A Cambridge Education
Client: Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge
Architect: Allies & Morrison
Structural and services engineer: Whitbybird
Quantity surveyor: Dearle and Henderson
Contractor: Marriott Construction
Landscape: Cambridge Landscape Architects
Brickwork: S Minett Brickwork Contractor
Allies and Morrison’s award-winning gatehouse and auditorium at Fitzwilliam College could teach us all a thing or two about building with brick
Allies and Morrison is the latest architect to interpret and continue Sir Denys Lasdun’s original 1958 master plan for Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. The £8.2m contract completed in 2004 has added two new buildings – a gatehouse and an auditorium – that join a line up of work by Lasdun himself, MacCormack Jamieson Prichard, and van Heynigan and Haward.
Lasdun’s original intention was to create an enclosing wall of buildings that gravitated into the centre of the site, thereby creating a series of garden spaces. However, due to the slow rate of land acquisition, his master-plan could not be realised.
The construction of the gatehouse building and auditorium provides the college with a suitable main entrance and creates a garden space that is bound on three sides by the new buildings and on the fourth by an avenue of plane trees. Brick was specified for both buildings, reflecting its extensive use around the site.
Fronting Storey’s Way, the three-storey gatehouse incorporates a porter’s lodge and offices, with student bedrooms on the upper two storeys. The burgundy coloured brick reflects Lasdun’s original colour choice. Structurally, the building’s load-bearing, cellular cross wall construction is expressed externally by a 600 mm deep cladding zone comprising 215 mm wide brick fins that are punctuated at each storey level by a slender, highly polished concrete string course at seating level.
Behind this 600 mm zone, the brickwork makes way for Load-bearing blockwork and slab construction. The building is characterised by a heavier, more massive use of brick on the ground floor, which makes way for the lighter brick construction of the upper two storeys. This, according to Paul Appleton, director of Allies and Morrison, “recalls the traditional order of a load-bearing brick building”. It also serves to allow tailoring of each facade according to orientation: within each bedroom bay, the cell is expressed by a preformed weathered zinc window assembly bordered by opening and closing timber louvres.
Entering the gatehouse building is through a three-storey high space topped by a cuboidal glass lantern. This grand entrance symbolism, which Appleton says “establishes a major scale to the street and reflects the scale of trees in the courtyard”, is complemented by a Portland stone-faced section of elevation that extends throughout the three storeys.
Once in the entrance hall, an axial shift aligns you with a cloister formed by brick piers, which, if followed to its end, leads to a pleasant surprise. For here, having emerged from the relative gloom of the gatehouse cloister, one gets the first glimpse of the auditorium. Here, the rational geometry of the gatehouse is replaced by the auditorium’s abstract feel – a sense that is heightened by the building’s use of delicious creamy buff brick.
Aptly, surrounded on three sides by buildings, the auditorium, conceptually a garden pavilion, itself becomes the dramatic centre of attention. A long rectangle on plan, the building is partially submerged into the ground so as not to overwhelm the neighbouring buildings. Conventional cavity walling with brick facing is the main construction, although at openings the underlying concrete structure is clearly made visible. At either end, the plan is terminated in contrasting ways. On the eastern end lies a totally transparent, double-height, partially louvred glass foyer that extends across the width of the building. And on the western end, a stainless steel-clad, pod-like structure denotes the practice rooms on the first floor.
In stating their function clearly and contrasting successfully with the brickwork, both ends articulate the building’s form. Detailing the brickwork has let the designers express their evident enjoyment of brick, for there is a great deal of variety, particularly at openings. The L-shaped opening of the main entrance features a mass of brickwork that is seemingly supported by glass. This continues into the foyer where fair-faced finishes of brick, concrete, wood and Portland stone combine into a harmonious whole that is enhanced by the external backdrop of attractively landscaped gardens.
Elsewhere, window openings are designed to reveal the depth of the walling, so windows are recessed in as deeply as possible. Indeed, in the words of Paul Appleton, “the detail of openings in the brickwork encourages the impression of a fine-textured cloth draped over the structure”. The effect is particularly marked with slit windows that are only two bricks wide.
If there is a criticism, it is reserved for the lost opportunity – no doubt on cost grounds – of a few inches of water outside the glazed entrance foyer at the eastern end of the building. The resulting reflection would have done more to enhance the building and the atmosphere of the garden overall than the rather strange rush-like planting that has been installed.
That said, both buildings constitute fine contemporary architectural statements that are all the more noteworthy because they are constructed out of the traditional material of brick. It should come as no surprise therefore that this project was awarded Best Public Building and BDA Building of the Year in the 2005 Brick Awards.