Building many parts of many colleges over many years.
His legacy has been the reason most FirstYears? have somewhere to sleep between lectures.
Unfortunately, Cripps building spree took part during the sixties - a time when all architects decided to get very drunk, very stoned and to build things out of concrete.
Or they might have just gave Engineers a go at designing buildings
Well no wonder then! Any engineer worth his salt will just play around with Lego? if given half a chance.
They tend to be built on stilts. At least with an overhang into the quad (as per QueensCollege) or going so far as to have NO ground floor at all (RobinsonCollege and StJohnsCollege's)
Oh well - it sure looks like it was built by Cripps. Maybe they were just trying to look like all the other colleges?
The third (and final) Cripps is at Selwyn. This one is marginally more respectable as
a) It's a long way from the nice bit of the college rather than next to New court
b) It isn't right in the middle of the backs on top of the fellows garden (deceased)
c) They at least tried to disguise the concrete. Admittedly by pebbledashing it...
And StJohnsCollege's Cripps Building (there is no CrippsCourt in John's, strictly), *does* have a ground floor, it's just well hidden. Anyone climbing stairs will note that the numbers of rooms inside the staircases always start at either 3 or 5.
Queens' has a ground floor. Whatever the bad points, they do however give us lots more rooms and are very sociable buldings (the Queens' one at least is very well designed for freshers to mingle) I still think the time the roof fell on my head was bad though, and having heard they plan to put another layer on the top of Queens' Cripps would recommend people don't live there until it's settled for at least a decade.
They tend to be built out of concrete. StJohnsCollege's decided to show off and build it out of QuarriedStone? and just make it LOOK like it was built out of concrete. The people responsible for that decision had better RunAndHide.
Did I mention they tend to be ugly and grey? Concrete buildings built in the sixties. They look ugly and grey.
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