The Alconbury Enterprise Zone Incubator Building in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire has today been recognised as one of the Midlands and East Anglia’s five finest workplaces at the annual British Council for Offices (BCO) property sector awards.
The Midlands and East Anglia leg of the BCO’s respected awards programme recognises top quality office design and functionality and sets the standard for excellence in the regional office sector. Over 300 of the country’s top designers, developers, architects and occupiers attended the awards lunch, all of whom were competing for a coveted BCO regional award.
The Alconbury Incubator Building took home the award for Projects up to 2000msq, for successfully responding to the challenging brief of developing a flexible office space, while creating a distinctive structure in a largely vacant airfield. The judges felt the project punched well above its weight with generous shared facilities and an impressive viewing platform and has set the tone for a further 124,000msq of commercial development on the site.
All eyes are now on October 7th when the winners from the Regional Awards will compete in their categories at a national level and also bid to win the property sector’s respected BCO ‘Best of the Best’ award.
The Incubator is the flagship building of Alconbury Enterprise Campus – a Government-backed Enterprise Zone situated between the A1(M), East Coast Mainline and A14, between the global innovation hub of Cambridge, the manufacturing and composites expertise of Huntingdonshire and the environmental services cluster of Peterborough. The building was designed by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris to deliver the first new office building on the former airfield which is being transformed into the mixed use development of Alconbury Weald, with a 150 hectare business Campus. The building is designed to support small and start-up businesses and provide networking and meeting space to drive innovation, collaboration and enterprise across the local area.
Tim Leathes, Project Director for Urban&Civic, the owners and developers of Alconbury Campus, said: “The Incubator was always a statement building for us to set out the quality of design and space we plan to bring forward on the Campus. We are delighted this award recognises the successful design and delivery of the Incubator and its status as a great place for companies wanting to grow and be part of Alconbury Weald.”
Philip Turner, Associate Director at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, said: “This simple and efficient new building will set the tone for new business accommodation at Alconbury Weald. Flexible office space is arranged along a generous gallery space shared by the Incubator occupants. A four-storey tower contains a series of meeting rooms, from which the wider site and ongoing regeneration can be reviewed.”
For more information on the awards visit the BCO website (www.bco.org.uk).
