Hasta La Ideas

A blanket of golden shingles clads the new wing that London studio Hugh Broughton Architects have added to a Tudor-style museum in Maidstone, England.

Open since the end of March, the East Wing and new entrance block slot into the recesses of the sixteenth century brick building, which was converted from a manor house into a museum over 150 years ago.

The copper-alloy exterior is interspersed with large panels of glazing to create views in towards the lower ground floor entrance lobby and shop, as well as into a new public meeting room.

The rear of the building steps up to meet the sloping ground level of the public gardens just behind, while the windows of this elevation reveal the interior facades of a courtyard enclosed between the extension and the refurbished existing galleries.

North-facing rooflights bring even levels of natural daylight into the one of the east wing’s three new galleries, which together will display some of the museum’s 600,000 artefacts.

Other buildings with a similar copper alloy exterior include a visual arts centre and a public library. See a selection here.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

Here’s some more text from Hugh Broughton Architects:

Maidstone Museum East Wing: new ‘gold’ clad extensions hint at treasures inside

Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery has re-opened following an extensive £3 million refurbishment and the addition of a new east wing by Hugh Broughton Architects.

Clad with ʻgoldʼ shingles which hint at the museumʼs collection of ʻtreasuresʼ on display inside, the new East Wing provides the museum with a reinvigorated look making it the cultural focus for the town centre.

Housing a collection of over 600,000 artifacts and specimens that are outstanding in their diversity and quality, Maidstone Museum forms the largest mixed collection in Kent and one of the largest in the South-East of England.

Hugh Broughton Architectsʼ 2006 RIBA competition-winning architectural scheme transforms the museumʼs display, storage and visitor facilities, allowing more of the collection to be accessed.

The core of Maidstone Museum, a Grade II listed building located within the boundaries of a conservation area, is a Tudor manor house dating from 1561. The building was acquired by Maidstone Borough Council in 1855 and opened as a Museum in 1858. Since then it has been subject to numerous expansions, resulting in an eclectic architectural arrangement.

The East Wing project forms the second phase of the Museumʼs re- development programme, following the renovation of the West Wing in 2003. The aims of the project have been three-fold including the long-term preservation of the museumʼs collection, increase in visitor numbers and greater public involvement.

The scheme improves storage facilities, brings previously inaccessible spaces into use and allows more of the Museumʼs historic buildings to be experienced. The East Wing provides new gallery spaces, which enable more of the collections to be seen. The provision of new and improved services including a shop, new toilets with baby-changing facilities and cloakroom, ease visitor circulation throughout the building and enhance the visitor experience.

The East Wing responds to the multilayered history and architecture of the museum. The elevations combine frameless glazing with a diagrid of copper alloy shingles, creating a contemporary counterpoise to the existing brick facades. The copper alloy shingles emulate the diamond leaded glass windows of the original Tudor building and have been individually hand cut and crafted on site, enhancing the artisanal qualities of the Museum.

A new entrance on the East elevation welcomes visitors from Maidstone High Street into the new East Wing. The entrance opens into an open plan foyer and orientation area occupied by Maidstoneʼs Visitor Information Centre and the Museum shop.

Beyond the foyer and shop a multi-functional education suite brings areas previously occupied by storage into lively public use, creating a designated study area for community groups and schools.
At ground floor level the principal public space in the East Wing is a gallery housing one of the museumʼs noteworthy exhibits – a Solomon Islands war canoe, the only example of its kind outside of the Islands. Glazing on the rear wall of this gallery reveals a public courtyard and Tudor facades unseen by the public for over 40 years.

At first floor level a public meeting room housed in a glazed box offers dramatic views of St. Faithʼs Church which visually re-connects the museum with Brenchley Gardens, fulfilling the ambitions of the Museumʼs Victorian founders. A system of bespoke connectors between the glass and steel structure ensures a completely frameless flush glazed finish.

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The new Japanese Gallery is located within the copper clad space above the reception. It is lit by an undulating ceiling of north-facing rooflights, which enliven the white cube space and ensure an even stream of daylight in to the gallery. This gallery is the new permanent home for one of the museumʼs highlights, an internationally significant display of Japanese Art collected in the nineteenth century by one of the Museumʼs founders, Julius Brenchley.

In addition to these new galleries, the existing galleries in the original museum have been refurbished and re-organised, increasing the display space by 30%.

Beyond the public spaces, the practice has worked closely with the museum staff to completely overhaul and modernize the storage spaces, increasing the capacity by 100%, and improving security and accessibility. This process has allowed the museumʼs staff to take stock and reorganize exhibits in storage, taking the opportunity to digitize and hone the full collection.

