

Artwork can offer inhabitants of a new development something truly unique

public works, at St Matthew’s Primary School (see CA68) is exciting and playful. And perhaps we shouldn’t forget one of the older pieces of public art in Cambridge: Reality Checkpoint may not be the official name of the lamp post in the centre of Parker’s Piece, but much like graffiti – such as the below work near Homerton Conference Centre – sometimes things that take the greatest hold on the public imagination begin in the most casual fashion. ■ For more on public art in the area, see www.curatingcambridge.org.uk

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WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON? 5TH STUDIO The redevelopment of one of Norwich’s most high-profile buildings – the 10-storey Westlegate Tower – is nearing final completion. 5th Studio obtained planning consent to convert and extend the tower, previously used as offices, to provide 17 residential apartments, including a courtyard house, two town houses, and four commercial units. A contract was let with Graham Construction and 5th Studio continued as architects during construction. 5th Studio are also involved with the Olympic legacy, being shortlisted to compete for the design of a large cultural hub know as ‘Olympicopolis’, providing park infrastructure in the Lea Valley to support new residential developments and, moving north, carrying out two significant master planning projects for the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

MART BARRASS ARCHITECT A polished metal ‘pod’ will provide 21st Century living accommodation for a 19th Century thatch cottage. The cross laminated timber shell, clad in polished metal panels with matching mirror finished glazing has been designed to visually ‘disappear’ into its historic context. The plan is orientated to provide views through the adjacent existing Pool House across open meadow to the River Cam. Work is due to start on site this summer.

These projects have been selected by RIBA members who are actively involved with the Cambridge Association of Architects. If you're interested in featuring on this page of the next edition of Cambridge Architecture please contact riba.caa@gmail.com.

WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON?

RHP

COWPER GRIFFITH ARCHITECTS This project on the Norfolk coast is nearing completion, built to replace a concrete building that was used as a seasonal chalet with one more in keeping with the surrounding natural landscape bordering on an SSSI. The new chalet has a dynamic plan form generated by fitting between the existing trees, and the diagonal line of poplars on its southwest end. The chalet has a simple form, sits lightly on its site, and uses simple materials. Its louvred timber cladding gives depth and layers for an appearance of lightness, transparency, and impermanence. The untreated larch cladding boards and louvres will eventually weather to the same silver grey of the adjacent tree bark. The idea was to create a building in keeping with the sort of discrete man-made structures, like bird hides, that are often found within nature reserves.

RHP’s scheme for the University of Cambridge’s North West Cambridge development, providing contemporary accommodation for up to 325 postgraduate students, started on site in early 2015. Due for completion by summer 2016, the scheme responds to the need for growth of the University’s postgraduate population by forming a new community similar in scale to central College sites. Incorporating low energy strategies and targeting BREEAM Excellent, the scheme arranges accommodation around three open-sided courts with individual characters, nurturing a strong sense of connectivity with the rest of the development.

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SPONSOR INTERVIEW

This month we catch up with Peter Rawlings, director of Peter Rawlings Architects Ltd Describe your relationship to Cambridge. Although I have mostly worked in London, with a year in Paris, Cambridge has been my home since training here in the 1980s. I set up my practice in Cambridge a couple of years ago.

Fitzwilliam Museum and Kettle’s Yard and events such as the Festival of Ideas and Mill Road Fair are great.

What recent projects are you most proud of or excited about? I’ve recently received a commission from Cambridge University for some work at the Old Schools. The project is quite modest, but I hope it will be the start of greater things. I’m also proud of a recent conservation project to save a crumbling Tudor dovecote in Ely from collapse, just coming to completion on site, and I am excited by a residential project in Cambridge that has just received planning permission where the client asked for a contemporary “semi-industrial” look.

What is your favourite place or building in Cambridge? I would choose a slice of the city from the Market Square to The Backs. The changing scale from King’s College Chapel and the Wren Library to tightly knit alleys around St Edward’s Passage and the transformation from cityscape to the landscape of The Backs, woven through by the River Cam, is remarkable. I think highly of a number of modern college developments including Clare Hall with its semi-enclosed cloister and tiered common room, which is all quite elegant and subtle. I also like the way developments such as Accordia have brought together several architects in collaboration, working within an overall design framework, giving a coherent and complex result.

What is special about Cambridge in your view? Cambridge combines the cultural life that you might associate with a larger city and a smaller scale, family and cycle friendly environment. Institutions such as the

How has Cambridge influenced your work and thoughts? The philosophical and critical perspective nurtured at the Cambridge University School of Architecture still shapes the way I think and design – maintaining a critical

overview, understanding architecture as a collaborative process rooted in the historical development of the city, not racing into a formal solution, letting a brief, materials, physical, and cultural context help shape the design in a contemporary way. If you had the power, what would you improve in Cambridge? Being a cyclist I would limit access to the city by car and make Park & Ride more regular and free. Assuming we cannot improve the climate nor introduce a coast or some hills, some major streetscape improvements could transform the less loved parts of Cambridge, for example Cherry Hinton Road. What sort of built environment or society do you foresee in the Cambridge of the future? I would like to think the growth of Cambridge will give it more buzz. House prices are sky high and if we want a broad, diverse, and interesting population there will need to be more affordable housing built, as well as more transport initiatives to stop the city becoming gridlocked.

The philosophical and critical perspective nurtured at the Cambridge University School of Architecture still shapes the way I think and design

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