Best Office: AJ Retrofit Award

The David Attenborough Building has won the Architects' Journal Retrofit Award: Best Office (2,000m² - 10,000m²) in 2017. This award relates to the workspace within the building for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) - a unique collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading internationally-focused biodiversity conservation organisations. Their new offices, created out of old laboratory and server room space, are designed to enhance collaboration and interaction between the partners. The workplace features an interior green wall and rooftop courtyards that both encourage urban biodiversity and provide a sense of wellbeing.

The 2017 AJ Retrofit Awards celebrated an outstanding year in this vital and increasingly high-profile architectural sector and the the winners and all the finalists in this year’s Retrofit Awards prove that this still emerging sector is one the UK architectural profession can be proud of. Our re-invention of the Brutalist icon at the University of Cambridge as a higher education conservation campus exactly reflects innovative design and construction that both preserves the unique qualities of the original whilst radically enhancing the performance and longevity of the building.