During what has been called “unprecedented times”, a growing need has been felt for more sustainable lifestyles, closer relationships, and more holistic approaches to design. About ten years ago, these needs were what brought together a community in Marmalade Lane.

Marmalade Lane is a cohousing residential project named after the semi-pedestrian lane added to the site, located on the north side of Cambridge. The site was covered with orchards in the 19th century and from 1850, Chivers and Sons used the fruit to produce marmalade and jams. In the late 1960s, Kings Hedges ward started to densify, reaching Orchard Park in the 1980s (Digimap, 2020). A masterplan for the area was adopted in 2007 (Mole Architects, 2015). After the 2008 financial crisis interrupted the development plans, a new “Orchard Park Design Guide SPD” was approved for the seven remaining sites in 2011 (ibid).

Following a study on potential group-self-commissioned housing development for the site, Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council in collaboration with existing and potential cohousing members decided to have a Client Brief drawn and an outline planning permission obtained for a cohousing development. (Mole Architects, 2015). The planning stage involved the community members, as well as the architects, an environmental team, the Orchard Park team, and the Council. The clients for this project, TOWN and Trivselhus together with Cambridge Cohousing Limited, were focused on creating a strong sense of community, a change in the way of life, with emphasis on sustainable environmental values. Mole Architects, with Alice Hamlin as project architect, were selected at competition stage, to develop the 0.97 ha project, completed in 2018.

Cohousing is a form of intentional community living, created and managed by its residents (Bullivant, 2020). It derives from the desire to bring together people, ideas and, beliefs, as well as emotional, material and physical assets, in the hope of reaching a sense of unity, protection, balance and belonging. Community living has been observed in many forms across the world: circulad villages, industrial community, agrarian commune, utopic social palace, collective management, collective housing, cohousing development or community land trust, to name a few (Ahn, Tusinski, Treger, 2018). Cohousing can also be described as “alternative forms of social organisation” (ibid) as it gives the opportunity for people with similar social and political principles to live in communities, outside the existing context.

The concept of cohousing originated in Denmark in the 1960s with the “semi-urban communal living arrangement” called Sættedammen (Ahn, Tusinski, Treger, 2018). Its typology is similar to that of Marmalade Lane, as further described in this essay.

Amongst several other awards, this project was presented the RIBA National Award 2019 for its “impressive display of shared living” (RIBA, 2019). Therefore, I will attempt to determine how well integrated and diverse this “shared living” project actually is. I will also analyse whether the architect is responsible for creating the place Marmalade Lane has become, and I will review how the project’s cohousing eco-community ideologies are translated into its architecture and whether the architecture is a vehicle for change. 

There is a need for buildings to be rooted in their context, not only architectural but in their social, historical and cultural context (Pickerill,2020). Architects help define the context by integrating buildings into urban spaces and creating places where the narrative of people’s lives can be shaped, and buildings can be rooted into their context.

Marmalade Lane is inspired by architectural qualities found in historic Cambridge’s streetscape (Mole Architects, 2015). In compliance with the SPD guidelines, the scale of the project was set in relation to neighbouring buildings, and the semi-pedestrian lane across the site gives access to pedestrians and cyclists only. The lane fosters activities, sociability, and a level of comfort, which are key qualities to place making (Project for Public Spaces, 2020). As a result, it embodies a desire to alternate between private and shared spaces, to integrate both sides into social activities, thereby making the place a symbol of this eco-community’s ideologies.

In tune with the community’s ethos, Marmalade Lane encourages positive social interactions and fluidity of the scheme through the composition of the dwellings it offers, its environmental strategy, shared facilities and services, and through its communal garden. Through careful planning and design considerations, the project was drawn to make the place significant. And according to Norberg-Schulz “it is precisely this image that transmits rooting and belonging” (2000, p.312). Although this architecture borrows principles of design from multiple places, as explained further, it is a unique composition that responses to local history, the site, and its residents.

A democratic planning and design process involving various working groups and stages (Bullivant, 2020), followed by the instatement of a decision-making structure, both recognised as key in cohousing (Hayward & Pickerill, 2015), has enabled shared values and a common ethos to strengthen the sense of unity that the community has experienced.

In the design process, Mole Architects (2015) committed to adding “to the social diversity of Orchard Park, with a number of young families among Cambridge Cohousing members but also older people - all united by a commitment to environmental sustainability and neighbourly living” and expressed similar desires “in how the community is designed, built and managed.” Indeed, the cohousing community promotes intergenerational mixed housing, despite the relatively young demographics of Orchard Park. However, although there is a desire to include people of various ages and family composition, there is no mention of cultural diversity. While a third of the area’s inhabitants is non-UK born (ibid), and while a blend of nationalities is reported in the cohousing community, this does not amount to a diverse community.

A place is ethnically diverse or socially diverse when it has a balanced variety of people from different ethnic and cultural or different socio-economical backgrounds (Cambridge, 2020). Although diversity and inclusivity are possible, and not rejected by Marmalade Lane cohousing group, they are neither celebrated nor encouraged.

Jenny Peckerill’s studies (2020) have shown that existing examples of eco-communities, which include cohousing as well as low impact developments, “are not socially inclusive, they struggle to be diverse [although] they might have the intention to be (...) they struggle in practice”. Indeed, agreeing to a common ethos does not imply sharing identities, a sense of belonging, and social affinities, stemming from culture, race or identity. The demographics of Marmalade Lane’s community are not published, and this lack of transparency suggests that the issue is not addressed.

Homogeneity is common in places such as eco-communities (Pickerill, 2020). By calling themselves a community, people at Marmalade Lane accept that they have commonalities and a shared point of view on specific topics which are often the reason for their grouping. By default, this means that others might not share those views, and therefore do not fit in the community as defined. In that they are Cambridge’s first cohousing community, Marmalade Lane’s residents can be categorized as a fringe group. A boundary is therefore present between mainstream society and the cohousing community.

There is a difference between location, space, and place. A “location” relates to a position. A “space” is the “area around everything that exists”. And a “place”, although sometimes used as a synonym for location, relates to a “position in relation to other things or people”. (Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). Therefore, just as people, a “place is dynamic, unfinished and constantly changing” (Pickerill, 2020 p.88). The Marmalade Lane project is defined by its relationship to its environment and its occupants, and to a narrative. The architecture is part of the environment of the place - from the bench on the lane where the children grow up to the common house where the cups of tea are shared. Places are because of the attachment to the “meaning, identity and memories” people have living in them (Pickerill, 2020 p.88). The place is because of the life that surrounds, runs through, and transforms it.

There is no order to the succession of events: life happens, then architecture comes to life, and life changes, so does architecture. The architecture manifests an emotion which was already there, in the Cohousing K1 Community. It is set in the group’s ethos: shared living for a more social, economical and environmental sustainability. And we witness that essence through architecture as an exhibit. It is more sustainable to think, design, and build a collective project, to grow vegetables in a shared garden, to belong to a community of forty-two dwellings, and to grow older surrounded by a network of people of various ages and backgrounds, than it would be to live alone. Significantly, that narrative gives meaning to the built place. Norberg-Schultz (2000, p.226) emphasises the idea that “[the spatial essence] is conditioned by the interaction among the dimensions of the language of architecture.” In other words, the language that architecture as a whole and its environment speak, has an imprint on a location. A character emanates from architecture and feeds into the inhabitants’ narrative, which in turn makes the place.

The Marmalade Lane community gathered to create a place through a design and planning process involving many parties. From the composition of the volumes, colours and textures, to the environmental impact of the architecture on its context, the buildings are a direct result of the combination of local heritage and the cohousing community’s perception of what their home should encompass. A different set of parties could have resulted in a very different composition. Yet, the architects turned a vision into a built place that came to life. Marmalade Lane has become a place because people have moved their lives there, seeking a better future as a community. The sense of place was present within the community before it moved into the buildings. The sense of place is in the living. Architecture is a vehicle for the stories that turn a location into a place.  

Marmalade Lane’s core ideology lies in environmental and social sustainability. Through cohousing, the community shaped its needs and desires into a home having as little impact as possible on the planet and its occupants, and valuable for generations. Ideally, children as well as retired members of the community should feel as much at home as working or studying members. However, the concept of home is broad. It is profoundly connected to emotions, experiences, and politics (Pickerill, 2016, p.88-121). Prior to the connection to the built home, it is symbolically and emotionally connected to individuals. Undoubtedly, home is subjective – it is “the place where a person feels they belong” (Cambridge, 2020).

This cohousing scheme unites people having the desire to be and feel part of a community, in a place where people feel a sense of belonging. Importantly, that place is a community of people first, a location later. Although it is a very personal feeling, the sense of home can be found regardless of place.

Although home is emotional first, it is essential to consider how the home, as a vehicle for the community, integrates into its context to last as such. Designed to be “successfully rooted in its context” (Mole Architects, 2015), the scheme was created to illustrate the community’s ethos while equally connecting to its inhabitants and visitors. Façade heights, materials, boundaries and access all respond to a design approach found across Orchard Park, while the “distinctive polychromatic brick appearance” (ibid), the long terraces, the proportion and consistency of the windows all feed into a composition that reflects the typology of historical Cambridge. The sense of order, rhythmic stability of form, and tradition is then transformed into a sense of belonging and integration to the context.

