Mathematical academics work in many different ways: sometimes intensely privately; at others in lectures and colloquia, so the new Cambridge University Centre for Mathematical Sciences had to provide a complex lattice of spaces, ranging from almost hermetic cells to formal theatres, and to spaces in which people can meet casually and chat. The other main determinant of the Centre's design was its site and its neighbours. West Cambridge is an area of grand villas set in their own grounds. It was largely built in the second part of the nineteenth century when the university's dons were allowed to marry for the first time. They built a marvellously diverse collection of houses that offers an unrivalled compendium of upper-middle class domestic styles that starts with Queen Anne revival, goes through Arts and Crafts and ends with the Wrenaissance. Different though the styles are, the houses have scale in common, and when the idea of developing a seven acre field in the middle of the suburb as a new faculty was launched in the early ′90s, people who owned surrounding properties were (rightly) vociferous in demanding that the mathematics centre should not be overwhelming, and that it should respond sympathetically to its location. It has.
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