Beijing architecture studio MAD has designed an artificial island with an art museum set in caves in its three dune-like forms.
Set in a reservoir on Pingtan island in China’s Fujian province, the Pingtan Art Museum will be accessed via a narrow undulating bridge.
The building is designed by MAD as three concrete mounds, creating cave-like exhibition spaces inside and curved public spaces over the rooftops.
“The island is firstly a public space that is then turned into a museum,” say the architects. “The sea, the beach, the oasis and the slope all interconnect with each other, forming a harmonious capacious space with the mountains in the distance.”
The concrete walls will be mixed with local sand and shells to give them a rough, grainy texture.
As the largest private museum in Asia, the 40,000 square-metre structure will display a collection of over a thousand Chinese artworks and objects.
The building will also form the centre of a new city on Pingtan, which is currently in the planning stages.
MAD Pingtan Art Museum Begins Construction Preparation Phase
Pingtan Art Museum, the third museum design by MAD Architects, has just begun its construction preparation phase. It will be the largest private museum in Asia, claiming a construction area of over 40,000 square metres. The museum’s investments total around 800 million RMB and upon completion, its debut exhibition will display over a thousand pieces of national treasures.
Being the largest island in the Fujian province, Pingtan is also the Chinese island nearest to Taiwan. In 2010, the ‘Comprehensive Experimental Zone’ project in Pingtan was officially launched; the island is expected to become the primary location for trade and cultural communication between Taiwan and the mainland in the foreseeable future. The island, which is currently home to fisheries and a military base, will quickly be transformed into an large-scale urban development zone.
This new city, which is still under planning, will hold the museum at its centre. The museum itself acts as a smaller scale island off the Pingtan Island itself, connected to land only by a slightly undulating pier, which, in turn, bridges artificial and natural, city and culture, as well as history and future. The museum represents a long-lasting earthscape in water and is a symbol of the island in ancient times, with each island containing a mountain beneath it.
The island is firstly a public space that is then turned into a museum. The sea, the beach, the oasis and the slope all interconnect with each other, forming a harmonious capacious space with the mountains in the distance. The building is constructed with concrete that is blended with local sand shells. The indoor space, formed by the rise and fall of the formal movements, looks similar to ancient caves.
Site location plan
Pingtan Art Museum is built in a landscape setting of an urban city. After its completion, it will create a new space for the city and the city’s inhabitants and further inspire them to reflect on the impact made by time and nature.
Location: Pingtan, China Program: Museum Site Area: 32,000 sqm Building Area: 40,000 sqm Director in Charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano Design Team: Zhao Wei, Huang Wei, Liu Jiansheng, Jei Kim, Li Jian, Li Guangchong, Alexandre Sadeghi
An ancient archeological excavation determined the layout of this public library in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta by Madrid architects Paredes Pedrosa.
Paredes Pedrosa designed the education facility and visitor centre around the fourteenth century Marinid dynasty ruins discovered up a sloping site on the Spanish-owned peninsula, which juts out into the Mediterranean sea from Morocco’s north coast.
The former settlement sits at an angle to the current urban grid, and the external walls are angled to merge both geometries.
Seven triangular pillars strategically situated among the ruins support the high ceiling over the exposed remains.
Faceted concrete surfaces encompass the lower floors, joining up the edges of recessed windows.
Photograph by Manuel Garcia de Paredes
Upper storeys are wrapped in a horizontal cladding system of aluminium mesh louvres, which blocks the heat and controls the level of light entering the glazed walls behind.
Entered from the lower street level, the exhibition area is contained in a wing packed with research labs, audiovisual learning tools and facilities for children.
Visitors can look down on the archeology from the terraced upper floors, which house the book collection, study, lecture and event spaces in a mix of single- and double-height rooms.
A shaded reading terrace on the roof provides views out over the sea and across to Europe on a clear day.
Programme: public library, exhibition area, press area, children area, teen library, audiovisual area, research labs, manuscripts and archives. An archaeological centre exhibits a Marinid excavation of the XIV century.
