Hasta La Ideas

Music manuscripts and recordings of the late British composer Benjamin Britten are held within a temperature-controlled concrete chamber at this archive building in Suffolk, England by architecture firm Stanton Williams (+ slideshow).

The Britten-Pears Archive is located in the grounds of the house formerly shared by Britten and tenor Peter Pears – the composer’s personal and professional partner – and it offers a comprehensive archive of the music, photographs and letters of both musicians.

Stanton Williams developed the structure using the concept of “an egg in a box”. The archive is housed within a highly-insulated concrete enclosure, while a red-brick facade encases this volume along with the other rooms of the building.

This arrangement effectively creates an intermediate space between the archive and the outside environment, making it easy to moderate the temperature and relative humidity. The archive is also raised off the ground to prevent the risk of flooding.

Staff offices, support spaces and a study room are positioned inside the southern wing of the building and feature exposed concrete ceilings and a variety of wooden surfaces.

Brick piers surround two of the facades to create nine floor-to-ceiling windows, giving staff views out across the gardens.

Architect Alan Stanton said: “The new building will play an important part in preserving Britten’s legacy and serve as a research centre for future generations of musicians and music lovers.”

Stanton Williams won the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize for its botanic laboratory at Cambridge University. Dezeen interviewed Alan Stanton at the award ceremony, when he explained that “the social challenge of designing a laboratory is almost as demanding as the technical challenge”.

Other recent projects by Stanton Williams include facilities for London’s amateur football leagues and a new campus for art and design college Central Saint Martins. See more architecture by Stanton Williams.

See more archives on Dezeen, including an earth-coloured concrete building for EDF Energy.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

Here’s a project description from Stanton Williams:

Britten-Pears Archive

The Britten Pears Archive, Stanton Williams’ new passive archive building for the Britten–Pears Foundation (BPF), houses the extensive collection of music manuscripts, letters, photographs and recordings of the composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears. Originally assembled by Britten and Pears as a working library of their own collections of books, manuscripts and printed scores and recordings, the archive has now grown into one of the country’s most important centres for music research and scholarship. In 2005 the collection was officially given Designated status in recognition of its significance.

The archive building complements the site of The Red House in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the Grade II listed former home of Britten and his partner Pears and has been completed in time for Britten’s Centenary celebrations at the Aldeburgh music festival in June 2013.

Stanton Williams’ design roots the building firmly in its context and is appropriate to the listed house and garden, providing optimum environmental conditions for preservation of the significant collection through pioneering low-energy means, achieving a passive archive environment.

The building is expressed as two interlocking forms, reflecting the internal functions. The concept is that of an ‘egg in a box’: thick, well insulated walls enclose the main storage room, surrounded by a buffer space which helps moderate the temperature and relative humidity between the outside environment and the material within.

The volume to the north contains the staff offices, support spaces and a study room, with generous windows on the west and north façades allowing views out to The Red House gardens, giving a sense of connection with the site. The southern volume houses the archive collection, raised from the ground to protect it from flood risk. This functional and efficient concept is based on a tradition of building treasure houses, granary stores and shrines and gives form to the ‘precious’ nature of the collection.

The outer building walls are constructed entirely from solid brick. The bricks connect the building visually with the rest of the site and provides thermal mass to help moderate the conditions within the building. This is essential for passive control ensuring low-energy and high environmental standards for the building.

A green sedum roof on staff areas helps blend the building with the landscape, encouraging biodiversity.

Internally, the materials are limited to fairfaced concrete soffits and columns (providing thermal mass and cooling) and timber wall linings, floors and windows to provide warmth and texture.

The new archive brings together this internationally important collection in one central place for the first time in the very place where Britten created his music, improving staff workspace, access and security.

Re-housing the archive created opportunities to free up space within the existing buildings on the site, most importantly, the composition studio in which Britten worked from 1958 to 1970, and where masterpieces such as War Requiem were written, has been re-created for visitors to experience.

Construction value: £2.0 million
Completion Date: June 2013
Date of Occupation: June 2013 Construction phase: Nov 2011 – June 2013
Postal Address: Golf Lane, Aldeburgh, IP15 5PZ
Gross Internal Area: 520m2

Client: Britten-Pears Foundation
Architect: Stanton Williams
Building Services Engineer: Max Fordham
Civil and Structural Engineer: Barton Engineers
Project Manager: David Langdon
Main Contractor: R G Carter Ltd
Cost Consultant: Davis Langdon
Arboriculturalist: Ian Keen Ltd

The post Britten-Pears Archive
by Stanton Williams appeared first on Dezeen.

“The social challenge of designing a laboratory is almost as demanding as the technical challenge,” Stanton Williams‘ Alan Stanton told Dezeen at the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize award ceremony this weekend, where his firm picked up the big prize for their design of the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge, England (+ audio).

Located in the botanic gardens of Cambridge University, the laboratory is a centre for plant research and Stanton explained how they designed spaces that would encourage interaction between researchers. “You’re trying to get scientists to talk to one another, to share their experiences and talk about the research they’re doing, because science then produces accidental discoveries,” he said, before explaining how even the location of the coffee machine can be critical to innovation.

Stanton also talked about how the laboratory has a special relationship with nineteenth-century plant scientist Charles Darwin, as not only did his tutor at Cambridge plan the surrounding gardens, but there is also a collection of Darwin’s plants within the building. ”It’s the past and the future of plant science,” he said.

Find out more about the Sainsbury Laboratory in our earlier story, or see more stories about Stanton Williams.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

The post Interview: Alan Stanton on the
Stirling Prize-winning Sainsbury Laboratory appeared first on Dezeen.

Here are some photographs of the Stanton Williams-designed Hackney Marshes Centre, which provides facilities for London’s amateur football leagues and won an RIBA award last week.

Completed last year, the Corten steel-clad centre contains changing rooms for teams competing on one of the 82 grass pitches at the park, as well as a cafe and toilets that can be used by spectators.

Gabion walls line the sides of the two-storey building to encourage the growth of climbing plants, while the interior walls are constructed from exposed concrete blocks.

Above: photograph is by Jim Stephenson

Perforated hatches fold up from the facade to reveal windows, while a glazed entrance leads into a double-height reception that is overlooked by the cafe above.

Above: photograph is by Jim Stephenson

Stanton Williams were announced as the winners of three RIBA awards last week. The other two were for an art and design college campus and a botanic laboratory.

Above: photograph is by Jim Stephenson

See all our stories about Stanton Williams »

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

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

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

Here’s some more words from Stanton Williams:

Project Description

Hackney Marshes is a unique place. With its origins in ancient woodland and medieval common land, it remains a vast open space. It is a place set apart from the city by a boundary of trees and by the River Lea. Yet it also connects communities, being an important green space in a densely-populated area.

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

In addition, as the London home of amateur Sunday League football, it draws people from across the capital. Stanton Williams was commissioned in 2008 to provide a new ‘Community Hub’ at the South Marsh.

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

New changing rooms, plus facilities for spectators and the local community, will be housed in a welcoming, inclusive structure that recognises the special qualities of this place by bridging the boundary between the natural and artificial. It will connect not only with its immediate surroundings and the local community, but also the adjacent Olympic Park and the rest of the Lea Valley.

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

The Marshes as they exist today are the product of a series of interventions in the natural environment, and in this respect they recall Cicero’s ‘second nature’ – a landscape shaped by human hands. Part of the ancient Waltham Forest, the Marshes had become common pasture by the Middle Ages. Early twentieth-century maps show the area as a recreation ground, and, after having been used as a dump for rubble during the Second World War, the site was levelled. The result is an open landscape of mown grass, punctuated by the regular rhythm of goalposts and edged by a seemingly more ‘natural’ boundary of woodland and the River Lea. Even here, though, natural and artificial and interlinked, for the river’s course has been straightened to minimise the risk of flooding.

