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Abode at Great Kneighton
Abode at Great Kneighton
Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom
Project Featured on Oct 15, 2014
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Other Projects by Proctor and Matthews
Abode at Great Kneighton
Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom
Project Featured on Oct 15, 2014
Firm
YEAR
2014
BUDGET
$10M - 50M
Photos
Abode at Great Kneighton is part of a major new community providing around 2,270 homes, extensive open space, and new community facilities in the Cambridge Southern Fringe growth area. The scheme consists of over 300 homes arranged as a sequence of spaces and housing types, responding to the existing geography of the site and providing a rich variety of typologies and tenure. 40 percent of the homes are affordable housing.
The scheme consists of a hierarchy of spaces and housing types to suit different parts of the development. This approach gives form to existing infrastructure and a formal sense of arrival at the entrance to the site, before moving sequentially towards a more relaxed architectural language and looser density at the rear of the site, where it is integrated with the neighboring countryside.
At the entrance to the site two tall apartment marker buildings stand within a formal structured court. A challenge here was how to address the existing infrastructure: a roundabout leading from the principal access road, and the “Great Court” arrival zone offers a robust and stylish architecture that easily absorbs the hard infrastructure, presenting a large formal courtyard reminiscent of the layout of nearby Cambridge colleges. Tall terraces frame the landscaped square, while the marker buildings bookend each terrace and emphasize the Great Court’s gateway role. The bulk of the buildings are broken down by a strong rhythm of terraces and passageways, and a series of projecting brick panels. Perforated metal screens on the marker buildings reference the ceiling at Kings College, while the trees at The Backs in Cambridge are referenced in the bright metal screen around the top of the terraces, creating a “halo” to unite the elements of the Great Court and add further color and visual interest.
Beyond the Great Court are a series of mews streets supported by three-story courtyard saw-tooth terraced houses. The materials used here — predominantly brick — borrow from the Great Court, while the more modest and domestic scale of the terraces provides a sense of transition from the arrival zone. Here again, panels of perforated brick lend character and visual interest to the terraces, and provide further visual connections with the Great Court. Black weatherboarding is introduced here — offering a strong contrast with the brickwork and referencing a common local vernacular material. Each house has garden space to the front with a raised courtyard terrace at the rear, while some also have generously sized glazed balconies overlooking the street.
A key objective was to provide a high quality public realm and a series of pleasant communal spaces across the development. In the mews streets zone, the formal landscaping of the Great Court gives way to a series of parallel green connecting corridors that run perpendicular to the terraces, creating pleasant shared spaces and pedestrian routes between the houses. These “landscape ribbons” also provide a linear route through the development, connecting the formal landscape of the Great Court to the open countryside at the edge.
A further transition in volume takes place at the rear of the site, where the housing typology becomes loose clusters of smaller two and three-story units. This “Green Lanes” zone seeks to create a village atmosphere, and provides a range of two to five bedroom homes for both private and affordable tenures. Houses sit within private walled gardens and generously planted shared spaces. Compared with the strong urban language of the Great Court, here the aim is to achieve relaxed “rural erosion” at the boundary of the development. In this zone, the hierarchy of spaces and buildings shrinks further, before vanishing into the natural landscape beyond. The angular grid of streets and courtyards elsewhere in the development becomes more relaxed as narrower streets and paths wind between the houses, emphasizing the village feel.
In this zone the predominant material is black weatherboarding and red clay tiles — referencing rural vernacular buildings nearby, and emphasizing the change in volume and continuing the material transition from the mews terraces. This softer edge to the development provides a sympathetic boundary to the natural landscape of the neighboring farmland and the new country park currently being developed beside the site.
Within the simple and controlled palette of materials used across the development, a common element is the base palette of “Cambridge” stock brickwork. A variety of split and partially projecting patterns is used to articulate scale, celebrate entrances, and give emphasis to important townscape junctions within the master plan. Panels of patterned brick are used throughout to model and give depth to what would otherwise be flat facades. This approach serves to support the hierarchy of streets and provide individual buildings with their own identity.
