Accordia

Accordia Living
Accordia ABA02 – The Alison Brooks Architects designed Brass Building on Kingfisher Way, Cambridge, CB2 8DL
Location	Cambridge, England
Coordinates	52°11′26″N 0°07′41″E / 52.1905°N 0.128°E / 52.1905; 0.128Coordinates: 52°11′26″N 0°07′41″E / 52.1905°N 0.128°E / 52.1905; 0.128
Status	Completed
Constructed	2003–2006 (phase 1) 2003-2011 (phases 2 and 3)

Accordia, also known as Accordia Living, is a housing development in Cambridge, England. The 9.5-hectare (23.5-acre) site includes 378 dwellings and has been constructed in three phases. The first phase of the development became the first housing development to win the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize in 2008.

Originally the site was part of a large garden to a country house. The country house called Brooklands House, at 24 Brooklands Avenue, is now the east of England regional office of English Heritage. The site was owned by the Ministry of Defence, and included post-World War II yellow prefab offices for the Inland Revenue (HMRC), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Driving Standards Agency. These building were later demolished after Kajima Cambridge, a subsidiary of Kajima Corporation, won the private finance initiative (PFI) contract in 1998 to build the 12,500-square-metre (135,000 sq ft) Eastbrook building next to the site in Shaftesbury Road for DEFRA and other government departments. The building was opened in 2003 and the building architects were Carey Jones Architects. The site also contained a Cold War underground nuclear bunker, and would have acted as the Regional Seat of Government, in the event of a nuclear attack. The bunker was built in the early 1950s and expanded in the early 1960s. By July 2003 it was a Grade II listed building.

The site is bordered by Brooklands Avenue, including Brooklands House, to the north, Shaftesbury Road, including Eastbrook, to the east, the Cold War nuclear bunker to the south and Hobson's Brook to the west.