JESUS COLLEGE COMPLETION
MAY 2017
We are delighted that our West Court development project for Jesus College Cambridge has achieved practical completion. All new and refurbished buildings have been handed over to the College and are in full use. West Court is home to the new Jesus College Intellectual Forum which, in conjunction with the Cambridge Refugee Resettlement Campaign and Cambridge City of Sanctuary, will host a seminar in the new Lecture Hall entitled “Acting locally and thinking globally: how can cities and regions respond to refugees and forced migrants?”. The event takes place on 21st June and free tickets are available from Eventbrite.
BALLIOL FACADE TRIP
APRIL 2017
We are working on new student residential buildings for Balliol College, Oxford. As part of the detailed design development we have been working with a façade sub-contractor based in Belgium, and recently made a visit to their manufacturing factories. The itinerary for the day – a design workshop, a factory tour and a review of samples. Lots of coffee after an early Eurostar, and a good lunch.
There had been several similar design workshops before; where gathered around the meeting table, sketches were scattered as we questioned the architectural intent and the construction details equally. Brick samples sat in front of us, books piled up with precedents opened, past project drawings and models pulled out for reference. How to compose the language to create a calm and unified façade across the site. The engineers, the architects, the craftsmen who will build the façade.
These sorts of discussion are an aspect of everyday practice, and incredibly valuable part of the process – marrying the conversations of design aspiration with the actual making of. The bricks and mortar that see the architecture delivered from the paper to the physical form.