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Projects facts
Address: Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery St. Faithʼs Street, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1LH
Construction value: £3m (including a £2m grant from Heritage Lottery Fund)
Gross internal area: 1150 sq m (470 sq m new build / 680 sq m refurbishment)

Project credits
Client: Maidstone Borough Council
Architect: Hugh Broughton Architects
Project director: Hugh Broughton
Project architect: Gianluca Rendina
Structural Engineer: AECOM
Services Engineer: AECOM
Quantity Surveyor: GB Fitzsimon
Building Contractor: Morgan Sindall
Lighting Consultant: AECOM
Security Consultant: AECOM
Health & Safety: AECOM
Japanese Gallery Design (Concept): Ralph Appelbaum Associates

A semi-circular vaulted concourse designed by British architects John McAslan + Partners will open at King’s Cross Station in London next week.

The architects, who have been progressing a masterplan for the railway station since 1998, have fully restored the five buildings that comprise the western elevation to serve as a backdrop to the new glazed entrance hall.

The criss-crossing steel structure unfurls like a tree from columns in front of this elevation and folds down around the space.

Departing passengers will be able to access the eight existing platforms in the main train shed, as well as one new one, directly through the new two-storey hall instead of beneath the temporary canopy currently in front of the building.

The architects plan to remove this structure during the next phases of construction to create a new public square.

John McAslan was awarded an OBE for services to architecture at the start of this year.

Other railway stations we’ve featured on Dezeen include Bijlmer Station in Amsterdam and Rossio Station in Lisbon – see them both and more here.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow, apart from where otherwise stated.

Above: photograph is by John Sturrock

Here’s some more information from John McAslan + Partners:

TRANSFORMING KING’S CROSS – LONDON’S HISTORIC STATION ACQUIRES A CONTEMPORARY TWIST

The new Western Concourse at King’s Cross opens to the public on Monday 19th March 2012.

“The transformation of King’s Cross station by John McAslan + Partners represents a compelling piece of place-making for London. The show-piece is clearly the Western Concourse – Europe’s largest single span station structure and the heart of the development, but the overall project is far more complex: an extraordinary, collaborative effort that has delivered an internationally significant transport interchange, fit for the 21st century and beyond.

We are very proud of our role as lead architects and master-planners of the King’s Cross redevelopment, and it’s immensely satisfying to see the project delivered on time, ready for the capital’s celebration of the London Olympics later this year.” John McAslan, Chairman John McAslan + Partners

With this multi-phased development now complete, the significance of the King’s Cross Station redevelopment is finally revealed. The transformation of King’s Cross Station for Network Rail involves three very different styles of architecture: re-use, restoration and new build. The train shed and range buildings have been adapted and re-used, the station’s previously obscured Grade I listed façade is being precisely restored, and a new, highly expressive Western Concourse has been designed as a centrepiece and the ‘beating heart’ of the project. When the station opens to the public next Monday, 19 March, King’s Cross will become a new, iconic architectural gateway to the city, ready for the 2012 London Olympics.

John McAslan + Partners began work on the project in 1998 and established the overall master-plan for the development in 2005. As a result the practice has played a key role in the wider transformation of the King’s Cross area – infrastructural, social and commercial changes that now connect the station with the massive King’s Cross Central scheme north of the station as well as to St Pancras, the London Underground, and the surrounding urban context. The architectural ambition of JMP’s scheme has been to create a new iconic landmark that will function as a key catalyst for the ongoing regeneration of this new London quarter as well as providing striking new facilities that will accommodate the 50 million passengers now passing through the station each year.

WESTERN CONCOURSE

The centrepiece of the £547m redevelopment is the new vaulted, semi-circular concourse to the west of the existing station. The concourse rises some 20m and spans the full 150m-length of the existing Grade I Listed Western Range, creating a new entrance to the station through the south end of the structure and at mezzanine level to the northern end of the Western Concourse.

The 7,500sqm concourse has become Europe’s largest single-span station structure, comprising of 16 steel tree form columns that radiate from an expressive, tapered central funnel. The graceful circularity of the concourse echoes the form of the neighbouring Great Northern Hotel, with the ground floor of the hotel providing access to the concourse. The Western Concourse sits adjacent to the façade of the Western Range, clearly revealing the restored brickwork and masonry of the original station. From this dramatic interior space, passengers access the platforms either through the ground level gate-lines in the Ticket Hall via the Western Range building, or by using the mezzanine level gate-line, which leads onto the new cross–platform footbridge.

