Grafton Architects’ proposal will replace 1970s-built structure

Grafton Architects has submitted plans to replace a 1970s library at Christ’s College Cambridge with a four-storey building designed to last for at least 200 years.

The 2021 Stirling Prize winner filed a main application and a counterpart for listed building consent with Cambridge council earlier this month, just over a year after winning an architectural competition to design the scheme.

The proposals by the Irish practice will see the narrow site’s existing building, which serves as an extension to the college’s main library, demolished to make way for a new scheme connecting the college’s study, eating and socialising areas.

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How the scheme will look when completed

The project team includes Ridge as project manager, CB3 on costs, Smith & Wallwork Engineers as structural and civil engineer, Turley on planning and heritage, Sweco on ecology and Hayes Davidson on visualisation.

The replaces a former consent for the site designed by Rick Mather Architects which was approved in 2011 and updated in 2016. These plans were later scrapped by Christ’s College, which said its needs had “changed and grown”.

The college also asked for a total of 180 new seat spaces, up to 2.5km of shelving space, meeting rooms, librarian’s offices, step free access and a link to the adjoining 16th century Bodley Library.

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The new library will replace a 1970s-built structure

The proposals also feature a series of small courtyards and gardens including a ‘Darwinian vivarium” in a space overlooked by a room once occupied by Charles Darwin.

Fox Fearnley Landscape Office is landscape architect and Caroe is conservation architect.