The new Library in Ceuta is conditioned by the steep topography of the plot and by the Arab Marinid archaeological excavation of the XIV century that determine all interior spaces of the Library. Also the lack of space and the compactness of Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city located on the north coast of Africa on the border of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, condition the proposal.
The orthogonal geometry of this ancient settlement is turned from that of the actual urban grid. This fact establishes a triangular geometry for the structure over the archaeological site and the urban value of the Arab city is included in the geometry of new building.
The Library is conceived as a compact volume that preserves the archaeological area as the core of the public spaces, creating a sense of openness and transparency between reading spaces and visitors to the Marinid centre. The library is organised in terraces placed on the slope that embrace the remains of the past. The lecture rooms are stacked in several levels overlooking the void where groups of hanging triangular lamps with peaks in both geometries are set over the archaeological centre. Two different entrances in two levels, one to the Library and other to the visitors centre, are placed linking the inside to the nearby streets.
Seven triangular concrete pillars support the building with a program organised vertically. The third floor with the general book display is placed over the concrete structure that covers the archaeological site. Over it a light steel structure in six levels stacks the program being the highest one the book depot, archives and offices.
The compact folded volume is entirely wrapped up in an aluminium-perforated skin that reduces glare and solar gain and maximises the use of natural daylight reducing long-term energy costs. The mesh mitigates the sometimes-harsh qualities of daylight thus minimising the use of artificial light to avoid contrast and helping to illuminate the depth of the space.
The final façade includes different glass-metal layers, energy efficient: an interior glass one and an outer metal one, as a veil, that interplay with the changing light conditions protecting the inside from the sun and heat. Slight variations in the make up of the panels, for different orientations, provide the library with a differentiated yet uniform skin, emphasising the faceted shape of the building. Between them a gallery permits easy maintenance of glass openings and simple installations.
A concrete plied basement runs along the steep streets and several concrete structural voids are cut up in the double façade of the Library as viewpoints towards the city. On the terrace in the roof level an open reading room is placed, shaded by the aluminium-perforated skin that wraps up the building that filters sun and open views towards both seas, Europe and Africa.
Location: Calle Manuel Olivencia/Calle Duarte, Ceuta
Architects: Ángela García de Paredes. Ignacio Pedrosa Project team: Lucía Guadalajara, Álvaro Rábano, Clemens Eichner, Álvaro Oliver, Guiomar Martín, Eva Urquijo, Ángel Camacho, Ignacio Cordero, Blanca Leal, Roberto Lebrero, Luis Calvo Technical control: Juan Antonio Zoido
Consultants: Structure: Alfonso Gómez Gaite. GOGAITE, S.L. Installations: JG Ingenieros Façade: Jofebar Client: Ministry for Culture Archaeologist: Fernando Villada Contractor: Acciona Infraestructuras Photographs: Fernando Alda, Manuel García de Paredes
Here are the first photographs of Zaha Hadid’s almost-completed Heydar Aliyev Centre, an undulating cultural centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Expected to open in September, the 57,000 square-metre building is designed by Zaha Hadid Architects as a fluid volume that folds up from the landscape to form a single continuous surface.
Front elevation perspective render
Glazed openings between folds will offer entrances, leading into the library, museum and conference centre contained inside.
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.”
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
Spanish studio Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos has created an arts centre in Madrid by installing a flexible structure behind the concrete walls of an old industrial building (+ slideshow).
The renovated building functions as a research laboratory and exhibition space for Medialab-Prado, a city-funded organisation exploring the production and dissemination of art and digital culture.
Photograph by Luis diaz diaz
La Serrería Belga, or The Belgian Sawmill, was built in the early twentieth century. For the renovation, architects María Langarita and Víctor Navarro decided to leave the facade of the old building intact and insert a more flexible structure inside, which they nicknamed La Cosa, or The Thing.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
“[It is] a light and articulated structure with a certain pre-technological air that, infiltrated in the building, enables a large potential for transformation,” they explain.
Photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
The architects used lightweight and durable materials that can easily be taken apart and repurposed to facilitiate the changing needs of the organisation.
Photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
“Any duplication or incorporation of elements or solutions that had already been contributed by the Serrería building was avoided,” they say.
Photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
A three-storey volume was inserted into a void at the centre of the building and features translucent walls that can be illuminated with different neon colours.
A series of wooden boxes provides an entrance and smaller rooms elsewhere in the building. There are also new staircases, wooden furniture and blinds that function as projection screens.
Here’s some more information from Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos:
Medialab-Prado Madrid, Spain
Perhaps more than anything else, it is the very strangeness of the diverging intentions found in the La Serrería Belga adaptation project for the Medialab-Prado that makes it possible for them to coexist, though not without a certain measure of irony.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
The first of these caustic coexistences stems from a certain institutional schizophrenia. While the ‘Paseo del Arte’ was transformed into Madrid City Hall’s banner to attract international tourism, an architectural competition was simultaneously promoted in the same area, which would end up serving an institution that sponsored debates that were deeply critical of this model.
Photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
Medialab defines itself as “a space for the production, research and dissemination of digital culture and the confluence between art, science, technology and society”, and, in contrast to the traditional exhibition model, it promotes production as a permeable process, supplanting the figure of the spectator with that of the actor, or the figure of the mediator as a facilitator of connections.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
La Serrería vs La Cosa is another pattern of coexistence that, like a conflicting dialect, facilitated the occupation of the intermediate space existing between both rivals, beyond the conventional concept of restoration.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
La Serrería Belga (The Belgian Sawmill) was built in various stages starting in the 1920’s by the architect Manuel Álvarez Naya and it was one of the first architectural achievements in Madrid to employ reinforced concrete. For its part, La Cosa (The Thing), is the name that we have used to refer to the group of mechanisms, installations and facilities that, when assembled, made it possible to bring the building up to date with current requirements.
Photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
A light and articulated structure with a certain pre-technological air that, infiltrated in the building, enables a large potential for transformation. Ultimately, it is the coexistence of opposites that made it possible to think of the halfway point between these interlocutors not as a consummate product, but rather as an open, versatile process activated by its users.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
These forms of coexistence created the scope for some of the strategies used in this adaptation:
» The appropriation of the existing building, not only as a historic narration, but also as a container for latent energies that have joined the project as effective material. Any duplication or incorporation of elements or solutions that had already been contributed by the Serrería building was avoided.
Photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
» The non-specific treatment of the spaces. This condition resulted in a homogenous approach to material solutions and the uniform distribution of installations.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
» Thinking about the action as a stratification with different levels of change over time. Lightweight construction systems that can be disassembled were chosen, as were materials whose durability and adaptability will not condition future transformations.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
» Looking at each new intervention as an opportunity to incorporate support systems for creative actions and research. This included solutions such as the use of double blinds as projection screens, taking advantage of voids in the existing structure to create a retro-projected floor, the use of the dividing wall as a digital facade and the design of La Cosa as a mechanism for digital experimentation.
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
Project: Adaptation of the Serrería Belga for the Centro Medialab-Prado location Location: Madrid Architects: María Langarita and Víctor Navarro Collaborators: Elena Castillo, Marta Colón, Javier González Galán, Roberto González, Juan Palencia, Guillermo Trapiello, Gonzalo Gutiérrez, Paula García-Masedo
Photograph by Luis Diaz Diaz
Surveyor: Santiago Hernán Martín Structures: Mecanismo Installations: Úrculo Ingenieros Landscaping: Lorena García Rodríguez Project date: January 2008 Client: Área de las Artes. Madrid City Hall Budget: 1600 euros/m2
A grand top-lit atrium forms an entrance to concerts, recitals and classrooms at this music school in Manchester by local architects Stephenson: ISA Studio (+ slideshow).
As part of Chetham’s School of Music, the new building by Stephenson: ISA Studio is constructed alongside the school’s existing medieval quadrangle to provide it with a 350-seat concert hall and a 100-seat recital hall, as well as additional classrooms and practice rooms.
