AT Awards judges and the project team discuss the key drivers behind this Cambridge-based project and the way it has evolved over time. Photographer Timothy Soar captures the project as it is today.
The gateway quarter to Cambridge’s Great Kneighton neighbourhood, Abode, is a 444-unit, tenure-blind residential development with 40 per cent affordable homes. Designed in close collaboration with Harriet Bourne at BBUK Studio, the scheme is organised around a series of shared surface streets, squares and landscape spaces, which subtly transition from urban to rural edge, and employ passive environmental measures, including orientation and a fabric-first approach.
Abode has been published in Distinctively Local, which aims to inform and inspire others to deliver distinctive places in edge of city locations, and cited in government design guidance, including the National Design Guide and associated National Design Code guidance, as well as the recently published Building for a Healthy Life.
A pair of five-storey apartment buildings set within a formal and structured court – a reference to the urban form of Cambridge colleges – mark the entrance to the scheme.
Ben Derbyshire Completed in 2018, Proctor & Matthews’ housing at Abode was a bravura performance, providing a sensitive reinterpretation of Cambridgeshire village vernacular forms and spaces from the start. A decade on, the design amply manifests its sustainable credentials with homes that are well loved, robust and flexible, and a lush public realm that bursts with increased biodiversity.
Stephen Proctor, architect We were commissioned in 2008 to design the first phase of the new neighbourhood at Great Kneighton, and this was 35 years after a quote, or a provocation by Gordon Cullen: “People live in houses, but where do houses live? If they are homeless, then all we are left with is the typical endless, featureless Suburbia.” It stayed in our minds, and really generated all the ideas for the project. We were very much focussed on creating an identity and a sense of place, and from interviews with residents, everyone is very proud of where they live.
Deyan Sudjic A masterplan should be an idea, rather than an attempt to design a very large piece of architecture. Great Kneighton is based on several impressive ideas that succeed in making somewhere out of what could easily have been nowhere. It provides a framework and a context for the architecture of the individual components.
A complex composition of maisonettes or town houses with apartments above delivers density without compromising on amenity space, and creates the grand civic scale of the Great Court.
Isabel Allen One of the judging criteria for these awards was about giving due consideration to biodiversity and natural capital. We saw lots of great buildings, but very few projects where the landscaped space and public realm had been afforded the same consideration as the buildings themselves. Abode is an exception to the rule. The landscape strategy skilfully negotiates the transition from settlement to countryside, creating a rich mix of outdoor spaces. It’s no coincidence that this was the only project where the landscape architect presented alongside the architect.
Sarah Allan The ‘green lanes’ concept illustrated in the masterplan is clear to see in the completed development. This project demonstrates the importance of considering the role of landscape and planting at the earliest stages of the masterplanning process, and the value that an understanding of nature and urban design can bring to a residential development.
Catherine Burd Successful place-making is about making good spaces; making good streets, and really getting to grips with issues surrounding highways and parking. You can’t magic the cars away, but with careful design, the designers have managed to make a neighbourhood that reads as an environment for people rather than for cars.
The wide range of typologies share a family resemblance while providing the variety and choice of a settlement that has developed over time. Each street is planted with its own species of flowering tree, creating a sense of identity and highlighting seasonal changes as the trees bloom at different times of the year.
Stephen Proctor We’ve revisited the project several times over the years. Residents are quick to tell us what they like and what they don’t like. Luckily the likes outweigh the dislikes. You can see that the houses have changed over this period. Some people have extended their properties, without compromising the visual amenity of the street, and certainly the landscape has matured.
Harriet Bourne, landscape architect We felt that each street should have its own distinct character, and we did that by planting the same species of tree along each run of houses; flowering trees that would bloom at different times of the year. We made sure that the privacy planting was luscious, while also not obscuring views out of the homes.
Intended to evoke vernacular agricultural buildings, black timber-clad dwellings create loose clusters of smaller two and three storey units.
Edward, resident What we like about living here is the mix of people, the landscaping of the walkways, and also the community facilities – the play areas and park.
Harriet Bourne The masterplan we inherited had a play area next to the roundabout, which we all agreed wasn’t ideal. We embedded play throughout the site. It’s very much play on the way; a series of incidental spaces, with benches, along these pedestrian routes. All the streets are very social places. Shared space wasn’t the norm back then, so we were very lucky that we had a good highways officer.
The back-to-back typology, with a two-bedroom house attached to the back of a larger four-bedroom one helps to achieve the required density and provides opportunities for extended family living. The conventional rear garden has been replaced with a side garden and generous space at the front. Over time, this mews has become one of the streets that is closed annually for a street party demonstrating that the design works well as a community space.
Marion Baeli This project is outstanding in many aspects: landscaping, architecture, urban design and biodiversity amongst others. The proof of its success lies in the continued quality of the development and the fact that very few residents have moved out since its construction. A true example of resilience for many to get inspired by.
Harriet Bourne One of the really lovely things is the way some of the residents have taken over the front gardens. We have the ‘tomato man’, who plants a huge variety of tomatoes outside his home, which faces south. Others have put benches in front of their homes, so you can see that they want this to be a social space. They want to sit outside and to be able to chat to their neighbours.
Project presentation
View Stephen Proctor and Harriet Bourne give a presentation on Abode below
Additional Images
