News

Shortlist announced for Cambridge to Oxford Connection competition

The National Infrastructure Commission and Malcolm Reading Consultants  has announced the shortlist for The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition. The two-stage competition will now see four multidisciplinary teams develop detailed concepts appropriate for the Cambridge -Milton Keynes - Oxford corridor.

The competition launched on 30 June 2017 and invited entries from broad multidisciplinary teams made up of urban designers; architects; planning, policy and community specialists; landscape designers; development economists; and others with local knowledge and general insight. 58 teams from the UK and further afield entered at the first stage, anonymously submitting emerging concepts focused on a chosen form of development - ranging from the intensification of existing urban areas to new autonomous settlements - along with separate details on the composition of their team.

The high-profile jury of thought-leaders in infrastructure, economics, design and placemaking, chaired by Bridget Rosewell (commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission), judged the emerging concepts and team composition and selected a shortlist. 

The four shortlisted teams - all UK-based - feature creative, multidisciplinary collaborations and a mixture of established practices and emerging talent. The shortlisted teams were led by the following practices (in alphabetical order). Full details of the teams are listed at the end of this article.

  • Barton Willmore
  • Fletcher Priest Architects
  • Mae
  • Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design

The shortlisted teams will each receive an honorarium of £10,000 to develop their initial first-stage submissions into design concepts for development typologies appropriate to the corridor. They will be asked to consider existing, planned or proposed infrastructure and how to integrate this with development to create sustainable and liveable places.

The competition jury will meet again in October to review the second-stage submissions, interview the shortlist and select a winner of the competition. The winner is expected to be announced in early November.

Bridget Rosewell, commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission and competition jury chair, said: “The commission and the jury were delighted with the quality and detail of submissions to the competition and we would like to thank all those who offered their ideas and energies. The shortlisted teams produced particularly imaginative and stimulating responses to the first-stage brief and we look forward to seeing how their ideas and visions develop.

“At the second stage, we will be looking for proposals that are rooted in their context and understand the local character, environment and landscape. We have asked competitors to consider how places will be integrated with infrastructure, but above all, we want to see what the proposals will mean for the lives of the people living and working in the corridor.”

The Cambridge - Milton Keynes - Oxford corridor stretches over approximately 130 miles around the north and west of London’s green belt, encompassing Daventry and Wellingborough to the north and bounded to the south by Luton, Stevenage and the Aylesbury Vale. The region is home to 3.3 million people and hosts some of the country’s most successful cities, as well as world-leading universities, knowledge-intensive high-tech firms and highly-skilled workers. Altogether, an estimated 419,000 people across the corridor are employed in the knowledge economy.

Currently, the corridor does not function as a single joined-up economic zone. Rather Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford operate as distinct city economies, each positioned on different radial routes around 50-70 miles from London. The area is experiencing significant housing and transport pressures particularly the scarcity of suitable and affordable homes and difficulties in travelling within and between cities. These constraints are becoming obstacles to attracting and retaining talent and inevitably putting a break on economic growth.

Full details of the shortlisted teams are listed below.

Barton Willmore - Robin Shepherd (Planning Partner); John Haxworth (Partner); Dominic Scott (Urban Design Partner); Gareth Wilson (Planning Partner); Michael Knott (Planning Director); Ben Lewis (Infrastructure Director); Peter Newton (Architecture Director); Carolyn Organ (Planning Associate); Vaughan Anderson (Urban Design Associate); Patrick Clarke (Associate Landscape Planner); Richard Webb (Associate Landscape Architect); Simone Gobber (Urban Designer); and Tom Carpen (Infrastructure Associate) – with Will Durden (Director, Momentum)

Fletcher Priest Architects - with Bradley Murphy Design and Ron Henry (Partner, Peter Brett Associates)

Mae - with One Works, AKT II and Planit-IE

Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design - Jennifer Ross (Director) – with Annalie Riche (Co-Director, Mikhail Riches), Petra Marko (Co-Founder and Director, Marko&Placemakers), Sarah Featherstone (Co-Director, Featherstone Young) and Kay Hughes.

If you would like to contact Andy Walker about this, or any other story, please email awalker@infrastructure-intelligence.com.