The foyer occupies a triangular triple-height space at the centre of the building. Six huge fins stretch across the ceiling, moderating daylight flooding in from above.
Mezzanine corridors lead into classrooms and practice rooms, which are lined with timber slats to improve acoustics. The main auditorium is currently an empty shell and will be fitted out once the school secures extra funding.
The building has an exterior of red brick, designed to fit in with the industrial architecture of the city.
Strip windows wrap the curved corners of the structure, while protruding lintels form strong horizontal stripes.
“The form of the building reflects the fluid forms of musical instruments,” says the studio. “The elevations are expressed horizontally and are influenced by the musical stave and pianola.”
The ground floor comprises a three-tiered split level, allowing the building to amble down its sloping site. The entrance and foyer are positioned on the middle level, while performance areas are set below and classrooms sit above.
A bridge links the new spaces with the existing campus to the south. There’s also a cantilever in one corner to avoid a river that cuts across the corner of the site.
Here’s some more information from Stephenson: ISA Studio:
Chetham’s School of Music
Chetham’s School of Music is the largest world class music school in the UK and is unique to the region. The existing medieval building contains the first public library in England, which boats amongst its’ scholars Karl Marx and is an architectural gem. It is currently not readily accessible to the public and one of the main design principles was to create a dialogue between the existing buildings, the new school and its wider context.
The musical heart of the school is in a building which is no longer fit for purpose and the school has outgrown its current building provision for teaching and learning through its increased success and profile.
Our brief was to create a unique contemporary new building for the musical and academic teaching facilities, providing a state-of-the-art environment which will be a fitting platform for the students. A public auditorium will allow Chetham’s students to display their talents to the public. The building itself will provide an iconic opportunity for the educational and cultural standing of Manchester to consolidate its position on the international scene.
Architectural Response
The site varies in elevation by approximately 6m from the bottom of Walkers Croft to Victoria Station Approach. We propose to use the height difference as a datum to reinforce the diversity of the buildings’ programme. The performance spaces and their associated service spaces are located below the datum whilst the music and academic classroom accommodation is placed above the datum. The main public entrance, foyer and ensemble rooms are located on the datum itself. A new bridge link allows daily secure access for the staff and pupils from the existing school campus to the south.
The building is conceived as a carved solid, rising from the south adjacent the grade 1 medieval building, to a fulcrum above the main entrance to the north. The form of the building reflects the fluid forms of musical instruments and the island nature of the site. The elevations are expressed horizontally and are influenced by the musical stave and pianola.
Many challenges of the site have influenced the form and structure of the building. The river Irk runs in a culvert along the route of Walkers Croft and cuts across the site at the south western corner requiring the upper floors of the music school to cantilever substantially at this point. Due to the city centre location and the sensitive acoustic requirements of the music teaching and performance spaces most of the internal rooms are independent floating boxes. The Concert Hall has a complete independent internal structure floating on springs.
This is a project that sits at the core of the ambitions of the Manchester city region, which is looking to preserve and enhance its unique assets for the long-term benefit of its people.
News: Swiss architecture studio Herzog & de Meuron has been selected to design a visual culture museum in Hong Kong’s new West Kowloon Cultural District.
Selected ahead of a shortlist of architects that included SANAA, Renzo Piano, Toyo Ito, Snøhetta and Shigeru Ban, Herzog & de Meuron will work alongside UK firm TFP Farrells to deliver the M+ museum on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, giving the city a dedicated centre for twentieth and twenty-first century art, design, architecture and film.
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority has appointed Herzog & de Meuron to design the new building for M+. Based on the recommendation of an international selection jury, Herzog & de Meuron were selected ahead of five other short-listed architecture firms. M+ is the new museum for visual culture in Hong Kong, focusing on 20th and 21st century art, design, architecture and moving image. The building will be situated on the waterfront of Victoria Harbour at the edge of a planned 14-hectare park. It will be one of the first projects to be completed in the West Kowloon Cultural District, and a key venue in creating interdisciplinary exchange between the visual arts and the performing arts in Asia.
