Young’s Court, Emmanuel College – ADC

Set within the historic heart of the Cambridge Central Conservation Area, the 5,770 square metre scheme is Emmanuel College’s most significant development in more than 100 years.

The £21m development at the University of Cambridge introduces new social and residential facilities, aimed at enhancing the communal life of the college. Known as Young’s Court, the project is embedded within the historic 400-year-old network of collegial spaces, enabling Emmanuel College to support the evolving needs of its students and staff.

The scheme provides residential, study, and social accommodation linked by a network of landscaped courts and passageways designed to foster communal life, transforming an area previously characterised by surface car parking on the southern perimeter of the college, as well as the neighbouring 19^th century Furness Lodge.

The landscaped setting features commissioned site-specific artworks, new courtyards, and passageways of varying scales, supporting sociability and improving accessibility to both new and existing facilities.

“Finding answers to complex global challenges depends on our ability to bring people together across subjects, disciplines, and backgrounds,” said Dr. Sarah Bendall, development director at Emmanuel College. “This project does just that, enabling us to host new programs, accommodate the majority of our undergraduate students on the main site, and welcome postdoctoral researchers to Emmanuel.”

Since its foundation in 1584, the inherently informal, collaborative, and interdisciplinary nature of Emmanuel’s collegial life has been key to fostering intellectual discovery, producing notable alumni, such as the British polymath Thomas Young, after whom the new development is named. The Young’s Court development responds to the evolving context of Cambridge’s rapid growth and the expansion of the university, making a significant step towards the college’s ambition to accommodate all undergraduate students onsite.

The scheme delivers a complex network of new and existing buildings and courts, accommodation, and social spaces. Within this are 48 new student rooms and an accessible fellow’s suite across four buildings, including the refurbishment and extension of the Grade II listed Furness Lodge – a Georgian villa that has been transformed to provide enhanced teaching and social facilities, including new seminar rooms, an event space, music practice rooms, and a new student bar.

“At its heart, the scheme is about the spaces between buildings: a network of courts and passages, incorporating new additions and listed structures, which support sociability and provide a focus for communal life,” said Gavin Henderson, principal director at Stanton Williams.

The new residential accommodation has been clad in red brick with precast concrete lintels and sills. The three-story buildings feature staircases accessed from a communal court, creating a strongly articulated street frontage that mediates between the city outside and the sheltered collegiate environment within.

To promote longevity, the project adopted a fabric-first approach, incorporating high levels of insulation, airtight construction, and passive design measures. Existing structures such as Furness Lodge and South Court have been retained and enhanced, while durable materials like brickwork and concrete have been selected for the new buildings. The project also reduced on-site car parking by 55 per cent, with the remaining parking accommodated below ground, enabling the provision of more than 100 new cycle spaces.