Balance and stability, required for anything to last, can be read in the scheme’s form, which translates into the ideology of sustainability. Just as a sense of security might emanate from a home, a design such as this one speaks of concepts through its architecture. The lane illustrates the importance and reality of the intertwining of public and private spheres, by radiating a sense of home that deters strangers from entering, even though there is no physical boundary that prevent that. A new language is used, new forms of relationships are shaped, and a “new politics of self” is developed (Peckerill, 2020, p.239). 

The Marmalade Lane project was designed to integrate into its context and find the balance between the existing narrative and the desired change in norm. The process of bringing the cohousing community together through similar ideologies allowed the drive for a sustainable “design for life” to be implemented into each housing unit, into the finishes, and into both shared and private internal and external spaces.

Marmalade Lane’s ethos depicts the residents’ approach to living and socializing, which have an impact on the environment, society and future generations. The design initiates a change in culture on a local scale. A lane was born, a common house was centred, maisonettes became neighbours to flats and houses, boundaries between private and shared spaces were blurred, vehicles were kept out, and pedestrians and cyclists encouraged in.

Although borrowing some design patterns found in the local context, Mole Architects’ design has been described as having a “strong European character” (Bullivant, 2020). This was stimulated in the design process by the architects’ visits to European projects where similar eco-housing ideas have been implemented. (ibid) Furthermore, this enclosing layout with central communal spaces and services on the outskirts resembles the Sættedammen cohousing typology. The technology of the buildings was based on the construction principles of the timber frame system developed by the Swedish company Trivselhus. The architects used a selection of skills, patterns, and typology to create this unique language that encapsulates a change, “a social improvement” (Hearn, 2003) that this eco-community seeks. Yet, “styles do not appear everywhere in the same manner” writes Norberg-Schulz (2000, p.269). A new relationship is formed between the various elements of which the new style is comprised and the context into which the architects bring the “foreign” language. This unique union claims its identity while sharing its universality.

The change in approach, in comparison to the architecture found within Cambridge, is significant in that it indicates a shift. Where local and future residents, together with the council, gathered ideas for change and progress, Mole Architects brought tools and knowledge to the table. The combination led to a design which reveals that culture and architecture are one. The conversation between the various parties directs the language of the new buildings and of the urban plan towards the future. The architecture, hand in hand with its users, is the vehicle for change.

Martin Bang states that “buildings make us” (2005, cited in Pickerill, 2020, p.222), but this is only partly true. The place in which the buildings live constantly changes as people evolve. Therefore, neither residents, places nor buildings are passive. Time defines perception and people adapt the spaces within and around buildings to reflect that. The vehicle evolves in order to communicate and embody a change in ideas and politics.

The architecture of Marmalade Lane is the product of a desire to create a place for the occupants of both today and tomorrow, inspired by the need to make a statement of hope regarding possibilities for changing local urban normality with a view to achieving sustainable living. The architectural form resulting from this idea breaks the local code of privacy, blurs lines and attempts to invite others in instead of keeping them out. The layout can adapt to future social needs, changes, and activities, and perhaps it can inspire people to adopt the scheme’s fundamental idea. However, beyond this display of potential, there remains a sense of enclosure. As one walks around the perimeter of the site, the order, similarities, and rhythm of the facades combine to communicate exclusivity. Interestingly, as analysed earlier, that same pattern seems also to enhance the buildings’ integration into the context.

Although the cohousing group has a number of activities that invite the local community to join the cohousing residents, the architecture gives a sense of border between Orchard Park and the shared spaces of this project. While the social structure defined by the spatial layout encourages a horizontal hierarchy within the cohousing site, and while the architecture contributes to the creation of a place as a civic creation, the orientation of that layout in relation to Orchard Park forms a divide. Communication of this project’s ideals to the world is hindered by the surrounding socio-economical context. Although it seems to give importance to the wider community’s voice, this cohousing project, through its form and image, closes the doors at its boundaries – a wall is present between the eco-community and the outer-community.

