Futures of the Estate
Introducing the winning entries for the Futures of the Estate competition
Futures of the Estate is a design competition created by student volunteers in association with the SU Welfare & Community Officer. The competition invites people to produce a concept relating to a space within the University of Cambridge estate. Participants could use a medium of their choice to bring their vision to life – including (and not limited to) drawings, paintings, videos, and written concept. The competition attracted many thoughtful and creative entries from students, academic staff, societies, and local residents from Cambridge.
Three winners were selected for the top three imaginings: Best joint submission (£600), Best society/organisation submission (£600), and Best individual submission (£300). The competition is designed to foster collaboration, care and imagination. The entries must consider six Reshaping our Estate principles: 1) Create high quality spaces that support staff and students to do their best work. 2) Develop a smaller estate with more shared space (including with the city and its communities). 3) Consider how to make the most of existing spaces before building new ones. 4) Support teams across the University to adopt new ways of working. 5) Develop a financially and environmentally sustainable estate. 6) Protect and promote our built and cultural heritage.
Best Joint Submission: ‘The Big Table’
by Alex (Gushurst-Moore) and Stephen du Plessis
When I first moved to Cambridge, I lived next to Coe Fen and developed a lot of my conceptions about Cambridge there. I like(d and continue to like) that this section of space is common land, commonly owned. In the summer, you find all manner of people by the banks of the river: students, staff, community members, tourists and, I think, it is a unique space in Cambridge in that it has become a natural communion point for the city. It is also an equalising space - everyone belongs there, and it is owned by everyone.
During the pandemic, I had enquired about the use of Mill Lane Studios for the business I owned at the time - it seemed like a prime nexus point for engaging with diverse audiences. So, it was a natural choice when thinking about this brief.
My partner and I grabbed a pint at The Mill and pondered what this space could look like when interrogated against the principles of this project; we thought about our own lives as a young couple living in the city, not affiliated to any college, but deeply involved in the life of the university and the city. We imagined a space that was responsive to people, both as a space for staff, students, and the public, but also an opportunity for employment: a space is optimised by the people who inhabit it.
photos and sketch by Alex (Gushurst-Moore) and Stephen du PlessisThe concept is named “the big table”: the space in the home around which much activity is done. Work: plant potting, art making, child rearing, idea making, plan forming, celebration hosting, friendship forging, bill paying, note taking. There are many big tables in this plan: designed to be spaces for presenting, collaborating, and making.
Within this concept, there are three further principles: homeliness (facilitated through an offering of food and a temporary residence for in-house fellows), welcome (generated by the presence of porters and a diverse events programme), and transparency (ensured by open spaces designed to encourage learning by watching and a (not visualised here) digital hub that is an online corollary to Mill Lane Studios where the building offering is clarified and advertised). This would be a meeting point for the community, naturally formed around a rotating in-house fellow who could live and work in the building, in an environment designed to be participatory.
It would be a research-led environment conceived to be open to everyone, where everyone was encouraged to feel “at home” and part of the group. It is multifunctional: as appropriate for an early years workshop as for a late night poetry slam, events that would be woven into the life of the studios and the collective output of the community it houses.
What the judges said: A small scale project with a big scope. Bridging town and gown, the Big Table Concept reimagines and repurposes existing space, facilitating different activities and bringing communities together. Like the Cambridge Room, the concept is rooted in physical space in which people can congregate, create, and discuss. The concept recognises the importance of common land and space, places where everyone can belong, and this principle should be central in our reshaping of the University Estate. The concept is specific: noticing a place which has potential to be home to a diverse range of activities and crafts. Applied more broadly, this specific, and careful repurposing of buildings across the University Estate could make a huge difference to the wellbeing of student, staff, and other communities in the city.
Best Society Submission: ‘A SHED’
by SHED
We are founded on the principle that all members of the University - academics and students alike - should have a space to share with one another and it is only through this sharing that it is possible to reshape what we call ‘literature’.