Abode at Great Kneighton welcomed its first new residents in the summer of 2013. Units of all sizes have sold well, and all affordable housing units are also occupied and well integrated with those sold at market value. A sense of community has quickly developed and the development is well looked after by residents.
The scheme consists of a hierarchy of spaces and housing types to suit different parts of the development. This approach gives form to existing infrastructure and a formal sense of arrival at the entrance to the site, before moving sequentially towards a more relaxed architectural language and looser density at the rear of the site, where it is integrated with the neighboring countryside.
At the entrance to the site two tall apartment marker buildings stand within a formal structured court. A challenge here was how to address the existing infrastructure: a roundabout leading from the principal access road, and the “Great Court” arrival zone offers a robust and stylish architecture that easily absorbs the hard infrastructure, presenting a large formal courtyard reminiscent of the layout of nearby Cambridge colleges. Tall terraces frame the landscaped square, while the marker buildings bookend each terrace and emphasize the Great Court’s gateway role. The bulk of the buildings are broken down by a strong rhythm of terraces and passageways, and a series of projecting brick panels. Perforated metal screens on the marker buildings reference the ceiling at Kings College, while the trees at The Backs in Cambridge are referenced in the bright metal screen around the top of the terraces, creating a “halo” to unite the elements of the Great Court and add further color and visual interest.
Beyond the Great Court are a series of mews streets supported by three-story courtyard saw-tooth terraced houses. The materials used here — predominantly brick — borrow from the Great Court, while the more modest and domestic scale of the terraces provides a sense of transition from the arrival zone. Here again, panels of perforated brick lend character and visual interest to the terraces, and provide further visual connections with the Great Court. Black weatherboarding is introduced here — offering a strong contrast with the brickwork and referencing a common local vernacular material. Each house has garden space to the front with a raised courtyard terrace at the rear, while some also have generously sized glazed balconies overlooking the street.
A key objective was to provide a high quality public realm and a series of pleasant communal spaces across the development. In the mews streets zone, the formal landscaping of the Great Court gives way to a series of parallel green connecting corridors that run perpendicular to the terraces, creating pleasant shared spaces and pedestrian routes between the houses. These “landscape ribbons” also provide a linear route through the development, connecting the formal landscape of the Great Court to the open countryside at the edge.
A further transition in volume takes place at the rear of the site, where the housing typology becomes loose clusters of smaller two and three-story units. This “Green Lanes” zone seeks to create a village atmosphere, and provides a range of two to five bedroom homes for both private and affordable tenures. Houses sit within private walled gardens and generously planted shared spaces. Compared with the strong urban language of the Great Court, here the aim is to achieve relaxed “rural erosion” at the boundary of the development. In this zone, the hierarchy of spaces and buildings shrinks further, before vanishing into the natural landscape beyond. The angular grid of streets and courtyards elsewhere in the development becomes more relaxed as narrower streets and paths wind between the houses, emphasizing the village feel.
In this zone the predominant material is black weatherboarding and red clay tiles — referencing rural vernacular buildings nearby, and emphasizing the change in volume and continuing the material transition from the mews terraces. This softer edge to the development provides a sympathetic boundary to the natural landscape of the neighboring farmland and the new country park currently being developed beside the site.
Within the simple and controlled palette of materials used across the development, a common element is the base palette of “Cambridge” stock brickwork. A variety of split and partially projecting patterns is used to articulate scale, celebrate entrances, and give emphasis to important townscape junctions within the master plan. Panels of patterned brick are used throughout to model and give depth to what would otherwise be flat facades. This approach serves to support the hierarchy of streets and provide individual buildings with their own identity.
Abode at Great Kneighton welcomed its first new residents in the summer of 2013. Units of all sizes have sold well, and all affordable housing units are also occupied and well integrated with those sold at market value. A sense of community has quickly developed and the development is well looked after by residents.
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