Storey's Field Community Centre and Nursery

A joint venture by the University of Cambridge and Cambridge City Council, Storey’s Field offers Eddington residents an important multi-use space and a place of civic pride. The £8.3 million project was informed by months of consultancy with the local community.

The Eddington community now benefits from an architecturally impressive, versatile and practical space that can host weddings, memorial services, music concerts, art exhibitions, film screenings, parties, meetings, exercise classes and more. The local children also enjoy a private and secure nursery space where they can play and explore.

The Challenge

Inspired by the college cloisters and courts of Cambridge, the design of every environment within the Storey’s Field Community Centre and Nursery was carefully considered.

The architects were challenged with creating a sustainable and multi-functional municipal hub which could easily adapt to a diverse range of activities and events for all members of the Eddington community. The aesthetics of the building needed to be elegant enough for ceremonies and adult events, but with playful touches to appeal to the nursery children.

The nursery is arranged around three sides of a landscaped courtyard, with the community centre on the fourth side. This open, welcoming and well-crafted structure is vented naturally using an underground labyrinth and has excellent acoustic performance, which is particularly important in the 180-seat main hall.

Using facing bricks as a building material gave the architects the freedom to create individual façades by playing with laying patterns, detailing and eye-catching features such as porthole and geometric shaped windows. The manipulation of the same brick product throughout the whole build brings a sense of cohesion to the project.