All women team wins National Infrastructure Commission competition for the Cambridge to Oxford corridor

Khaa is part of the all-female team that collaborated to produce “VeloCity” a proposal to support growth in the Oxford to Cambridge corridor. The team includes Tibbalds, Mikhail Riches, Featherstone Young, Marko and Placemakers, and Expedition Engineering.

VeloCity is a re-imagining of the village for the 21st century. The team’s winning entry focuses on six villages situated to the south east of one of the new stations on the Oxford to Cambridge rail link, using the opportunities created through the introduction of an integrated fast rail system and new road links to introduce a finer grain network of local, medium and longer distance cycle and pedestrian routes. In doing so, the strategy seeks to explore a future that no longer needs to rely so heavily on vehicular traffic.

It advances a place-based vision for reimagining how lives and communities in these villages could be enriched through the creation of socially cohesive homes and workplaces with an emphasis on the retention and enhancement of the natural environment. The installation of a low-cost, high-speed data network has been proposed to foster a more sustainable environment and create new employment opportunities.

The proposals also outlined how the vision would be delivered, highlighting key actions and interventions that would need to be taken. In doing so, it showed how traditional planning policy could be reconsidered in order to transform locations previously thought to be unsuitable into well-connected and sustainable places.

Kay Hughes said “The National Infrastructure Commission competition shows the benefit of putting design at the heart of deciding how to shape the places we live and work. The Velocity proposal reconciles the needs of our environment with a high-technology and low-cost future infrastructure. It supports health and wellbeing while creating places with identity and a sense of belonging.”