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Like many renowned university towns, Canterbury is a victim of its own success, its burgeoning population putting pressure on already inadequate student housing stock, the result a significant city-wide rise in houses with multiple occupation (HMOs). One of the answers is to design and build halls of residence that do more than provide a first-year buffer between arriving and ending up in HMOs. With space for 540 students, Palamon Court does exactly this: set around a classic courtyard, it’s so beautifully designed – a great choice of room types, shared spaces, and amenities – as to serve as base for one’s entire university career.
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Key to this is how it fits with wider built environment, and in particular Canterbury’s medieval city wall, sitting opposite, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, its archer-defence windows and its turrets informing Palamon Court’s façade and entrance. Inspiring an ‘active frontage’, it offers glimpses of the student facilities behind, whilst at the same time providing a safer pedestrian route across the front of the site, linking it back to the city and adjacent university buildings.
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Palamon Court has been an unmitigated success, providing students with the ultimate fresher-to-graduate dwelling, a new type, one that hopes to kick-start a revolution in the way we house our students – and at the same time promises to free up housing for families and others in need of secure homes.
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