Spiralling stone walls will be carved with images of extinct species – with space reserved for future extinctions – at this observatory and education centre designed by Adjaye Associates for the Isle of Portland, England.
The Mass Extinction Memorial Observatory (MEMO) will function as an information and exhibition centre dedicated to the 860 species of animals, birds, insects and sea life that have been identified as extinct since the demise of the dodo in the seventeenth century.
Positioned on the edge of a cliff, the 30 metre-high structure will also house an observatory overlooking Bowers Quarry, one of the main producers of Portland Stone since the late eighteenth century.
Adjaye Associates based the spiralling form of the building on the gastropod fossils commonly found in the quarry. The structure will be built from Portland Stone, with a rough surface intended to echo the rugged cliffside.
The plan is to add more carved stones in the future, if and when more creatures become extinct. These occasions will also be marked by a toll from a bell at the centre of the building.
Floors inside the MEMO building will follow the corkscrew shape. Stone models of extinct species will be displayed around the circular route, leading up to the observatory on the uppermost floor.
Here’s some more information from Adjaye Associates:
Memo Portland, UK
The Mass Extinction Memorial Observatory (MEMO) will comprise a monument to the world’s extinct species and an adjacent biodiversity education centre. Conceived as a continuous spiral of stone, it will be carved with images of the 860 species assessed as extinct since the dodo. It will be an on-going monument, with more stones added into the future if more species become extinct. The bell of biodiversity, placed in the centre of the monument, will be rung annually on the international day of biodiversity and to mark further species becoming extinct. Sited on the Isle of Portland on the south coast of Britain, each creature will be immortalised in stone along the circular ramp that leads to the top of the 100 foot-high Bowers Quarry observatory. Visitors will then walk down the outside of the ramp to ground level.
A fitting insertion into the landscape, the project presents an opportunity to revitalise the old Bowers Quarry and to draw attention back to the natural beauty and craftsmanship of Portland. Rather than a building or shelter, MEMO is devised as a journey, exploring the relationship between interior and exterior, landscape and enclosure. The circular form resonates with Portland’s three lighthouses near Portland Bill as well as the remains of the windmills at Perryfields to the south east of Weston. The spiralling arrangement is inspired by a turreted gastropod fossil, found in particular abundance in Bower’s Quarry, the ‘Portland Screw’ (Aptyxiella portlandica). The material palette is predominantly Portland Stone to reinforce a sense of the landscape, echoing the character of part of the cliff with its exposed stone strata. The sizes of the blocks and the rhythm of the joints are alternating with an accent on the horizontal joints, while the surface of the stones is rough – like the face of a Quarry Block. The development will promote the use of local and recycled material.
This elliptical chapel near Oxford by London studio Niall McLaughlin Architects contains a group of arching timber columns behind its textured stone facade (+ slideshow).
The Bishop Edward King Chapel replaces another smaller chapel at the Ripon Theological College campus and accommodates both students of the college and the local nuns of a small religious order.
Niall McLaughlin Architects was asked to create a building that respects the historic architecture of the campus, which includes a nineteenth century college building and vicarage, and also fits comfortably amongst a grove of mature trees.
For the exterior, the architects sourced a sandy-coloured stone, similar to the limestone walls of the existing college, and used small blocks to create a zigzagging texture around the outside of the ellipse. A wooden roof crowns the structure and integrates a row of clerestory windows that bring light across the ceiling.
Inside, the tree-like timber columns form a second layer behind the walls, enclosing the nave of the chapel and creating an ambulatory around the perimeter. Each column comprises at least three branches, which form a latticed canopy overhead.
Niall McLaughlin told Dezeen: “If you get up very early, at sunrise, the horizontal sun casts a maze of moving shadows of branches, leaves, window mullions and structure onto the ceiling. It is like looking up into trees in a wood.”
A projecting window offers a small seating area on one side of the chapel, where McLaughlin says you can “watch the sunlit fields on the other side of the valley”.
