Abode, Great Kneighton | Proctor and Matthews Architects

Abode at Great Kneighton is the initial phase of a major development adjacent to the new Addenbrookes Medipark on Cambridge city’s southern fringe which will provide around 2, 270 homes, extensive open space as well as education, sports and community facilities.

Abode consists of over 300 mixed-tenure homes (40% CFSH Level 4 Affordable Housing), focussed around a central ‘arrival’ square - a ‘Great Court,’ which absorbs the existing highways infrastructure and provides a gateway to the scheme.

Beyond lies a series of three storey saw-tooth terraced mews, whose materials (predominantly brick) borrow from the ‘Great Court’ aesthetic while their more modest scale begins the transition from the arrival zone to the rural edge. Each has garden space to the rear with a raised first floor terrace. A series of ‘landscape ribbons’ run through the terraces, providing pleasant shared spaces and linear routes from the ‘Great Court’ to the open countryside.

A further transition takes place to the north where the ‘Green Lanes’ adopt a more ‘village-like’ scale; a mix of two to five bedroom homes sit in loose clusters, each with private gardens and generous shared spaces. Here the aim is to achieve relaxed “urban erosion” at the boundary of the development.

A simple and controlled palette of materials is used throughout the development. All buildings share a base palette of “Cambridge” stock brickwork, highlighted in places with panels of textured brick. Other materials emphasise the sequence of building types: The ‘Great Court,’ is capped with a ‘frieze’ of stylised pollarded willows depicted within perforated metal cladding, while the ‘Green Lanes’ houses are timber clad referencing local vernacular farm buildings.