The Trent Park Campus is within Greenbelt, a conservation area and a listed, but neglected, landscape. The strategic development plan provides significant new build accommodation within an integrated and improved landscape. The plan arose from user consultation and, together with extensive discussions with the authorities, resulted in a coherent framework for development. In addition, the practice produced an Environmental Impact Assessment involving a full team of specialists. Our philosophy was to celebrate the role of buildings as ‘place-makers’ – architecture which is located within a holistic design solution that encompasses its wider impact on its surroundings. In addition to massing studies, we developed ‘tolerant’ briefs which include identification of design criteria such as infrastructure needs, access and accessibility, sustainability, visual impact and unique site characteristics. The proposals were also grounded in the establishment of space-planning norms for differing types of accommodation. Spaces were re-zoned to ensure appropriate space use and to ‘fix’ highly serviced elements with more tolerant ‘buffer’ spaces located nearby to facilitate future change in learning needs.
"The project team developed a sensitive, innovative and elegant scheme which recognised and restored much of the original park-land layout, managed to retain, with innovative 'enclosing', some of the recent accommodation and provided much needed new."
Richard Berry,
Head of Technical Arts,
Middlesex University
