Dr Philip Graham - Director of Studies for Architecture and Design - reports on masterplan presentations by final year architecture students taking Homerton as their year-long design project
Real problems. Real consultation. Really daunting! But also really rare in an architect’s education for students to have the chance to consult and then present their designs as if for a real, live project.
This year, Homerton College has welcomed Studio 1 - a final year group of 17 architecture students from multiple colleges - to consult and propose new masterplan layouts for a 21st century collegiate learning environment. After spending Michaelmas studying college layouts across Cambridge before proposing ideas for Homerton itself, the students took over our weekly ’Tuesday Conversation’ (part of Homerton’s Changemakers programme) on 28th January to generously and professionally present their ideas.
The Michaelmas consultation exercise and the background to the project were described in a previous article - ‘Listen first. Design later.’ -but the ideas they presented last month deserve a follow-up.
It was important to open the evening by reminding the audience that design takes courage. This is because to design well is to consult, reflect, commit unseen (and often abortive) hours, before projecting a set of values, aspirations or criticisms onto relative strangers in a public setting and inviting their criticism. It takes more courage still to present to an audience of over 60 people in the Great Hall comprising postgraduates, undergraduates, fellows, Principal, and representatives from catering, the library and the porter team.
As well as the college wide audience, we welcomed some members of the neighbouring public and the students’ studio tutors, Sarah Hare and Richard Lavington. Then, to add some specialist feedback to the discussion, we invited experts in community consultation (Dr Ruchit Purohit and head of architecture, Prof. Flora Samuel) and in environmentally-led masterplanning (Roddy Langmuir - practice leader at Cullinan Studio and a long-time colleague of the author). The 1.5h-long session was opened by Principal, Simon Woolley, whose trust and appetite for new ideas is what originally opened the door to the project.
To contextualise their work, the students first gave an overview of other Cambridge college layouts: some acting as a gateway to expansive landscapes beyond (St John’s and Downing); some using courtyards to frame a series of contrasting landscapes (Christ’s, Gonville and Caius, and Magdalene); and some sitting within parkland settings (Murray Edwards and Robinson). Homerton has several of these landscape and parkland features, but without the courtyard device or street-edge framing. A future study could diagram each example in a matching style and might include Fitzwilliam College - a case study that was rightly raised by an audience member with a long view on Homerton’s past estates planning.
Turning to the analysis of Homerton itself, the students raised a laugh by asking “Where is the entrance to Homerton?”. It soon became evident that this question has caused the greatest challenge to the students' design work, as explained through their highly professional, six-part presentation. Their set of slide slides (see link) shows the ideas as presented last month, organised around six themes:
- ‘Frontage’ - where the most interesting ideas proposed new courtyards to organise an arrival sequence from the Hills Road (e.g. p23-24) - in at least one case leading to an axial, tree-lined avenue (p20).
- ‘Open space and landscape’ - where Homerton’s lawns were recast as gardens and wayfinding devices (p32) to encourage more nature, better use by College members, a greater intensity of growing beds and easier navigation around the College.
- ‘Walkways’ - including ideas for a covered route and a boardwalk across the pond and wilder parts of the grounds (p40).
- ‘Harrison Drive and the Cavendish Building’ - depicting more formalised, northern entrances instead of gated-off side doors (p46), and - through plan analysis - an opening up of the old kitchens to improve wayfinding around the back of the Great Hall.
- ‘Beyond the dining hall’ - highlighting opportunities for sports, social and wilder places given some relocation of the car parking.
- ‘New and relocating uses’ - anticipating future growth and suitable typologies and scales to increase the accommodation provision.
The Q&A discussion that followed the 1 hour presentation had to be ended before it ran on into formal hall dinner. Amongst the feedback was an observation that the various schemes gave a sense of a ‘college village’ - a new and more dynamic, sociable, non-hierarchical take on the traditional college layout. Architect Roddy Langmuir concluded with the observation that ‘town hall style’ feedback events like these allow consultees to hear other views, and in this way understand the role of design as a mediating process.
Reflecting on the experience, one student described her shift in design motivation due to the involvement of real clients: “Hearing their feedback during our subsequent presentation, and seeing them recognise their own contributions to the project, was incredibly rewarding." Another - a Homerton student - reflected that, “Engaging with real clients helped highlight the importance of collaboration and understanding the needs of those who will use the spaces we create.”
As a result of our investment of time and the students’ remarkable endeavour, Homerton now has the benefit of 17 sets of masterplan ideas to mull that could inform (or challenge) future thinking. The students’ next step is to each design a single, special space in the College before turning to proposals for a building or buildings at Homerton for their final portfolio submission. These may be new or reused buildings within their masterplan layouts. Watch this space.
Inclusive Living and Learning: Homerton Masterplanning slide show