Photography is by the architects, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a detailed project description from Niall McLaughlin Architects:
Bishop Edward King Chapel
The client brief sought a new chapel for Ripon Theological College, to serve the two interconnected groups resident on the campus in Oxfordshire, the college community and the nuns of a small religious order, the Sisters of Begbroke. The chapel replaces the existing one, designed by George Edmund Street in the late nineteenth century, which had since proved to be too small for the current needs of the college.
The brief asked for a chapel that would accommodate the range of worshipping needs of the two communities in a collegiate seating arrangement, and would be suitable for both communal gatherings and personal prayer. In addition the brief envisioned a separate space for the Sisters to recite their offices, a spacious sacristy, and the necessary ancillary accommodation. Over and above these outline requirements, the brief set out the clients’ aspirations for the chapel, foremost as ‘a place of personal encounter with the numinous’ that would enable the occupants to think creatively about the relationship between space and liturgy. The client summarised their aspirations for the project with Philip Larkin’s words from his poem Church Going, ‘A serious house on serious earth it is… which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in…’.
On the site is an enormous beech tree on the brow of the hill. Facing away from the beech and the college buildings behind, there is ring of mature trees on high ground overlooking the valley that stretches away towards Garsington. This clearing has its own particular character, full of wind and light and the rustling of leaves.
These strengths of the site also presented significant planning constraints. The college’s existing buildings are of considerable historical importance. G.E. Street was a prominent architect of the Victorian Age and both the main college building and vicarage to its south are Grade II* listed.
The site is designated within the Green Belt in the South Oxfordshire Local Plan and is also visible from a considerable distance across the valley to the west. The immediate vicinity of the site is populated with mature trees and has a Tree Preservation Order applied to a group at the eastern boundary. The design needed to integrate with the character of the panorama and preserve the setting of the college campus and the surrounding trees.
The mediation of these interlocked planning sensitivities required extensive consultation with South Oxfordshire District Council, English Heritage and local residents.
The starting point for this project was the hidden word ‘nave’ at the centre of Seamus Heaney poem Lightenings viii. The word describes the central space of a church, but shares the same origin as ‘navis’, a ship, and can also mean the still centre of a turning wheel. From these words, two architectural images emerged. The first is the hollow in the ground as the meeting place of the community, the still centre. The second is the delicate ship-like timber structure that floats above in the tree canopy, the gathering place for light and sound. We enjoyed the geometry of the ellipse.
To construct an ellipse the stable circle is played against the line, which is about movement back and forth. For us this reflected the idea of exchange between perfect and imperfect at the centre of Christian thought. The movement inherent in the geometry is expressed in the chapel through the perimeter ambulatory. It is possible to walk around the chapel, looking into the brighter space in the centre. The sense of looking into an illuminated clearing goes back to the earliest churches. We made a clearing to gather in the light.
The chapel, seen from the outside, is a single stone enclosure. We have used Clipsham stone which is sympathetic, both in terms of texture and colouration, to the limestone of the existing college. The external walls are of insulated cavity construction, comprising of a curved reinforced blockwork internal leaf and dressed stone outer leaf.
The base of the chapel and the ancillary structures are clad in ashlar stone laid in regular courses. The upper section of the main chapel is dressed in cropped walling stone, laid in a dog-tooth bond to regular courses. The chapel wall is surmounted by a halo of natural stone fins. The fins sit in front of high-performance double glazed units, mounted in concealed metal frames.
Photograph by Denis Gilbert
The roof of the main chapel and the ancillary block are both of warm deck construction. The chapel roof drains to concealed rainwater pipes running through the cavity of the external wall. Where exposed at clerestory level, the rainwater pipes are clad in aluminium sleeves with a bronze anodised finish and recessed into the stone fins. The roof and the internal frame are self-supporting and act independently from the external walls.
A minimal junction between the roof and the walls expresses this. Externally the roof parapet steps back to diminish its presence above the clerestorey; inside the underside of the roof structure rises up to the outer walls to form the shape of a keel, expressing the floating ‘navis’ of Heaney’s poem.