SHED is based out of the Caius estate and using the support we have from fellows, we are able to give students access into rooms from which they have been previously excluded. This has worked to generate energy around the events as they promise a breaking down of the typical academic-student formality; SHED is a place all come to share, and all discuss together afterwards. We are situated in a building, but we are made up of people, and it is the collaboration between people which allows us to garner such support and positivity. We want these bounds to extend outside of the University and are looking to invite local artists such as John McGill, Dennis Goldsmith, and Andy Dakin. We are also looking to invite speakers from around Cambridge and the UK to bring the nationwide literary scene into Cambridge.
Our entry is a collage of our poster, from the initial design, and feedback we have had from events. In the spirit of our readings, we wanted to design something that would represent the collection of voices that form SHED - which make SHED what it is. The collage is a fantastic medium to accommodate: voices and images together under the estates in Caius we hope to reshape as SHED.
poster by SHEDWhat the judges said: An innovative and unusual entry proposing spaces which facilitate emotional support and community. Spaces in which students from different colleges can mix and connect are sometimes lacking, and A SHED is both a physical space and an evolving community and inventory of experiences. The proposal creates digital infrastructure to accompany the physical space. This is not a classroom but does facilitate learning, creative encounters and the sharing of moments which make time in Cambridge special.
Best Individual Submission: ‘The Cambridge River Liver’
by Torsten Sherwood
WHAT
The Cambridge 'River Liver'... a series of designated plunge pools and swimming spots which are safely 'cornered off' from the main traffic of the river by a floating barrier of water cleaning aquatic plants and bi-valves (that’s freshwater filter feeders like clams, muscles and oysters). While legally designating the River Cam as 'Bathing Water' would force Anglian Water to achieve a water quality of ‘good’ or ‘excellent’; the aquatic plants and bi-valves would actively clean the river too ... all while allowing us to maximise our enjoyment of the river.
Good news for the Gown, Town, and River too.
illustration by Torsten SherwoodWHY
Maybe the most underused part of the 'Cambridge Estate', has got to be the Cam... not of course surprising, given that most people wouldn't dare dip a toe in it...
"High levels of faecal bacteria found in River Cam"
Varsity - November 15 2021,
"Students warned to stop swimming in Cam after ‘rare waterborne infection’ reported"
Varsity - June 30 2022
Bathing Water Designation
"Cllr Katie Thornburrow (Lab, Petersfield) says that “designation would bring tangible benefits to the health of the river and city residents. Such a move “imposes a legal obligation on Anglian Water to reduce sewage pollution in the area concerned until the level ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ is reached, requires the Environment Agency to test the water regularly during the bathing season in order to produce an annual classification of ‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘sufficient’ or ‘poor’, this requires the local council and agencies to publish the annual water quality classification, and can help residents enjoy the benefits of wild swimming, reducing stress, and improving wellbeing, fitness and contact with nature”.
Tests of River Cam water by the Cam Valley Forum reveal that during dry weather the majority of flowing water in the river can be composed of effluent from the sewage works. If water at a designated bathing area is judged to be ‘poor’ by the Environment Agency, this could trigger funding being made available to Anglian Water by Ofwat to install disinfection equipment at the sewage works. Although having an average of 100 bathers per day is a requirement for an area to be given designated bathing area status," A spokesperson for the Cam Valley Forum said: “Positive action by Anglian Water based on Sheep’s Green designation will undoubtedly benefit all the river downstream of Haslingfield including Grantchester Meadows and the popular Newnham Riverside Club. So, neither of these sites will lose out even though they will not have their own designation. “Worryingly, without an application for designation at Sheep’s Green, the sequence of events leading potentially to disinfection at Anglian Water’s works cannot happen. Ofwat has a procedure in place to follow, and it starts with designation. That is the reality of the regulatory position.”