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

The Marshes have long been known as the home of grassroots amateur football: the site holds the record for the greatest number of pitches in one place, with over 900 matches played per year. However, by the start of the twenty-first century, the facilities provided for the hundreds of players who come with their supporters each week were in need of urgent overhaul. The London Borough of Hackney therefore developed an ambitious vision for the site, recognising its community value and its pivotal location adjacent to the Olympic Park. The authority sought a piece of high quality, well designed architecture that would recognise the unique qualities of the site, that would instil a sense of pride and ownership, and which could increase participation in sport. Education and community facilities were required in addition to those for players.

Above: photograph is by David Grandorge

The Hub has been developed after discussion with local stakeholders and consideration of the needs of users. It is firmly embedded within its landscape setting: it is not an ‘object’ at odds with the surrounding environment. It is located on the south-eastern boundary of the pitches, defining a threshold between the South Marsh and the car park beyond by plugging the gap between an avenue of trees to the south and a coppice to the north. The Hub’s overall massing minimises its impact on the site. Its height has been kept as low as possible, creating a pronounced horizontal emphasis that complements the open, flat nature of the site.

The changing rooms are located at ground-floor level. A number of possible layouts were developed in order to arrive at the linear arrangement of the final structure. This option has the advantage that it avoids undue encroachment on the pitches, as would be the case for a more compact, back-to-back layout. The entrance has been located part-way along the structure to avoid excessively long corridors within. The community and spectators’ facilities, located at first-floor level, are placed at the northern end of the Hub, close to the tall trees of the coppice, into which they merge.

Materials have been chosen for their ability to weather into the surrounding landscape and also for their durability, as there is a particular need to secure the building given the lack of natural surveillance that results from its isolated location.

The ground floor envelope is treated as a landscaped wall. Gabion blocks, more usually associated with landscaping or civil engineering projects, are deployed in a fashion that recalls agricultural dry stone walls. They will weather well, are resistant to vandalism, and form a good structure for climbing plants.

The result will be a living, ‘green wall’, through which light will filter into the changing rooms beyond. Elsewhere, weathered steel is used. This is an industrial material that recalls the manufacturing traditions of the Lea Valley and which, in its contrast with the more ‘natural’ landscaped wall of the lower level, recalls the combination of nature and artifice that gives the site its particular character. But it, too, has a natural quality.

As a material which changes over time, weathered steel has a lively appearance and a rich textural finish. It will be deployed not only to clad the upper level of the structure, but also to form secure gates, louvres and shutters. Punched openings will allow light to enter by day and will also create controlled night-time views into the building, which will glow welcomingly as light emerges through the shutters and the gabion walls.

Entering and using the building will celebrate the acts of arrival, changing and spectating. The main entrance opens into a double- height reception area with views through to the pitches beyond. A corridor to each side leads to the changing rooms. The ends of the corridors are glazed, not only bringing in natural light but also allowing further views out.

The changing rooms themselves are configured so that they can be connected or separated as required. They have been designed to be suitable for use by groups of different ages and genders, with provision for disabled players. The principal finish is fairface concrete, left exposed in the interests of robustness and honesty.

The café is visually connected to the entrance by the double-height reception area; panoramic views out provide a link to the pitches. External shading will prevent overheating whilst passive ventilators on the roof provide natural ventilation.

Click above for larger image

The flexible teaching spaces, meanwhile, have an aspect toward the coppice and the River Lea, emphasising the rich local biodiversity. An acoustic screen can be folded back to create a larger space for conferences or seminars.

The way in which the Hub seeks to reconcile the natural and the artificial through its massing, materials and location embodies a broader aim to synthesise sporting activity and the natural environment. Sports venues often demonstrate something of the tabula rasa in their approach, replacing natural materials with tarmac or artificial hard surfaces, and permeable boundaries with fences.

