Historic mills inform "super-robust" housing in Cambridge by Alison Brooks Architects

The brick facades of 19th-century mill buildings informed the design of the Rubicon housing in Cambridge by London studio Alison Brooks Architects.

Located on the edge of the 150-hectare Eddington masterplan in northwest Cambridge, the cycle-friendly Rubicon scheme comprises 186 homes across five buildings.

Alison Brooks Architects drew on the language of Cambridge's famous university quadrangles and its 19th-century mill and warehouse buildings for the design, which is intended as a gateway between the more urban quality of Eddington and its rural surroundings.

"The University of Cambridge client saw our site as a new front door to Eddington and an opportunity to welcome an exception from the masterplan norm," founder Alison Brooks told Dezeen.

"The core urban design concept for this site was, therefore, to clearly define where the rural ends and the new urban neighbourhood of Eddington in Cambridge begins," she added.

"We reconceived Britain's 19th-century mill buildings as mid-rise, live-work, cycle-friendly warehouses, softened with landscaped courts, curved corners and undulating roofs."

Positioned on a long, narrow site between the masterplan to the north and wetlands to the south, the five housing blocks are divided by courtyards that maximise natural light and provide each with a communal external space.

Approximately 35 per cent of the homes are designated as university and key-worker housing.

An L-shaped block hugs the eastern end of the site, while to the west, a courtyard block references Cambridge's quadrangles. In between, the three central blocks feature stepped plans to maximise light and views, given the site's narrow depth.

Informed by these historic buildings as well as Eddington's existing architecture, each of Rubicon's five blocks is finished with glazed tiles.

The colour palette used for the tiles, which ranges from green and yellow to light blue and silvery grey, is drawn from the surrounding landscape.

"Our material choices respond to its buff brick-clad neighbours, including buildings by Mecanoo and Mole Architects, with super-robust glazed brick in the spirit of its warehouse ancestors," explained Brooks.

"Between each building, landscaped courtyards serve as social spaces, storing bicycles, harvesting rainwater and acting as communal balconies to the wetlands beyond."

At the front of each Rubicon block is a semi-public co-working foyer described by the studio as a "third space" intended for social gatherings and events.

Deeply recessed south-facing balconies offer views across the wetland while providing shelter from the sun. Balconies overlooking the street to the north project over a paved path, which is separated from the road by an area of planting.

A gently undulating, 75-metre-long roof profile unites all of the blocks, reflected internally in sloping ceilings that create voluminous top-floor apartments.

Alongside Rubicon, other housing projects in Eddington include yellow-brick homes by Mecanoo that are finished with unarranged white windows and a series of pale-brick blocks by Stanton Williams.

Alison Brooks Architects was founded by Brooks in London in 1996. Previous residential projects by the studio include the terracotta One Ashley Road towers.

The photography is by Hufton + Crow unless stated otherwise. 

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