Pollard Thomas Edwards and Alison Brooks Architects with developers Hill, have been selected by North West Cambridge Development for the first market residential phase of the University of Cambridge’s sustainable new community. North West Cambridge is undoubtedly the most ambitious and significant expansion of the City of Cambridge in the post Victorian era. 247 new Code 5 homes will form the gateway to the new Ridgeway Village, part of the University of Cambridge’s £1billion urban extension. Pollard Thomas Edwards, working in collaboration with Alison Brooks Architects, have set out to provide " a 21st century equivalent of period homes" - with generous rooms that can be assigned flexible functions, extensive storage, high ceilings and double height spaces. Our proposals reinforce the University’s vision for a sustainable, long lasting and ambitious community. The masterplan reinforces a sense of place, inspired by the historic city, where character has built up incrementally over time. A sequence of fine-grained streets and open spaces connect a series of distinctive residential areas to the wider urban extension, its neighbourhood parks and the local centre. The scheme plays with traditional forms, based on medieval ‘burgage’ lots that evolved organically as needs changed. The 249 new homes will include apartments, courtyard and mews houses, terraces, semi-detached and larger detached houses. Key to the winning competition bid was the creation of 2 pedestrianised garden streets.