UK-based practise Alison Brooks Architects has recently won the competition to design the new Entrance Building and Children’s Literature Resource Centre for Homerton, the biggest college in Cambridge. Described by the architects as a “lantern”, the proposal is a three-storey mass-timber framed pavilion which will welcome visitors to the grounds while also providing additional study and exhibition space. Through its morphology and copper-clad facades of the upper floors, the new building establishes a dialogue with its context and provides a flexible space that can accommodate the College’s future spatial needs.
Homerton is Cambridge’s newest college, having moved its activity here in 1894. Attendee by over 1300 students, the college needed a new entrance to serve its community, together with a Porters Lodge and an expansion of the College Library. Through its large verandah, copper-clad façade, and embossed details at the interior, the design proposed by Alison Brooks Architects takes inspiration from the Arts& Crafts legacy of the Homerton College campus.
We’re delighted with this opportunity to design Homerton College’s new Entrance Building and Children’s Literature Resource Centre as a welcoming ‘lantern’ and multi-purpose hub for the College’s communities. We’re very much inspired by Homerton’s campus and its arts and crafts legacy. We look forward to producing its first net-zero mass timber building. - Alison Brooks, Founder and Creative Director of Alison Brooks Architects
The ground floor features a large foyer that connects to the existing Library Building through a covered outdoor “green corridor” lined with climbing plants. The first floor is dedicated to the Children’s Literature Resource Centre, while the upper level hosts the Book Storage Archive. The arched windows, the curves connecting the veranda with the upper volume, and the cornice detail are reinterpretations of various elements featured in the surrounding architecture.
- Size: 675 m²
- Architect: Alison Brooks Architects
- Landscape Architect: Vogt
- Structural Engineers: Price and Myers
- Services & Environmental Design: Skelly and Couch
