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The National Infrastructure Commission and Malcolm Reading Consultants have launched an ideas competition that aims to integrate sustainable placemaking with development and new infrastructure.
The focus for the competition is the arc encompassing four of the UK’s fastest-growing and most productive centres: Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford.
The Cambridge to Oxford Connection is a free-to-enter, two-stage ideas competition. Submissions should consider how to provide the homes the area needs – high-quality places that integrate the proposed infrastructure and enhance the identity of the corridor as a single knowledge-intensive cluster, while working with its distinctive environmental and cultural character.
The competition is aimed at broad multidisciplinary teams of urban designers; architects; planning, policy, and community specialists; landscape designers; development economists; and others with local knowledge and general insight.
Lord Adonis, chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, said: “The economic potential of the four cities of Oxford, Cambridge, Northampton and Milton Keynes is huge, offering real benefits to the success and prosperity of the country as a whole.
“But the area needs to adapt and change if it has any chance of achieving this, of attracting the brightest and best and of competing on the world stage.
“Today, I’m calling on leaders in architecture, economics, policy-making and planning, as well as local residents, to help shape that future, and put forward ideas that will make this growth corridor an attractive place to live and work for generations to come.”
Professor Sadie Morgan, National Infrastructure Commissioner and founding director of dRMM Architects, said: “From the dreaming spires of Oxford to punts along the River Cam, the growth corridor has so much to offer those looking to live and work there. We need to ensure that continues.
“This is more than just good design – this is about creating a vibrant and attractive community that will stand the test of time and support the future development and prosperity of a unique part of the country. I look forward to seeing the ideas that are put forward.”
The deadline for entries is 3 August, 2017.
Full details of the competition, which is run by Malcolm Reading Consultants, including team and submission requirements and the detailed brief, are available on the competition website.
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