The internal timber structure is constructed of prefabricated Glulam sections with steel fixings and fully concealed steel base plate connections. The Glulam sections are made up of visual grade spruce laminations treated with a two-part stain system, which gives a light white-washed finish.
The structure of roof and columns express the geometrical construction of the ellipse itself, a ferrying between centre and edge with straight lines that reveals the two stable foci at either end, reflected in the collegiate layout below in the twin focus points of altar and lectern. As you move around the chapel there is an unfolding rhythm interplay between the thicket of columns and the simple elliptical walls beyond. The chapel can be understood as a ship in a bottle, the hidden ‘nave’.
RIBA competition won – July 2009 Planning Consent – June 2010 Construction – July 2011 Practical Completion – February 2013 Construction Cost – 2,034,000
News: Finnish studio ALA Architects has won the international competition to design a new public library in Helsinki with plans that involve a mass of twisted timber (+ slideshow).
Launched in January 2012, the competition asked applicants to come up with a timeless, flexible and energy-efficient building to sit opposite the Finnish Parliament building in the Töölönlahti area of the city.
ALA Architects‘ response is for a three-storey structure comprising a contorted timber volume. Public activities and group study areas will occupy an active ground floor beneath the curving wooden surfaces, while a traditionally quiet reading room will be located above and a contemporary media facility and public sauna will be housed in the middle.
Two main entrances will provide access to the building. A public plaza in front of the western facade is to lead into a main lobby, where a staircase will spiral up to the floors above, while a second entrance will face the railway station to the south and offer an escalator that penetrates the wooden volume overhead.
“The architecture of the proposal is of a very high quality, executed with relaxed, broad strokes, and memorable,” commented the competition organisers.
They added: “The proposal provides excellent premises for the development of a completely new functional concept for the library. The building has a unique appeal and the prerequisites to become the new symbolic building which Helsinki residents, library users, as well as the staff will readily adopt as their own.”
ALA Architects, who is also based in Helsinki, plans to use local materials such as Siberian larch to construct the Helsinki Central Library and it is scheduled to open in 2018.
Here’s some extra information from ALA Architects:
ALA Architects wins Helsinki Central Library competition
ALA Architects have won the design competition for the new Helsinki Central Library with their entry Käännös. The open international two-stage competition attracted 544 entries from all over the world. The 16,000 square metre library building in the heart of Helsinki will consist almost entirely of public spaces and will offer a wide selection of services. It will serve as the new central point for the city’s impressive public library network. The Central Library is slated to open in 2018.
The winning entry is based on the idea of dividing the functions of the library into three distinctive levels: an active ground floor, a calm upper floor, and an enclosed in-between volume containing the more specific functions. This concept has been developed into an arching form that invites people to utilise the spaces and services underneath, inside and on top of it. The resulting building will be an inspiring and highly functional addition to the urban life of Helsinki and the nationally significant Töölönlahti area.
ALA is one of the leading Nordic architecture firms. The office has previously completed the Kilden Performing Arts Centre in Kristiansand, Norway, and is currently working on a number of large public projects in Finland including two theaters, five subway stations, and a passenger ferry hub. Käännös has been designed by ALA partners Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki, Janne Teräsvirta and Samuli Woolston together with the ALA project team, assisted by the engineering experts at Arup.
Description of the winning entry Käännös
Käännös grows from the dynamic between the site and the goals of the library program. The interplay between the building’s three individual floors is the key concept of the entry.
The public plaza in front of the building will continue inside, merging with a catalogue of meeting and experience features. The ground floor will be a robust, busy and frequently updated space suitable for quick visits and walkthroughs. The active, zero-threshold public spaces will be visible, attractive, understandable and welcoming to all visitors.
