Sports + Learning Building

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Education

A masterplan for a senior school site in central Cambridge creates an exciting landmark for students. Respectful of its surroundings, street side views are framed, inviting engagement with the external community.

The site is set within a conservation area in an urban context of two and three storey residential terraced properties. The new building sits comfortably in this streetscene, with an undulating roofscape and stepped elevations to lower the overall scale and massing. In order to provide the required space while retaining this sense of contextual scale, the sports halls is located in the new basement and oriented to form the new main school entrance above.

A double height canopy provides a new outdoor gathering space in the heart of the site, sheltered from the road but open to the rest of the school. More intimate seating areas are designed into the facade’s openings at ground level, while the stepped elevations create pockets of outdoor space above – balconies, terraces and deep reveal windows add visual interest and a variety of useable space. The rooftop multi-use games area (MUGA) was the first in Cambridge; it allows the former car park at ground level to be turned over to playground, maximising all available space in this tight urban site.

On Union Road, thoughtfully positioned windows and angled reveals provide framed views into and out from the school, maintaining privacy where required while opening up the school to its setting. A glazed exhibition area in the main entrance invites interaction with the public. Buff bricks, deep reveals and decorative brickwork are prominent features in the local area, and our material choices reference all of these. Soldier courses and herringbone friezes provide visual accents within the overall composition of varied brick mix and pale pigmented mortar.

The new building is principally naturally ventilated, served by stack ventilation. Acoustically attenuated ventilation panels provide openable windows and good air quality while maintaining low background noise. The superstructure utilises a hybrid steel, glulam and cross-laminated timber (CLT) design, which is celebrated with exposed CLT panels in many areas.

Tricia Kelleher, Principal of The Stephen Perse Foundation , said of the new building: “CDC Studio transformed a very constrained site into a state of the art school… It was fantastic working with such wonderfully innovative people and creating a state of the art building.”