Model photos of the Grand House’s preliminary design, depicting terrain and orientation, site constraints, and massing concepts
groups of the local Cambridge community and the transplanted architectural community. If not for the convergence of these groups, Grand House would scarcely be possible. The timing could not be better: given the newness of the relationship between town and school, it is a friendship still saturated with idealism, possibility and wishes: that the city might develop as an adequate and friendly resource for the school community; that students might not just be seen as silent placeholders with pocketbooks, but as active, participating citizens Cambridge; that a school of architecture can indeed be a catalyst for grassroots urban renewal. The sheer existence of the Grand House presents the case that such wishes are not simply idealistic abstraction.
has emerged. As a not-for-profit co-operative, the Grand House group is aligned with a long history of collaborative decision- making, mutual responsibility, and community involvement. It looked for feasible alternative energy systems and materials that are salvaged, renewable, durable and locally produced. Project design and execution is a process of skill-sharing, reaching out to local professionals and trades specialising in ecological construction methods. Not only can students gain practical building experience, but so too can community members offer time and expertise. A broad-reaching fundraising campaign was undertaken and the promotion of public awareness and involvement was placed at the fore.
This is the most critical initiative of the project — forging some of the first student-initiated links between the seemingly disparate
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