Marmalade Lane was designed to facilitate an ideology, one which is typical of eco-communities, as described by Jenny Pickerill (2020). The residents of the cohousing project influenced the design and in return, the design helps to instil the ideologies of this project into its community from day to day. However, by simply walking down Marmalade Lane, one might not read the language of this project’s socio-ecological values if one were not familiar with the concept or lacked knowledge of architectural languages. Although the project displays characteristics of vernacular architecture, the value of utility over exuberance as well as the importance of sustainability and durability, its aesthetics are not a reflection of a style previously used in cohousing. It is both unique and at the same time part of its “wholeness”, to reuse a term Adrian Stokes employs to describe a building’s self-sufficiency in its detachment (Wilson, 1992 p.7-8). The experience of the space is sheltering and yet confronting. According to Gestalt psychology, it isn’t possible to experience both the comfort of the shelter and the confronting detachment conveyed by this project’s form (ibid, p.8). While the architecture is clear and distinctive, the semi-pedestrian, semi-private lane cannot in reality be read separately from its context. At the entry to Marmalade Lane, one cannot but experience the power of the buildings. There is a perceived boundary to cross in order to step into the change, and the change to which this cohousing community aspires isn’t accessible to all for economical, conceptual, and social reasons. Change comes with education, belief, direction, need, and desire. Just as language is closely related to culture, the language of this architecture speaks to some, not to all. And as noted above, the scheme calls for the integration of some, therefore not all.

As a sense of comfort emanates from the moderate scale of the project, its integration to the urban context is strengthened by the design’s historical influences, which contribute to its connection to the place. This project’s diverse colour palette and housing mix gives personality and suggest intimate spaces. Nonetheless, there is little to suggest flexibility of form and image. Street life, neighbourhood watch, and vitality in common spaces are relied upon to bring this place to life and reflect the ideology of cohousing. While place has been made through form, activity and image, as per the equation shown in John Montgomery’s 1998 “Place” diagram (quoted in Lovejoy, 2020, p.53), each term of that equation seems to be incomplete at Marmalade Lane. And since the ideology of form reinforces the social structures to which cohousing aspires, it fails to make up for some the missing pieces.

While cohousing intentionally brings together people with a particular ethos and sense of unity, architecture itself is both the scene and accessory to the activity this community cultivates. While the scenography communicates comfort and intimacy, as suggested earlier, it is combined with a sense of closure and exclusivity.

The concepts of Civic Creation and Ideological Form feed into each other’s depiction of the project. Albeit no project will ever perfectly integrate an ideological, social and spatial balance, analysis of those concepts and their relationship elevates the perception of this project to a more objective standpoint. It is clear that Civic Creation is highly cultural, and that Ideological Form is particularly influenced by the narrative and hence the language of users and observers. Marmalade Lane’s ideology alludes to wanting to welcome all into this live sustainable project, however the fine print is in the form. As with all societal changes, it will take more than one plus twenty odd projects around a country (Bullivant, 2020) to shift a culture and teach a language.

Although the design of this new urban island stems from the Orchard Park Design Guidance planning requirements (South Cambridgeshire District Council, 2011), as well as the Client Brief and work of urban planners, the final design differs from the essential criteria outlined, a fact that indicates that Mole Architects, together with the clients, made specific decisions that bloomed into today’s Marmalade Lane. Through a democratic process, this cohousing project has resulted in open place with boundaries, and in narratives with absent stories.

Home is space and time dependent. Space and time form identity, and home is defined by the identities of individuals. Yet, the genius loci of Marmalade Lane lies in the dynamics of its people, the ever-changing status of the lane, the narrative of both people and place, the historical memory that the architecture has brought to the place, and the blurred boundaries between private and shared. “The spirit of the place” as Norberg-Schulz writes (2000, p.353) is multiple, and as discussed above, this place has a history and an imprint that make the composition whole.

The external design expresses modesty and a horizontal hierarchy. Nonetheless, as the project is not just buildings, but Architecture, and the narrative is not legible to all, the project can be perceived as inaccessible to some. As John Wilson explains, there has been a distinction made between purposeless and utilitarian architecture for the last 200 years. (1992) At Marmalade Lane, the ‘architecture’ is ‘utilitarian’, therefore it would appear this Architecture has its own order. Although the intentions of the project are not new, they symbolise a wave of change. As environmental consciousness expands, more space is made, by the people and the leaders, for architecture to systematically embody the oneness of speculative and practical, beauty and function, form and use (ibid). Furthermore, this wave has the potential to be rapidly significant and universal if indeed “all our consciousness is grounded in spatial experience” (Kant, cited in Wilson, 1992 p.5) and provided architects are true to the ideology of eco-housing. There is potential to communicate the importance, the urgency, and the rewarding gesture that socio-environmental and economical architecture have to offer globally. And this starts with projects such as Marmalade Lane, or indeed Mikhail Riches’ Goldsmith Street Passivhaus social housing and Architype’s Passivhaus Enterprise Centre, both in Norwich.