PROJECT REPORT: EDUCATION & RESEARCH FACILITIES 31
WEST HUB UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Open to new ideas
Breaking the mould as a highly flexible coworking space open to the whole of Cambridge University, Jestico + Whiles’ socially-focused building helps present a more public face while supporting new collaborations
A Photos © Ståle Eriksen
lthough only a couple of miles from the heart of Cambridge and its historic colleges, the departments and faculties in the University’s West Cambridge Site felt slightly out on a limb, and sorely lacking in social facilities. However a groundbreaking new building for the eminent educational body, purpose- designed as an open coworking and social space for anyone within the University, and the wider public, has changed that. The West Cambridge Site, which has housed a variety of research-oriented science and engineering departments since the 1960s, is to see a “radical transformation,” say architects Jestico + Whiles, which is hoped to turn it into a new “lively destination quarter” in the city – the West Cambridge Innovation District. The “home for research and enterprise,” it will have buildings interspersed by pedestrianised plazas, central gardens, lakes and urban orchards. The £40m West Hub, which was designed by the practice and opened in April 2022, is key to the district, with the client briefing it to be a “unique meeting place for people to connect and socialise.” It marks a new approach by the university to learning spaces and shared-used resources. Open and accessible to anyone from 8am to 9pm Monday to Friday, the Hub “enables new ways for academics, researchers, students,
businesses and the wider community to share, learn and collaborate.”
The site – including the soon to complete Ray Dolby Centre, also designed by Jestico + Whiles and which will be the centrepiece of the Cavendish Laboratory – is a focal point for research in technology and the physical sciences. The ‘Cambridge Cluster’ is the name given to over 5,300 firms centred around the university, which generate £18bn in turnover.
Signalling the three-storey development’s important new social role in the community as well as the university, it includes the first bar on the West Cambridge Site, as well as a shop and cafeteria. Anna Steeden, operations manager at the West Hub, comments on the brief for this unusual scheme: “It was designed from the ground floor up with people in mind. Above all it is a place of collaboration and co- working, designed to foster connectivity and serendipitous ‘collisions’ that spark new ideas. Its flexibility means its spaces can be configured to meet the daily needs of all users – students, staff, and the wider community.” She adds that its external amenities in particular “bring a new vibrancy to the site.”
Much of the accommodation will be used for research collaborations between the university and industry, but will also provide additional learning space. The West
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