Located above the new London Underground northern ticketing hall, and with retail elements at mezzanine level, the concourse will transform passenger facilities, whilst also enhancing links to the London Underground, and bus, taxi and train connections at St Pancras. The concourse is set to become an architectural gateway to the King’s Cross Central mixed-use developments, a key approach to the eastern entrance of St Pancras International. It will also act as an extension to King’s Cross Square, a new plaza that will be formed between the station’s southern façade and Euston Road.

WESTERN RANGE

The Western Range at King’s Cross is the historic station’s biggest component, accommodating a wide range of uses. Complex in plan, and articulated in five buildings, the practice’s considered architectural intervention has delivered greatly improved working conditions for the station staff, train-operating companies and Network Rail management teams. The Northern Wing, destroyed by bombing in World War II, has been rebuilt to its original design. The reinstatement of the Western Range also delivers key gated connections, including a new gate-line at the southern end, now the main point of connection between the Western Concourse and the platforms of the Main Train Shed.

MAIN TRAIN SHED

The station’s Main Train Shed is 250m long, 22m high and 65m wide, spanning eight platforms. The restoration includes revealing the bold architecture of the original south façade, re-glazing the north and south gables and refurbishing platforms The two barrel-vaulted roofs are currently being refurbished and lined with energy-saving photo- voltaic arrays along the linear roof lanterns, while a new glass footbridge designed by JMP extends across the Main Train Shed, replacing the old mid-shed Handyside bridge and giving access to every platform as well as the mezzanine level of the concourse.

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JMP’s design integrates the main and suburban train sheds for the first time, creating a completely coherent ground- plan for passenger movements into and through the station. Improvements to the Suburban Train Shed located to the north of the Western Concourse and Western Range buildings have enhanced the operation of its three platforms (the busiest in the station during peak-hours).

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The ambitious transformation of the station creates a remarkable dialogue between Cubitt’s original station and 21st- century architecture – a quantum shift in strategic infrastructure design in the UK. This relationship between old and new creates a modern transport super-hub at King’s Cross, whilst revitalising and unveiling one of the great railway monuments of Britain.

London studio Gundry & Ducker have added oak booths and stencilled tree-like graphics to the interior of an Italian chain restaurant in Hertfordshire, England.

Bauble-shaped pendant lights are clustered in each of the three dining rooms of ASK Hertford, two of which feature deep green walls.

Oak tables and chairs are either laminated or painted in green and white, arranged randomly around the restaurant.

Wine bottles displayed on the walls behind the wooden bar appear to have bright white shadows.

The restaurant is one of a few ASK outlets that the architects are upgrading.

You can see a couple more projects by Gundry & Ducker here, including a pub inside a cardboard box.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

Here’s some more text from Gundry & Ducker:

Ask Italian Hertford

As part of a major refurbishment program Gundry & Ducker were asked to re-design Ask Italian in Hertford.

The design is intended to create a warm and relaxed dining environment for both the evening and daytime, whilst maintaining a sense of the simple white restaurant interiors that typified Ask’s early restaurants.

The restaurant is sited within a sequence of interconnecting spaces, Victorian shop, covered courtyard & Edwardian showroom, which with their differing volumes together provide the framework for the design.

The first space is light and addresses the street, The floor is striped in contrasting grey tiles, bespoke pendent lights hang low over a mix of white and timber tables, projecting a silhouette onto the ceiling at night that are echoed on the walls. The openness of the space is contrasted with a sense of enclosure created by high backed benches, with rich green interiors and a new bar and back display.

The second space is a vertical volume with a vaulted ceiling and central lantern light. This dark green volume is dominated by the a chandelier, a version of the brass and glass bespoke lighting that runs throughout the restaurant, The walls are decorated with murals in light green inspired by the out line of trees, in turn influenced by the history of the town.

The third space, previously a draper’s showroom, is the largest and lowest of the three. Here the space is sub divided into “a space within a space”, where walls are cut away to form castellated screens and booths green on the insides, clad in oak on the outside.

Throughout the scheme the oak flooring is manipulated to form the furniture, turning the boards through 45° and up the face of key elements within the space. Interior reveals and lit elements are picked out in greens from a pallet that runs throughout the restaurant. The tabletops are a mix of sharp white and laminated timber the laminated chairs are finished in Oak and greens from the recurring pallet.

Architects Stanton Williams have completed a new campus for art and design college Central Saint Martins in and around a Victorian granary and two former transit sheds in London.

Two new four-storey buildings provide studio blocks between the two 180 metre-long sheds, one of which now houses workshops.