Click above for larger image

As a result, playing becomes a solely physical experience. Instead, the Hub emphasises the ritualistic nature of sport. Within it, individuals are fused into teams, emerging onto the pitch to demonstrate their collective and individual skills, and to gain sensory and even spiritual stimulation from this rich location.

Project Team
Client: London Borough of Hackney Project Manager: Arcadis AYH
Main Contractor:John Sisk & Son Architect: Stanton Williams
Civil and Structural Engineer: Webb Yates
Building Services Engineer: Zisman Bowyer & Partners Cost Consultant: Gardiner & Theobald
Landscape Architects:Camlins
CDM Coordinator: PFB Consulting
Lighting Design: Minds Eye

Designed in Hackney map:

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Key:

Blue = designers
Red = architects
Yellow = brands
Green = street art

See a larger version of this map

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which is one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices. We’ll publish buildings, interiors and objects that have been designed in Hackney each day until the games this summer.

More information and details of how to get involved can be found at www.designedinhackney.com.

Dezeen Wire: in a review of the new Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London by Stanton Williams Architects, Suzy Menkes of the New York Times admires the combination of glass, open spaces and reuse of the exiting building, claiming they make the campus “seem inviting and all-embracing,” and adding that ”the meld of heritage and modernity seems a particularly British combo.” – The New York Times

See our story about the new campus on Dezeen here.

An unusual combination of limestone columns and concrete bands surrounds the exterior of a laboratory by UK architects Stanton Williams in the botanic gardens of Cambridge University.

The Sainsbury Laboratory provides facilities for botanical research, spread over two upper storeys and a basement.

The stone piers screen a glass curtain wall on the north and east elevations, whilst the south and east facades feature gridded windows that overlook a courtyard.

Glass-fronted laboratories allow scientists to see across a double-height circulation corridor to the courtyard beyond.

This continuous corridor winds through the building and provides informal meeting areas.

Elsewhere, the building contains a herbarium, an auditorium, meeting rooms, a public cafe, garden-staff quarters and social spaces.

The laboratory is named after Lord Sainsbury, whose charitable foundation was responsible for funding the project.

The columned facade of the building presents a similar mix of modernism and classicism to David Chipperfield’s Museum of Modern Literature completed in 2006 – see our earlier story.

Other laboratories from the Dezeen archive facilitate research into natural history, genomics and nanotechnology to name a few – see all our stories about laboratories here.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

Here are some more details from Stanton Williams:

Sainsbury Laboratory

The Sainsbury Laboratory, an 11,000 sq.m. plant science research centre set in the University of Cambridge’s Botanic Garden, brings together world-leading scientists in a working environment of the highest quality. The design reconciles complex scientific requirements with the need for a piece of architecture that also responds to its landscape setting.

It provides a collegial, stimulating environment for innovative research and collaboration. The building is situated within the private, ‘working’ part of the Garden, and houses research laboratories and their associated support areas. It also contains the University’s Herbarium, meeting rooms, an auditorium, social spaces, and upgraded ancillary areas for Botanic Garden staff, plus a new public café. The project was completed in December 2010.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden was conceived in 1831 by Charles Darwin’s guide and mentor, Professor Henslow, as a working research tool in which the diversity of plant species would be systematically ordered and catalogued. The Sainsbury Laboratory develops Henslow’s agenda in seeking to advance understanding of how this diversity comes about. Its design was therefore shaped by the intention that the Laboratory’s architecture would express its integral relationship with the Garden beyond.

The building as a whole is rooted in its setting. There are two storeys visible above ground and a further subterranean level, partly in order to ensure efficient environmental control, but also to reduce the height of the building. The overall effect is strongly horizontal as a result. Solidity is implied by the use of bands of limestone and exposed insitu concrete, recalling geological strata and indeed the Darwinian idea of evolution over time as well as the permanence which one might expect of a major research centre. At the same time, however, permeability and connections – both real and visual – between the building and the Garden have been central to its conception.

