Civil Engineering Building University of Cambridge, English Higher Education Architecture Photos
Civil Engineering Building at University of Cambridge
29 May 2022
Location: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, southeast England, United Kingdom
Design: Grimshaw with RHP

Photos by Paul Raftery
Civil Engineering Building University of Cambridge Design
Jury Report
The Civil Engineering Building is the first part of a move of the University?s engineering faculty from its current central location on Fen Causeway to the University?s West Cambridge site, where it incorporates the National Research Facility for Infrastructure. The building design is by Grimshaw.

At the heart of this new facility is the testing laboratory, featuring an extraordinary metre-thick concrete testing slab, isolated on dampers. Beneath this is what can only be described as a testing cave, from where it is possible to monitor testing of experiments in process. Adjacent to the main testing hall are ancillary laboratories, including a lab focussed on reducing the carbon content of concrete. Wrapped around these highly particular spaces are a series of research and collaboration spaces, culminating in a shared canteen and roof garden on the top floor. The client was very happy with the outcome and noted that the quality of shared spaces gave them much more variety of spaces and potential for collaboration and interaction than they have had previously.

The team have developed a framing system that is highly economic a...