Opening Celebration at Cambridge Biomedical Campus

Gillespies joined Liberty Property Trust and Countryside Properties celebrate the official opening of the ‘The Green & The Gardens’, the first phase of the landscape-led expansion of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), one of the worlds’ leading healthcare and biomedical research centres.

Since 2014, Gillespies has been working alongside conceptual artist Ryan Gander to achieve an integrated public art and landscape design strategy for the new 70-acre campus, which is now home to Cambridge University Hospitals, AstraZeneca, The Forum, Papworth Hospital, the Medical Research Council and The University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.

The new public space is reminiscent of a common ground for all: a level playing field for everyone to play on and a space for all CBC users to feel is theirs and to share together. Nature, intimacy, and human scale combine into one holistic space to discover, explore, wonder, relax, be alone and together; for private conversations and public events.

The public realm is designed to encourage and facilitate collaboration, creativity and connectivity through the creation of a dynamic shared community for academics, healthcare professionals and businesses. The new open space consists of a series of green ‘quads’, connected by a vibrant promenade - running east-west through the site - that encourages movement, chance encounters and promotes collaboration between professionals. The quads comprise of large areas of lawn, informal pocket gardens, wildflower planting, orchard gardens and enclosed areas for relaxation for both employees, patients and visitors alike.