The building’s identity is established externally by the way in which it is expressed and experienced as a series of interlinked yet distinct volumes of differing height grouped around three sides of a central courtyard, the fourth side of which is made up of trees planted by Henslow in the nineteenth century. The internal circulation and communal areas focus upon this central court, opening into it at ground level and onto a raised terrace above in order to provide immediate physical connections between the Laboratory and its surroundings.

Further visual connections are created by the careful use of glazing in the building. At ground level, extensive windows provide views of the courtyard and the Garden beyond, allowing these internal areas to be read as integral elements of the outdoor landscape. The first floor is also largely glazed. Its windows are screened by narrow vertical bands of stone that imbue the elevation with a regular consistency, behind which the pattern of fenestration could potentially be altered in response to future requirements.

Related to the conception of the building in terms of its landscape setting is the way that its internal areas are connected by a continuous route which recalls Darwin’s ‘thinking path’, a way to reconcile nature and thought through the activity of walking. Here the ‘thinking path’ functions as a space for reflection and debate.

It is intended to promote encounters and interaction between the scientists working in the building, and between them and the landscape. With glazed windows facing the court on one side and internal windows offering glimpses of the laboratories on the other, it operates as a transitional zone between the top-lit working areas at the centre of the building and the Botanic Garden itself. In this respect, the ‘path’ reinterprets the tradition of the Greek stoa, the monastic cloister, and the collegiate court, all of which were intended to some extent as semi-outdoor spaces for contemplation and meetings. As a result, past, present, and future are connected. The work of the laboratories will seek to understand the plant diversity that is glorified by the arrangement of the historic Botanic Garden in which it is set and which, though pleasant to visit, continues to function as a working space devoted to groundbreaking research.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “Cambridge has a strong record in the study of plant biology – a science which is now accepted as critical for our planet. This makes the Gatsby Foundation’s award to the University both natural and transformational – we are truly grateful.”

Lord Sainsbury said: “This is one of the most exciting projects with which my Charitable Foundation has been involved. It combines an inspirational research programme, an historic site in the Botanic Garden and a beautiful laboratory designed by Stanton Williams, and I believe it will become a worldclass centre of excellent plant science.”

Professor John Parker, the recently retired Director of the Botanic Garden who has been the sole representative of the Garden at project meetings, said: “The Garden looks forward in the 21st Century to maintaining its position with the study of plant diversity in the most modern way. The Laboratory will be dedicated to the advancement of curiosity-driven research. However it is hard to imagine that increasing our knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms of plant development is not going to have a very significant impact on the improvement of agriculture in years to come.”

Key Values

Project Value: £82 million
Contract value: £69 million
Construction value: £65 million (contract value less the consultants fees)
Cost per sq m: £4,975/sq m for the main laboratory

Click above for larger image

Key dates
Construction Start date: February 2008
Completion Date: December 2010
Date of Occupation: January 2011
Project Duration: June 2006 – January 2011
Planning phase: June 2006 – February 2008
Construction phase: February 2008 – January 2011

Click above for larger image

Building Details
Postal Address: The Sainsbury Laboratory, Bateman Street,
Cambridge, CB2 1LR
Number of Occupants: 150
Gross Internal Area: 11,000m2 (incl. all buildings, excl. external landscaped areas)

Click above for larger image

Project Team
Client: The University of Cambridge
Funder: The Gatsby Charitable Foundation
Strategic Project Manager: Stuart A. Johnson Consulting Ltd
Project and Contract Administrator: Hannah – Reed
Project Officer: University of Cambridge Estate Management
Representative Users: Cambridge University Botanic Garden,
The Gatsby Charitable Foundation
Main Contractor: Kier Regional
Architect: Stanton Williams
Civil and Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor
Building Services Engineer: Arup
Cost Consultant: Gardiner & Theobald
Landscape Architects:Christopher Bradley-Hole Landscape and
Schoenaich Landscape Architects
CDM Coordinator: Hannah – Reed
Approved Building Inspector: Cambridge City Council

Click above for larger image

See also:

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