Pembroke Mill Lane

Location: Cambridge

Brick Manufacturers: Reclaimed (provenance unknown)/ Coleford Brick and Tile

Brick Names: Reclaimed Brick (site salvaged) / Bespoke Special

Architect: Haworth Tompkins

Brickwork Contractor: Cocksedge Building Contractors Ltd

This project forms part of the most significant expansion of Pembroke College since the fourteenth century, providing a range of public and collegiate spaces within new and existing buildings, in a highly complex site in the historic city centre of Cambridge.

The existing site was densely planned, with a highly varied scale and character of predominantly brick-built buildings that reflected the historic evolution of uses from industrial and residential to University functions.

In the first Phase of the development, several historically significant brick buildings dating from the 16th to early 20th century have been restored and reconfigured around a new courtyard garden to provide fully accessible teaching, social and administrative spaces for the College. In addition, a listed former Church has been comprehensively refurbished to provide a new flexible auditorium for public, collegiate and University use. Connecting these existing buildings are a series of new-build interventions including: a three-storey brick ‘Gatehouse’ building on Trumpington Street; a timber-frame Foyer building adjacent to the former Church; and the two-storey Schoolhouse built in load-bearing site-salvaged brick.

The Gatehouse marks the primary public and collegiate entrance to the Mill Lane site, accessed via an external covered passageway that provides views to the new courtyard garden. Above the entrance is a double-height public Gallery space. The gatehouse is built in load-bearing red brick with lime mortar, with an expressed timber frame that recalls the discreet scale and simple structural expression of the historic Porters’ Lodge and introduces the language of the oak-framed foyer building beyond.

The linear Foyer is conceived as a simple, yet beautifully crafted space defined by an oak glulam structure that spans between the existing masonry buildings, describing a subtle arc in plan between the geometries of the found structures, which are left exposed. The foyer leads to the School House, which has been carefully altered and extended using a new oak timber frame and bricks reclaimed from the original building to form a two-storey social space accommodating a mezzanine study area, bar and supporting spaces. Within the new WCs, Staffordshire blue quarry tiles from Ketley brick are used for new floor finishes and skirtings.

The new buildings look out over a new Courtyard Garden framed by the existing brick buildings of 4 Mill Lane, 6 Mill Lane (Milstein House) and the listed Kenmare House, which have been comprehensively refurbished to accommodate new collegiate uses. Externally, poor quality extensions have been removed to re-frame the setting of these buildings, requiring careful conservation, repair and part-reconstruction of existing brick and terracotta facades. Internal interventions include new accessible entrances, new lifts and the reinstatement of existing rooms to their original historic proportions. The existing buildings have also been retrofitted with new double glazing, insulation and new service systems connected to the Phase 2 air source heat pumps, which enable the entire site to be heated and cooled via a new gas-free infrastructure. Overall the project has provided a series of flexible and climate resilient spaces within new and existing brick buildings.