CASE STUDY | CRANMER ROAD STUDENT RESIDENCE The architecturally distinct Stephen Taylor Building (left) and Villa Building are set within a large garden in the West Cambridge Conservation Area GRADUATING WITH HONOURS Passivhaus accommodation for Cambridge University students at Cranmer Road won a CIBSE Building Performance Award thanks to an elegant, but simple, all-electric services design by Max Fordham that delivered high-performing buildings with occupant comfort at its heart W PROJECT TEAM Client: Kings College Cambridge Building services consultant: Max Fordham Architect: Allies and Morrison Main contractor: R G Carter M&E contractor: Munro Quantity surveyor: Faithful + Gould 22 October 2023 www.cibsejournal.com hen it was completed in 2020, Cranmer Road was the first major Passivhaus development in Cambridge. The scheme for Kings College, in the West Cambridge Conservation Area, provides 59 new graduate rooms in two architecturally distinct buildings that respond to their urban contexts. The Villa Building and Stephen Taylor Building are, however, located within the same large garden, where three existing student villas are situated. The college decided to embrace Passivhaus construction after a costing exercise showed that the buildings low operational energy use would deliver a payback in the region of 25 years, when compared with schemes designed to current good practice and minimum compliance standards. The payback, although not short, was enough to be well within the design life of the buildings, says Gwilym Still, director, Passivhaus leader and partner at Max Fordham, which was the projects building services engineer, acoustic consultant and Passivhaus designer. Working with architect Allies and Morrison, Max Fordham set out to develop a scheme that would meet the stringent Passivhaus energy criteria, but that eschewed innovative construction methods and materials in favour of a more conventional palette. The design also accommodates the demands of graduate students, who were consulted throughout development of the brief. We set out to build these buildings with standard components as far as possible, but applied in a different way to help with project delivery and demonstrate the scalability of Passivhaus, Still says. The three-storey Villa Building occupies a gap between two Arts and Crafts-style villas on Cranmer Road. Its design is characterised by a brick faade topped by a tiled, pitched roof incorporating dormers and gables. To provide lower-cost rentable accommodation, after consultation with the students, the Villa was conceived as a