Cambridge Independent, 20 July 2023
What the judges said: An entry which embodies all the principles of the competition, and opening up new possibilities for community activities. It is a relatively small intervention but a timely proposal, offering an alternative to the polluted and unsafe River Cam we hear so much about in the news. The Cam is a key part of the city’s heritage and sustenance, cherished by people who live in and visit the city alike. Making the river safe to swim in again, while opening up University spaces to the community, reminds us of the value of shared natural environments. The River Liver challenges divisions in the city and imagines a future in which everyone can swim.
Shortlisted entries:
Isabella Cross, To Restoration and Community
Many of my most treasured memories from University were moments of peace spent outside. Tea breaks in college gardens watching the flowers change with seasons, walks along the river, sleeping on greens and swimming in Grantchester. Many green spaces in Cambridge are owned by Colleges, not the University as such - which in itself is a method of obfuscation of land ownership employed by the University. It saddens me that a joy which was afforded to me through membership to an elite institution gave me access to tranquility directly at the expense and exclusion of others. This project aims to rectify that. ‘Safety’ concerns are often cited as an excuse for exclusion, deliberately erasing the violence in which people connected to, living mutually with the land were displaced and dispossessed by the University. Furthermore, I have experienced some of the worst interpersonal violence in my life, all from within the walls of the University. When I speak of walls I don’t just mean the physical spatial area of towering walls and huge old doors only responsive to a bit of plastic that signifies your permission to exist in that space, but the social walls that the institution of Cambridge deploys to protect those who commit violence from accountability. I fundamentally see the opening of space to the community as one part of healing from this violence. Transparency and access go hand in hand. Healing is a communal process, and we need the space to breathe and rest to do so.
collage by Isabella CrossWhat the judges said: A warm and bold vision of how the University could welcome people into its spaces, through opening up existing spaces to community participation and imagination.
Eliana Dyer-Fernandes, Reassembling the Fitzwilliam Museum
Tranquillity, refuge and community are all pleasured moments at the University of Cambridge. A space where a variety of actors come together to share ideas and learn from each other. Located amongst the chaotic streets of Cambridge, the Fitzwilliam Museum offers a free place for the community to enjoy the rich artworks and thought-provoking exhibitions which challenge the tensions of belonging. Seen as a form of art-therapy the artworks allow moments of contemplation and inner relaxation, a rarity in the urban landscape.
This submission accentuates these moments by reassembling the museum to allow for the cities inhabitants to connect with the art and nature that surrounding the building. A new accessible learning area extending from the neglected rear of the museum provides an uplifting space for education. This proposal questions the role of architects and construction by deconstructing the 2010’s entrance and reusing the materials as a starting point for this design. Working with the limits of the materials to hand, the reassembling of the museum acts as a catalyst for the community to work together in this participatory project in order to better their surrounding environments and the universities estate. The community will find ways to design and develop this proposal with the existing materials as a starting point for this important conversation.
illustration and model by Eliana Dyer-FernandesWhat the judges said: An intricate and engaging reimaging of the Fitzwilliam Museum, exploring how the museum could be more inclusive, accessible and bold.
Cambridge SU
Cambridge SU is the representative body for all students at the University of Cambridge. They are committed to community-building, and ensuring that all students have a say in the future of our University. They will be hosting pop up events across the city over the course of Lent Term in support of the competition.
Reshaping Our Estate
Reshaping Our Estate is a strategic programme that aims to create a University of Cambridge estate that is more efficient, more effective, more environmentally sustainable, and fit-for purpose which celebrates the past and looks to the future. Since June 2023, Reshaping our Estate has been working with the academic community to establish the facts across the estate, understanding how space is used with the aim to present opportunities to consider that will, over time, create a place which will substantially improve the staff/student experience and, deliver a fit-for-purpose estate that is environmentally sustainable and delivers value for money. The Reshaping our Estate programme team will deliver a strategic framework to support the development of a 20-year Capital Plan, which will be submitted to the University Council by July summer 2024. The competition is financially supported by Reshaping our Estate and all entries will be shared with the programme to support the Lent term consultation work.
Contact us
If you feel inspired by these proposals and want to share your ideas and/or views, please feel free to send us a message at thecambridgeroom@gmail.com