Storey’s Field Centre & Eddington Nursery
Project Info
This 100-place nursery is arranged around three sides of a landscaped courtyard – on the fourth side is the civic scaled community centre, including a 180-seat main hall.
The principle rooms are lined in oak panelling. The main hall, influenced by the dining halls and chapels of Cambridge colleges, uses an exposed, articulated timber structure. The slender spruce glulam portal frames spring from the oak panelled base and pass in front of a backdrop of ash veneered panelling; the tones of the timber gradually lightening up the height of the space. A structural ceiling of layered ash joists, battens and veneered plywood conceals air extract routes for the hall’s passive ventilation strategy. The hall provides a venue for a range of activities and its acoustics can be adjusted to suit. At the west end, an ash spiral stair is a sculptural element wrapped by a curved veneered ash plywood balustrade. The nursery’s turret roofed classrooms are clad in western red cedar as are the soffits to the covered nursery cloister.
LocationCambridge
ArchitectMUMA
Structural EngineerAecom
Wood SupplierMarley Eternit, Brooks Bros, D F Richards, James Latham
ContractorFarrans Construction Ltd
SpeciesAmerican white ash, Canadian western red cedar, European oak, spruce
ClientUniversity of Cambridge
JoineryC W Fields, M Borley & Sons Joinery Ltd
Structural Framen’H International Ltd
Stair ManufacturerSpiral UK Ltd, David Gilbert Joinery Ltd