JGC was involved in creating the college’s sustainability brief for the project and engaged with both final design teams in the competition. Consequently, two of our senior engineers were tasked with independently developing unique responses to the brief for critique and review by the college. This approach has enabled us to effectively integrate ideas from both strategies and build upon each as the design has evolved from competition into RIBA Stages 1 and 2. The unique brief placed sustainability at the core of the architecturally driven competition, with strategies developed to serve the new courts that influenced the buildings' design, orientation, shading, and other key elements. Incorporating measured metrics into the design facilitated pragmatic decisions on building form and materials.

Through JGC’s work on the college's decarbonisation master plan, we identified a crucial opportunity to link the two workstreams via a single energy centre. This energy centre would provide both heating and hot water to the entire Girton College site, freeing up valuable space within the new courts project, servicing failing plant in the existing college buildings, and supplying renewable technology without compromising the historic character of the current buildings and their setting.

JGC is engaged in producing the RIBA 4 technical design and monitoring the project through construction