VeloCity Wins the Cambridge to Oxford Connection Competition
The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) and Malcolm Reading Consultants today announced the ‘VeloCity’ team as winners of The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition. Petra Marko (Marko&Placemakers) is part of the all-women team with Jennifer Ross (Tibbalds), Sarah Featherstone (Featherstone Young), Annalie Riches (Mikhail Riches), Judith Sykes (Expedition Engineering) and Kay Hughes (Khaa). The competition sought inspirational visions for the future of development within the arc encompassing Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford, one of the UK’s fastestgrowing and most productive regions. It informed the NIC’s report Partnering for Prosperity: A new deal for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc, published last month.
Bridget Rosewell, Commissioner and competition jury Chair, said: "The jury was drawn to VeloCity’s human scale approach to sensitively and incrementally accommodating new homes, alongside the team’s commitment to ensuring new settlements would be communities from the get-go. Creating effective new settlements can be challenging: the team’s flair and imagination in addressing this shows how good design can translate into liveable communities."
VeloCity is a strategic approach to growth and placemaking along the Oxford to Cambridge corridor, centred on a re-imagining of the village for the 21st century. The vision has been developed to enrich village life and a sense of place, while creating new homes and working environments in healthy and socially cohesive places. It proposes a way to install a low-cost high speed data network and introduce technology to foster a more sustainable environment and new employment opportunities with an emphasis on the retention and enhancement of the natural environment. Watch the video and see the project page to find out more about our ideas. You can also read the official announcement on Malcolm Reading, the competition organizer website.