The traditional, serene library atmosphere can be found on the top floor. This will be a calm area for contemplation, floating above the busy central Helsinki. It will offer unobstructed, majestic views to the surrounding park and cityscape.These two contrasting spaces that perfectly complement each other are created by an arching wooden volume. The spaces inside the volume will be enclosed and more intimate. The wooden volume is stretched vertically to create connections to the open main floors below and above. Soft, curved shapes will be present all around the building.
The curved ceiling covering the ground floor, the intensive flowing spaces on the middle level, as well as the curving floor surface of the top floor are all defined in the timber-clad mass, which is as functional as it is expressive.
There will be three public entrance points in the building: one in the south for the main pedestrian flow from the direction of the Central Railway Station, one next to the public plaza to the west of the building shielded by an overhanging canopy, as well as a secondary one in the northeastern corner. The top floor can be reached from the southern entrance by an escalator that penetrates the wooden volume, or from the main lobby via a spiraling double-helix stair.
Each floor will be a destination in its own right and a new exciting civic space in the heart of Helsinki. While being a traditional library space, the top floor will also act as a modern, open, flexible platform for a multitude of functions. The middle floor will offer opportunities for learning-by-doing in an environment optimised for contemporary media and latest tools. It will contain workshop spaces for music and multimedia, as well as a public sauna. A multipurpose hall, a restaurant and a cinema will be located on ground floor. The library’s facilities will offer services, as well as places to meet, to discuss, and to present ideas.
The library building will be extremely energy efficient. It will be constructed using local materials and with local climate conditions in mind. Some of the main load-bearing components will be made of timber. The wooden façade will be built from pre-assembled elements finished on-site. 30 millimetre thick Finnish first grade Siberian Larch wood, shaped with a parametric 3D design and manufacturing process in order to achieve a perfect execution of the desired geometry, will be used for the cladding. The appearance of the façade will develop over the years towards a deeper, richer version of its initial hue. The design of the façade is intrinsic to the passive design approach adopted by the project team. Detailed analysis of the façade performance informs the environmental solutions and has allowed the team to minimise any systems required, which in turn facilitates the highly flexible architectural solution.
About the competition and the Helsinki City Library
Helsinki Central Library will serve as the new center point for Helsinki’s impressive public library network. It will be located in the very heart of Helsinki, in the Töölönlahti area, opposite the Finnish Parliament building. As its neighbors it will have some of the city’s most important public buildings; the Helsinki Music Centre, the Sanoma House, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art designed by Steven Holl, Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia Hall, and the Central Railway Station by Eliel Saarinen, as well as several new office and residential buildings still partially under construction on the site of a former railway yard.
The open international two-stage architectural competition was launched in January 2012, and attracted 544 entries from all over the world. The six entries selected for further development for the second phase of the competition were announced in November 2012. The Central Library is slated to open in 2018.
The goal of the competition has been to find a timeless and energy-efficient design solution that responds to the challenges set by the location. The library building should complement and adjust to the urban fabric of the Töölönlahti area. The building is to express the operational concepts of a library in a way that offers a technically and spatially flexible framework for cutting-edge, adaptable library operations, now and in the future. It will reflect the technical and cultural changes taking place in the society, particularly evident in the media world.
Library operations are statutory in Finland. Basic library services are free of charge and freely available to everyone. The new 16,000 square metre (approx. 172,000 square foot) library building will consist almost entirely of public spaces. The administrative and storage functions of Helsinki Public Library will remain at the main library in Pasila. In terms of services offered, the new library will be the largest public library in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and will most certainly become the metropolitan area’s most popular spot for returns and reservations. It has been estimated that the library will attract 5,000 visitors per day and 1.5 million visitors per year.
The new library will be at the forefront of the renewal of the city’s library services. In addition to the basic operations, there will be a wide range of services available inside the building, as well as an abundance of lounge spaces and auxiliary services that support the operations. The library will enliven and diversify the new urban environment created in the Töölönlahti area. It will offer activities and experiences for all ages. There will be plenty of spaces that enable people to spend time together, free of charge. The role of the clients will evolve from passive media users to active agents, participants and content producers. As a non-commercial open public space, the new Helsinki Central Library will act as a common living room and work space.
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