Accordia - "a good piece of ordinariness"

Keith Bradley spoke about Building for Life on the rim of a recession as the keynote speaker at the 2008 Building for Life Awards ceremony. He is a senior partner in Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio, the practice which masterplanned the housing scheme Accordia, in Cambridge. 

Accordia won a Building for Life award in 2006 and went on to win the Stirling Prize in 2008, an extraordinary achievement because this was the first time that a housing scheme ever secured the Stirling Prize.  It is worth noting that Accordia has a significant number of affordable units – a third of the scheme's 378 dwellings.

Keith Bradley showed these interesting slides of Accordia below at the end of his keynote speech, commenting: “This is what I would regard as a good piece of ordinariness. Although very specific to its place - and time - there are some simple transferable principles that it advocates.”

The whole is more than the sum of the parts - identity through the urban design concept

Photo by Tim Crocker

How part affects the whole - the typology of the individual home

Photo by Tim Crocker

The street as a communal garden

Photo by Tim Crocker

Integration of landscape

Photo by Tim Crocker

Well defined private space - outdoor living on many levels

Photo by Tim Crocker

Relationship of the indoors to outdoors

Photo by Tim Crocker

Generous flexible space for life

Photo by Tim Crocker

Places to play

Photo by Tim Crocker

Places for the car

Photo by Feilden Clegg Bradley

Sustainability with ecology

Photo by Feilden Clegg Bradley

Good mix and tenure - the apartment terrace

Photo by Tim Crocker