architects holiday photos

The Easter holidays seem to be extra long this year and they’re super early too. So we thought we would share some Holiday snaps so you can sneak five minutes away from the kids.

Now what sort of holiday pictures do architects take? Romantic landscapes, quirky pictures of shadows on a rooflight, or shadow of trees reflecting on a white wall or a quick zoom around a new development on the edge of Cambridge.

Yes that’s right, whilst visiting in-laws POW director Mark Owen did a whistlestop tour (whilst popping out for a coffee) of Eddington in Cambridge, a large new masterplan by Cambridge University to ease pressure on their town centre sites and provide new homes, Shops, School, Health Centre and Community Buildings.

First stop is Alison Brooks Mews Houses, feels very European and the quality of materials is very high (a 4 bed goes for a cool £1.5 million), we loved the landscaped SUDS area with the bridge and could easily imagine my two little ones roaming freely around this space.

Next up is Mecanoo Key worker housing, very European feeling and nicely resolves open square which maintains privacy for the ground floor homes well, with subtle changes in level and materials.

And then onto MUMA’s Nursery and Community building, great brickwork detailing and form. A shame about the anti-skateboard spikes on the seating, we recently spent time in Billund, Denmark's capital of children and they would have made a feature of this and encouraged the boarders. Its interesting how different cultures consider youth culture.

Finally the lovely courtyard garden in the Aparthotel we stayed in by DRMM, the quad referring back to those of the colleges in town (not gown) but open sided and free for everyone to wander into.

Overall a good scheme and interesting approach to master planning on a large scale, it felt very European....and for balance I did take the kids to see some seals at Blakeney Point, so we could take a Sealfy!!!