Cycle stores are located in historic horse stables below this eastern shed, while shops and bars now occupy the ground floor of the western shed.

Four-storey-high concrete walls frame the main entrance to the college, which leads into an internal street with overhead bridges and an arched, clear plastic roof.

A performing arts centre located at the end of this street contains a 350-seat theatre for student performances.

The refurbished former granary now houses a library and faces a public square currently under construction.

Past projects by students at the University of the Arts college include functionless objects for unpredicted needs and rockers made from found chairs – see all our stories about Central Saint Martins here.

Stanton Williams also recently completed another UK university building – see our earlier story here about a research laboratory at Cambridge.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a more detailed description from Stanton Williams:

New University of the Arts London Campus Central Saint Martins at King’s Cross

To the north of King’s Cross and St Pancras International railway stations, 67-acres of derelict land are being transformed in what is one of Europe’s largest urban regeneration projects.

The result will be a vibrant mixed-use quarter, at the physical and creative heart of which will be the new University of the Arts London campus, home of Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.

Stanton Williams’ design for the £200m new campus unites the college’s activities under one roof for the first time. It provides Central Saint Martins with a substantial new building, connected at its southern end to the Granary Building, a rugged survivor of the area’s industrial past.

The result is a state-of-the-art facility that not only functions as a practical solution to the college’s needs but also aims to stimulate creativity, dialogue and student collaboration.

A stage for transformation, a framework of flexible spaces that can be orchestrated and transformed over time by staff and students where new interactions and interventions, chance and experimentation can create that slip-steam between disciplines, enhancing the student experience. The coming together of all the schools of Central Saint Martins will open up that potential.

The design aims to maximise the connections between departments within the building, with student and material movement being considered 3-dimensionally, as a flow diagram North to South, East to West, and up and down – similar in many ways to how the grain was distributed around the site using wagons and turntables.

King’s Cross offered a unique opportunity: a large site within what promises to be a creative and cultural hub, connected (via King’s Cross Station and the restored St Pancras International) not only to the rest of Britain but also to mainland Europe, plus the chance to develop a robust contemporary architectural response to the boldness of the existing buildings on the site.

The Granary Building itself has been restored as the main ‘front’ of the college, facing a new public square that steps down to the Regent’s Canal. The building was designed in 1851 to receive grain from the wheat fields of Lincolnshire, unloaded here from railway wagons onto canal boats for onward transport to the capital’s bakeries.

It comprises a solid, six-storey cubic mass, with an unadorned, 50-metre wide brick elevation, extended to 100-metres by office additions flanking the building. To the north, located one to each side of the Granary Building, are two parallel 180 metres long Transit Sheds.

The design strategy retains the Granary Building, adapted to include functions such as the college’s library, while the Eastern Transit Shed behind is converted to create spectacular workshops for the college. Within the street-level openings of the Western Transit Shed, new shops and bars will add further life to the area. The historic horse stables below the Eastern Transit Sheds have been transformed to new cycle stores for students and staff.

The bulk of the college’s accommodation, however, is located in a major addition to the site, two substantial new studio buildings that occupy the space between the two transit sheds and which, at the North end of the site present a contemporary elevation to the surrounding area. The scale of the new addition responds closely to that of the Granary Building, essentially continuing its massing along the length of the site. It rises above the level of the transit sheds, using contemporary materials so that it will stand, beacon-like, as a symbol of the college’s presence within this rapidly-evolving part of London.

The two new four storey studio buildings are arranged at either side of a covered central ‘street’, some 110m long, 12m wide and 20m high, covered by a translucent ETFE roof and punctuated by a regular rhythm of service cores that accommodate lifts, stairs and toilets. At the northern end, a new centre for the Performing Arts will house a fully equipped theatre complete with fly-tower as well as rehearsal and teaching spaces.

The internal ‘street’ has been conceived as a dynamic area, an arena for student life, akin to the much-loved stair at the centre of the college’s previous main building. Bridges linking the various cores and workspaces cross it, offering break-out areas for meeting, relaxing and people-watching and exchanging ideas.

The street will be used for exhibitions, fashion shows and performances, the spaces being large enough to build temporary pavilions for example. Viewing points allow students to watch others working or performing, and the work of other disciplines can be seen and exhibited.

At the southern end of the new block and running parallel with the north end of the Granary Building is a second covered ‘street’, offering public access through this part of the building interior. Lifts rising through this space recall the vertical movement of grain, which gave the complex its original purpose.

Flooring details either retain existing turntables or hint at their historic location, while within the Granary Building itself, the hoists have been retained, crowning a newly inserted lightwell. Simple glazing maintain the integrity of the unbroken openings, rhythmically punctuating the Granary Building’s main façade.

