Buildings and Facilities
A New Building for Teaching and Learning at Robinson
The Challenges
Robinson, like all Cambridge Colleges, provides teaching in small groups - supervisions - in addition to the lectures and practical lessons provided by the University. This enables our students to explore the themes and concepts presented in lectures and practical lessons in a much more detailed manner, thus providing them with a far greater understanding of the subject. The supervision system requires Fellows, Directors of Studies and external supervisors (usually academics from another Cambridge College, or sometimes alumni with relevant business or academic experience) to meet with several small groups of students to cover each selected topic in detail. This generates a pressure on space in the College with large numbers of small groups needing to meet regularly during term time. To date, groups have usually met in the office of the supervisor, or one of a limited number of teaching rooms at the top of the tower above the Porters’ Lodge. However, with a larger Fellowship (needed to provide a wide and extremely varied range of teaching subjects) increasing numbers of Fellows share offices and it is becoming difficult for supervisors to secure office or teaching rooms at suitable times. In addition, there is no lift access to the rooms in the tower, so it is not possible to use these rooms for supervisions that include students with certain physical disabilities.
As an important resource for our students, the College houses a fine library in purpose-built accommodation at the front of the main College building. The library is essential to all undergraduates as a source of reference materials and as a quiet place in which to work, especially in the Easter term when examinations dominate the term and are the culmination of the year or entire course for students. Space is at a premium and additional pressures are created in fine weather – despite winning national awards for its workmanship, the library overheats easily and possible solutions are neither cost-effective, nor environmentally sound. Additional revision space would therefore be invaluable to our undergraduates each Easter term.
As a residential college, where students live on site for their entire period of study, the College is the focal point for many extra-curricula activities and student societies, as well as alumni events, which are essential in providing career networking opportunities to our members and build foundations upon which fundraising activities may also be based. At present, we can provide rooms for dining for groups of up to 40 (although this is very cosy!) in the Garden Room, or for much larger groups in Hall. However, there is no space that is suitable for gatherings of 40 – 80, the size of gathering that is important in bringing together students and alumni, or other inspirational role-models, to encourage current students to achieve high standards and to offer them networking opportunities to assist in doing so.
This lack of suitable meeting space for gatherings of around 80 people also impacts upon Governing Body meetings. Robinson, like all Cambridge colleges, is governed by its Fellowship and it is therefore important that the full Fellowship (currently numbering around 80 members) is able to meet at least once a term and whenever there is any suitably momentous matter that requires full discussion before a decision is made. The Fellowship now meets in the SCR dining room, which is too small and as a result many Fellows must stand through what can be long meetings, if a serious student or other matter is before the group. The Hall has poor acoustics for such meetings and so cannot be used and the lecture theatres do not lend themselves to boardroom-style discussions, rather than to one party ‘lecturing’ another.
Outside term-time, the College continues as a place of research and study for our community of graduate students, Senior Members, Fellows and visiting academics. However, whilst giving their activities priority, the College also uses its undergraduate accommodation and facilities to generate income to subsidise student education through income generated by its conference business. This is necessary because the income generated in capped fees is insufficient to meet the full costs of providing a Cambridge education see [link to new endowment page] for further details on the financial position.
At the time that Robinson was established, its single, ensuite bedrooms and large and medium-sized lecture theatre-style auditoria, plus a large Hall, met the needs of the typical conference extremely well. Conferences usually had several hundred residential delegates attending centralised sessions and lasted around a week. Over the past three decades conference needs have changed and the typical conference now is 1-3 days with one or two plenary sessions and the remainder being smaller sessions run in parallel in smaller meeting spaces, as well as an associated exhibition area. The typical number of delegates has declined to an average of around 80 people. As a result, if Robinson is to maintain its conference business and a steady income stream from this source, we need to develop a medium-sized, flat-floor meeting space that may be used for plenary sessions or dining, with associated exhibition space and a series of smaller rooms for parallel sessions to accommodate this style of business. Of the enquiries received currently, a large proportion (>52%) are for meetings of 50-80 people, which remain unsatisfied generally by Cambridge colleges and certainly by Robinson. As a result, conference income has become a volatile and uncertain source of income from which to subsidise student education.
