RIBA East and four Cambridge-based architects worked with Bottisham Village College through the spring and summer terms to provide an architectural strand for the Lottery Funded Project celebrating the 80th anniversary of Bottisham Village College.
The project included working with around 20 volunteer students to:
- Create a scale model of the current school
- Complete a site analysis to ensure that any new proposals for the school fitted into the campus and complemented neighbouring buildings
- Design infill buildings and build 3D models of them - taking into account the landscaping, use, sustainability, materials and scale
- Create work books showing other building examples to scale, use CAD and research ideas and exemplars
As part of the background research an archive expert gave the group a tour of Bottisham Village College, exploring available archive records and discussing the design features of the school used in each era and what ideas might lie behind them.
Students visited the Gropius-designed Grade I, Impington Village College. The tour was led by heritage experts, Beacon Planning, who had previously completed a structural survey of the school. Finally, DLA Design completed a workshop with the students based on their design of the new extension of Bottisham VC. The students then toured the building extension whilst still under construction, where Morgan Sindall site manager ran a Q&A session.
The students' work was exhibited at the 80th anniversary event at the school on 3 November, along with the other strands of the project. Also screened was an excellent film about Project 80 - including a section on the architecture strand which you can watch at around 15 minutes in.
Our thanks go to Cambridge Association of Architects, for their support, and to the Workshop Leaders - Ann Bassett, Cowper Griffiths Architects; Quratulain Hafeez; Sabin Anca, State of Design Ltd; and Brian Scally, Blue Ink Architecture - for all their time and effort.
We also thank our Tour Leaders Graeme Jenkins, Morgan Sindall; Gemma Loving and Mark Hargrieves, DLA Design; and Charmain Hawkins, Beacon Planning.
