With a wonderful endowment from Ray Dolby, and an opportunity to expand the College into an adjacent site, Pembroke College asked us to help it find exceptional architects for a truly unique project, right in the heart of Cambridge's city-centre.
The project
The redevelopment of the Old Press Mill Lane site offered Pembroke a unique opportunity to expand the College despite its location in the heart of the city centre. The project aimed to create a new residential court for the College, as well as to restore a number of historic buildings facing the existing College. The significant expansion provides space for new graduate accommodation, teaching spaces, and publicly accessible facilities including a new gallery and a performance venue within the former Emmanuel United Reformed Church.
Importantly for Pembroke, the buildings will be linked by new open spaces that continue and extend the language of the College's distinctive gardens.
Updates
The project is now live. Planning approval has been granted and a start on site is expected in Autumn 2020.
The competition winner
The competition was won by Haworth Tompkins Architects
Other shortlisted practices included:
Competition process
This invited competition was formatted as a competitive interview. No specific designs were requested, as the College was looking for an architect with whom it could develop design ideas, in collaboration.
Starting with a long list of around 40 practices offered by Colander, the College looked in more detail at 20 firms, which were considered against a set of agreed criteria. In the end, 12 firms were invited to submit an expression of interest.
Members of the College, including academic staff as well as the estates team, and representatives of the University, shortlisted five firms. These were invited to complete a tender document, and give an insight into their architectural aspirations for the project, also to attend an interview.
Following interviews, references were taken and a winner appointed.
Our involvement
- Designing the right competitive process
- Researching and identifying potential competitors to invite
- Helping the client reach its shortlist of invited competitors
- Writing the competition rules
- Planning the competition timetable and budget to meet client requirements
- Acting as point of contact for the competition
- Ensuring a clear and ethical process
- Briefing the jury panel
- Briefing competitors
- Managing the competitive process
- Advising on and then managing the scoring/evaluation procedures
- Arranging and facilitating interviews and presentations
- Taking references
- Creating an audit trail
- Competition administration
- Debriefing and follow up
"When we set about the process of choosing an architect for our major and transformational College project, Caroline Cole was a lifesaver. She held our hand through the whole process, from expressions of interest to longlist to shortlist to interviews to selection. Without her, we’d have been lost. In the end, we emerged with exactly the right choice, and we haven’t regretted it for a moment since."
— Lord Smith of Finsbury, Master of Pembroke College