The Garden Room at Darwin College, University of Cambridge
The Garden Room at Darwin College, University of Cambridge
We acted as structural engineers for two phases of works at Darwin College: Cambridge University’s first college exclusively for postgraduate students and the first to admit both men and women.
The College's buildings include striking post-war buildings including a gatehouse, graduate accommodation, and a dining hall for the college, completed in 1969 and Grade II listed in 2023. Led by HKPA architect Bill Howell, the Rayne Building (named after benefactors the Rayne Foundation) and the Dining Hall were designed to blend unobtrusively with the existing historic buildings on the site and create a unified scheme.
In 2021, we began the first phase of work to improve student facilities and accessibility within the Rayne Building, in response to demands for new services and lifts for disabled access at the College, which comprises several different buildings added to and extended over several years. As a result of the impact these would have on the structure, the proposals were discussed from an early stage and we used sketching and sections through the structure to identify simplifications to service routes which would have a more modest effect on the existing structure.
We then worked with Caruso St John Architects on a second phase of works, which involved the design a new social space beneath the existing listed Dining Hall. Lightly enclosed, to take full advantage of its views of the College grounds, the Garden Room will naturally extend the ground floor of the College, creating a seamless relationship between Newnham Grange, the Rayne Building and the Hermitage.
The Dining Hall's environmental performance will be upgraded to minimise cooling requirements and heat losses, whilst a new plant room will be constructed to decarbonise the College, replacing its reliance on gas boilers with a river-source heat pump. The work thus supports the decarbonisation of the site, with measures such as improved glazing and insulation, sensitively incorporated into the historic fabric. Throughout the works, parts of the College will remain occupied and so the sequence of works and coordination with the proposed services has been a key consideration to enable a swift transfer from the existing plant room onto the new one.
Client: Darwin College, University of Cambridge
Architect: Caruso St John