Cambridge Science Park presents new plans to councillors

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

An update on my blogpost (see here) from a few months ago when I went to their consultation.

You can watch the presentation from CSP representatives here

For those of you only interested in the Qs that your councillors asked, see here

You can also browse their exhibition boards from their September events here

The bit that I liked in the consultation was the proposed construction of the long-delayed Cambridge Sports Lakes.

Above – the proposed Green Loop (presumably an active travel link) would connect the CSP North (in the white blocks in the middle) to the long overdue Milton Rowing Lake – which you can read more about at https://www.cambridgesportlakes.org.uk/.

*Who will the park be for?*

Above – screengrab from a blurred video presentation from around 52 mins here.

The words in the diagram above state that the revamped site will be for:

  • Residents and their guests – to meet, relax and seek inspiration from a design built upon scientific principles
  • Local children – to visit, play and learn between trees, in the water and alongside science and nature
  • Cambridge people – to enjoy the wonders of science, art and entertainment in a beautiful, landscaped, interconnecting green space

Which is splendid. In principle. The next challenge will be for the politicians and transport engineers to come up with a means for people on the opposite side of the city (i.e. my side of town!) to get there by public transport far more quickly and comfortably than is at present.

Spatial issues – critiquing urban design of previous generations

With apologies for the blurred screengrab, the urban designers have worked out that the science park isn’t that pleasant to walk around – especially on a cold windy day! There’s an extended research project for any older teenagers out there if they want to compare the design principles of the Cambridge Science Park in the 20th Century compared with what is being put forward in 2025.

The three core design principles are:

  • Opening up the park to the city
  • Enhancing the landscape as a centrepiece
  • Considerate intensification – noting that low density employment sites mean that supporting services and facilities are unsustainable.

The six spatial strategies they have are:

  • Permeable – i,e, it should be more accessible to neighbours than at present
  • Clustered
  • Vibrant
  • Connected
  • Natural
  • Defined

At present the site doesn’t feel like it meets any of those! It feels like a disparate set of discrete buildings with little in common, separated by large car parks. As with so many other employment parks the distance between the different buildings makes for pointless extended walks to what can feel like the middle of nowhere. Especially if there are no amenities in between. This was one of my big complaints about council meetings located at South Cambridgeshire Hall, one of my least favourite buildings in the world.

Because many people currently go there for employment or functional purposes – i.e. not for leisure and enjoyment, and because science park architecture is generally dull, grey, unimaginative, minimalist and uninspiring, walking through them is not nearly as pleasurable as the architects and urban designers might think it is.

It’s only the recent discoveries in the field of neuroarchitecture that is beginning to force the professions to reassess their assumptions. One of the many reasons I hardly ever go to the Cambridge Science Park is because the building design and urban design makes me feel ill with mental stress.

Above – Carbuncle-tastic. Ugly grey things at the guided busway bus stop

Which is why I find their ambitions for creating a new generation of architecture as splendid and awe-inspiring as the centuries-old college chapels and court yards in the city centre to be somewhat laughable given the profession’s and the industry’s record over the past three quarters of a century. We’re far more likely to get dull bland grey minimalist boxes combined with a saturation advertising campaign alongside lots of industry awards to persuade the public that what they think is ugly is actually beautiful architecture!

Above: “Now there is an opportunity for edge sites to be as memorable as the historic core”

Memorable – for the same reasons? Or for the opposite ones?

Above – what Commercial Estates Group wants to build on the south-eastern edge of Cambridge around the Babraham Road Park and Ride.

In the meantime in North Cambridgeshire, there’s another science park application

This time it is at Whittlesey near Peterborough which CambsNews covered here. The scale of the development – converting an old brickworks into a large science park seemed to generate enough local controversy that someone lobbied the Housing Secretary to intervene and block any decision while ministers decide whether to call in the application or not. Just before Fenland District Council’s planning committee were due to determine the application. As it turned out the councillors debated the application and formed an opinion saying they were minded to approve the application anyway. It will be interesting to see if ministers follow through and decide to open a public inquiry, or if they decide it can go back to the local council to rubber-stamp their minded-to-approve decision.

I hope we’re not getting to a stage where ministers feel compelled to call in every science park application that comes in!

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to: