COURTYARD SUBVERSION | CAMBRIDGE COLLEGE OF DATA ETHICS | CAMBRIDGE, UK
Following the tarnishing of Cambridge University’s reputation from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the private and introverted realm of the college courtyard is subverted to form a new Cambridge College dedicated towards data ethics, transparency and public outreach. The courtyards themselves become a new public realm and thoroughfare, above which sprouts
a research facility in cantileverd post-tensioned stone; the structural language of the beams, visible as the underbelly of the cantilevered floors, draws its logic from the gothic tracery of the surrounding architectural facades. The private courtyard is elevated to the roof level of the inhabiting structure.
Gothic tracery from the surrounding facades is re-interpreted as a structural and articulative logic within the exposed concrete floor slabs. Beams sub-divide closer to points of support, concentrating the structural slab where it is most needed. The result is a somewhat ornamental and horizontal articulation to the interstitial space, a subversion of the theological foundations in which the vertical articulation of gothic architecture aspired to.
The articulation of the building’s ‘underbelly’, in the form of gothic tracery-inspired ribbed beams, informs the treatment of the facade. Columns are articulated on the facade as a continuation of the major beams that run across the floor, forming voids for windows between. The transfer beams extend along the cantilever as a stepped ‘book end’ condition.
The cantilevered massing is elevated above the sculpted ground plane, supported symbolically upon a handful of large monumental stone columns. Sightlines pass through and beneath the structure, maintaining visual continuity across the courtyard, whilst the stepped cantilever form allow the historical facades to remain ever-present from within the courtyard, forming an ‘interstitial space’ between the courtyard and the new proposal.