The Solution
The College has a plot of land within its curtilege that fronts on to Adam’s Road between two College houses used as students’ and Fellows’ living and working accommodation. It is currently used as a car park, but would contribute far more to the College’s purposes as a place of teaching and research if it were the site of a new teaching building. The site is highlighted on the photograph below.
Plans have been drawn up, which would provide a two-storey building in keeping with the size and proportions of the surrounding College houses on Adam’s Road. It would house a room of sufficient size to hold Governing Body meetings, plenary sessions and lectures for around 100 people and could also be used for dining for the medium-sized groups which are not easily served elsewhere in College. Both this space and the main foyer would also lend themselves to be exhibition and display spaces, both for College and for conference use, such as on the alumni weekends and for open days held throughout the year to encourage potential applicants to apply to and make Robinson College their first choice at which to study for an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.
Upstairs, there would be 4 smaller rooms which could be used individually as teaching rooms or revision areas, or as two medium-sized rooms for teaching, College Committee, student, or conference use.
The College aims to make the building environmentally sustainable and therefore the plans include low energy solutions wherever possible to minimise the levels of required heating in winter and cooling in summer and considerable care will be taken to allow ease of recycling and to limit landfill waste disposal. Robinson was the greenest college in a 2008 survey of Cambridge colleges and we aim to maintain our green outlook and minimise the impact that we have on our environment, whilst still providing appropriate facilities for education, learning and research.
The building would be approached by two routes, either from Adam’s Road or through the College gardens, with the main foot route taking people from the main College buildings by way of Bin Brook bridge, through the yew archway and across the slightly remodelled garden of number 4 Adam’s Road. Conference delegates would continue to park at the University Sports Ground at the end of Adam’s Road, as at present, but 5 parking spaces would remain (of the original 20 under its present use as a car park) to allow for disabled access and deliveries. Plenty of additional cycle rack space would be provided to encourage users of the building who do not approach on foot from the main College to arrive by bicycle or foot. The U4 bus service linking College with many of the University’s more widely spread sites, such as Addenbrooke’s hospital, also stops just outside the College on Grange Road.
This building would allow the College to resolve a number of problems that it presently faces by providing:
- additional supervision and revision space;
- a suitable meeting place for the Governing Body;
- an excellent venue for prospective student Open Days and alumni events; and
- accommodation that would meet the needs of a changing conference market and so help to ensure that this important source of income to subsidise the cost of a Cambridge education for our students is not lost.
The Cost
The cost of constructing and fitting out the building would be as given below. It is expected that the building would be at least cost-neutral over its lifetime.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Construction | £3,937,500 |
| Fittings | £300,000 |
| External works | £300,000 |
| Professional fees & charges | £816,750 |
| VAT | £937,000 |
| Total | £6,291,250 |
A gift for the new teaching building at Robinson would help the College to be in a position to continue to provide the best possible teaching, learning and research environment for its current and future members. In addition, through the income generated by conferences, which will complement the other academic uses to which the College intends to put the building, such gifts will also help ensure that a Robinson and a Cambridge education remains accessible to all potential students on the basis of academic merit alone.
New Graduate Accommodation opens at Robinson College
Robinson Colleges two new graduate houses were opened on Saturday 27th September 2008. Already they have received wonderful feedback from students who are the first residents:
Subject: New Grad Houses
I had the joy of moving into the new Grad House B on Saturday. From the sparkling bathroom, to the spacious, luxurious kitchen, the larger bed sheets to the large and wide-opening windows (a relief after the stuffy darkness in the old grad house ground floor), this is easily the most comfortable accommodation I have ever lived in - and I have moved house nine times in the past ten years as my live moved from Stuttgart to Heidelberg, to London, back to Heidelberg, Berlin, and now Cambridge.
What is most impressive, though, is the utmost silence in my room. Having spent a year living at Russell Square in Holborn, I refused a PhD scholarship at UCL because I didn't want to live in the noise of the city again. Now, barely 100 yards from the open fields, with windows opening up to the leafy gardens next door and my office in the Cavendish a mere 5 minute walk away, it feels like I am living in an oasis of peace.
..... Thank you for making these buildings possible.....Now it's up to us students to turn these buildings into a thriving community. I'll try my best.
With best wishes,
Philipp Hennig