Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

Clare Hall is a college of the University of Cambridge designed by Ralph Erskine, with the main complex built between 1966 and 1969, and a later extension constructed between 1985 and 1987.

The original building is constructed in red brick with cavity wall construction and sloping aluminium-clad timber roofs. Concrete and timber floors are used throughout. Windows are timber-framed with double-glazed plate glass set within the original frames.

The main college building has a complex plan of three sections within an overall rectangular footprint: a communal and study area, houses for visiting fellows, and a flats block. These sections are separated by two paved walks—Scholars' Walk and Family Walk—named to reflect their different functions. A single cross-walk spans the site, providing access to the gardens and the only link between the two main walks. The buildings facing Herschel Road are raised over a semi-basement car park, creating a sloping section and varied roof profiles across the complex.

The Porter's Lodge, added later, is located in Scholars' Walk and provides access to the main communal area containing the common room and bar, leading through to the dining room. Further along Scholars' Walk is a glazed courtyard in the form of a peristyle containing study and meeting rooms and offices, with the Scholars' Garden to the east. The central section contains four u-plan patio houses, each set around an internal courtyard: a two-storey house to the north for the President, and three single-storey houses for visiting fellows and their families (one now converted to exhibition space). The western section comprises a large accommodation block for fellows and visitors, with the shared Family Garden to the west, now enclosed by later flat blocks.

The elevation to Herschel Road is largely blank, housing mainly kitchens and stores, with windows on the first floor lighting the President's House. To the west of Family Walk is a stepping block that falls from three storeys to one on the north-south sloping site, containing four houses and twelve flats or maisonettes plus a nursery, set in a block that reduces from four storeys facing Herschel Road to two at the rear. A brick wall delineating the ground floor flats' gardens may be the boundary wall of the demolished Herschel House. Thick timber balustrades to walkways and balconies are hung from steel poles to avoid cold bridging—a key feature of Erskine's work, developed in Sweden to manage harsh winter climates. Broad laminated wood and aluminium chutes discharge rainwater, previously into open channels or pools (now filled in). The houses have projecting bay windows to Family Walk providing views north and south; the President's House bay is larger, designed to express the President's central role in the Hall's social and academic life. The paved walks have flights of steps where the complex slopes north to south, with vents to the car park below concealed by built-in brick planters and timber seating. Glazed walls throughout the study room cloister overlook a small courtyard dominated by oversized rainwater goods and small mushroom-shaped sculptures. A small canal runs along the southern edge of the site, collecting rainwater from further oversized goods.

The interior is Scandinavian in character, distinguished by intricate planning and use of materials including extensive exposed timber and distinctive hand rails and balusters. Main social spaces off Scholars' Walk feature sweeping timber-boarded ceilings on diagonally sloping planes supported by distinctive metal pillars with timber cladding and gentle entasis in the common room, bar, dining room, servery and discussion rooms. Small studies surrounding the south-east courtyard are plainly detailed, together with the President's office, secretary's office, and two meeting rooms. The President's House contains a fine, simply-detailed interior with a large open-plan living space and timber floor, an office at one end, and a distinctive curved staircase to private accommodation at the other, featuring a concrete wrap-around forming a sweeping balustrade. Accommodation for visiting fellows is in single-storey courtyard houses in the centre and single-storey and duplex units in the long sloping western block. The Family Walk block contains apartments including duplex units, fully equipped with fitted kitchens and bathrooms, using the same simple detailing as elsewhere, notably the stair banisters. Other interiors are notable chiefly for their intricate yet relaxed planning.

The Michael Stoker Building (1985-1987) is the first major addition to Clare Hall on Herschel Road, set at right-angles to Erskine's earlier complex and forming the northern boundary to the Family Garden. Following Erskine's appointment as RIBA Gold Medal winner, the building was designed between June 1983 and June 1985 by Erskine, with executive architects Hughes and Bicknell producing working drawings from his sketches. The extension repeats the style of the earlier building and was constructed in 1985-1987.

The extension is built in red brick with timber details and concrete floors, with a sloping roof from the fourth to second floor and flat roofs to the one- and two-storey sections to the west next to the nineteenth-century house associated with the Keynes family (No 3). Its colours complement those of the earlier building. The building has an L-shaped plan, comprising fourteen bedsits with shared bathrooms, a kitchen and dining room. A projecting corner stair tower at the apex stands adjacent to that of the original building.