The new University of the Arts London campus is one of the first parts of the King’s Cross development to be completed. As such, it not only provides Central Saint Martins with the flexible and dynamic spaces that it needs to educate and develop the artists and designers of the future, but also makes a firm statement of the role of the Arts in the quarter, to which it will give critical mass and energy.

Project Details:

The £200m campus brings together 4,000 Central Saint Martins students and 1,000 staff under one roof. It is made up of:
• 10 acres of floor space
• Over 1.3 million timber blocks
• Enough concrete to fill eight Olympic swimming pools
The three-storey building is based around an internal street, naturally lit through a translucent roof.
It contains four levels of multi-purpose workshops and specialist studios, including:
• Performance design and practice labs
• Casting, wood fabrication and metal fabrication workshops
• Post-production workshops
• Film, effects and sound studios
• Architecture and spatial studios
• Fashion and textiles studios
• Photography studios and darkrooms
• Product and industrial design studios
• Graphic and communication design studios • Jewellery workshops
• Art studios

The campus is also home to a 350 seat public theatre with its own entrance.

Above: Photography is by John Sturrock

It occupies the Grade II listed Granary Building, built in 1851, which managed the storage and distribution of grain at the height of the Victorian industrial boom.

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It faces onto Granary Square which, when completed in June 2012, will be one of London’s largest public squares.

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The campus has been designed by architects Stanton Williams and forms part of King’s Cross, a 67 acre development in central London – a new piece of the city with a brand new postcode, London N1C. King’s Cross is being developed by the King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership, which brings together Argent Group, London & Continental Railways and DHL Supply Chain.

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Key Values:

Project Value: £200M (based on cost of land, building, fit-out and expansion incl. third floor)

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Key dates:

Construction Start date: January 2008
Completion Date: April 2011
Date of Occupation: August 2011
Construction phase: January 2008 – August 2011 (Incl. fit-out) Student arrival: 3rd October 2011
Building Details
Postal Address: Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London, N1C 4AA Gross Internal Area: approx. 40,000m2

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Design team:

Site Developer: Argent
Tenant: University of the Arts London
Architect: Stanton Williams
Structure: Scott Wilson
Environmental / M&E engineering: Atelier 10
Architectural lighting: Spiers and Major
Quantity Surveyor / Employer’s Agent: Davis Langdon
Landscape Architect: Townsend Landscape Architects.

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Facade consultant: Arup Facades Engineering
CDM coordinator: Scott Wilson.
Contractor team – base build
Main contractor: Bam Construction Limited
Contractor’s Architect: Bam Design (new buildings) / Weedon Partnership (Granary)
Conservation Architect: Richard Griffiths Architects

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Structure: Bam Design (new buildings) AKS Lister Beare (existing structure)
M&E engineering: Bam Design
Fire consultant: Aecom
Acoustic consultant: Sandy Brown Associates
Access consultant: All Clear Design
Contractor team – fit-out
Contractor: Overbury
Interior fit-out Architect: Pringle Brandon

See also:

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Sainsbury Laboratory by Stanton Williams	School of Management by Adjaye Associates	Marne College by Wind Architecten Adviseurs

Here are some more photographs of Zaha Hadid‘s recently completed aquatics centre for the London 2012 Olympic Games, taken by UK photographers Hufton + Crow.

Six curved concrete diving boards stick out like tongues across one pool at the end of the main hall, beneath an undulating wave-like roof.

The competition pool is also located in this hall, which will seat 17,500 spectators during the games.

Petal-shaped openings allow light through the concrete ceiling of a second hall, where a practice pool is located.

Wide glass walls provide views of pools in both rooms from connecting corridors.

More information and images by David Poultney can be seen in our earlier story.

Other completed venues on the Olympic Park include the Olympic Stadium by Populous, the Basketball Arena by Sinclair Knight Merz and the Velodrome by Hopkins, which is nominated for the Stirling Prize. See all our stories about London 2012 here.

Zaha Hadid also recently completed the Riverside Museum, which has a zig-zagging zinc-clad roof – click here to see all our stories about Zaha Hadid.

Photographers Hufton + Crow also photographed a laboratory in the botanic gardens of Cambridge University and Peter Zumthor’s recently-opened Serpentine Gallery Pavilion – see all our stories with photography by Hufton + Crow here.

See also:

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London 2012 Olympic Stadium by Populous	London 2012 Velodrome by Hopkins Architects	ArcelorMittal Orbit by Anish Kapoor