From now until 2 September, Orlebar Brown will be going blue in support of the Blue Marine Foundation and they have stocked up on limited edition board shorts…
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Norwegian designer Kim Thome has installed a series of two-way mirrors that reflect vinyl stripes covering the walls of a London gallery (+ slideshow).
Kim Thome fixed multicoloured and black and white strips of vinyl to the walls of William Benington Gallery and placed three two-way mirrors on simple black frames in the centre of the room.
The semi-transparent surfaces produce optical illusions as the reflections are overlaid onto the background when viewed from different angles.
Thome says the pattern was divided into coloured and monochrome areas following the shape of the interior and “giving a new graphic element to the mirrors as the viewer explores the space.”
An additional suspended circular artwork features a diagonal pattern on one surface, which is reflected by two-way mirror material applied to the perpendicular plane.
Works on Reflection II is an extension of Kim Thome’s graduation project, which was presented at the Royal College of Art earlier this year and comprised a range of colourful furniture with built-in two-way mirrors.
Other illusory mirrors include an installation that looks as if people are climbing the facade of a London townhouse and a mirror that only works when it is placed in front of a dark shape on a wall. See all design with mirrors »
Here’s some more information from Kim Thome:
William Benington Gallery presents Kim Thome’s first show with the gallery; Works on Reflection II.
Works On Reflection II is a spatial installation which is a result of a longer investigation exploring the ’reflective’. Using the gallery space as the canvas, the installation will use the ‘reflective’ as medium, or more specifically, a two way mirror. Colour, geometry and patterns are central in staging a fictional space for these to merge, creating an ephemeral ever-changing environment.
Three mirrors stand central in the gallery space interacting and reflecting the colour vinyl pattern on the walls. Semi-transparent and reflective material such as two-way mirror allows the fore and background to be manipulated by carefully controlling the surrounding elements.
Colour in the pattern divides the space into three separate areas following the gallery’s interior architecture, giving a new graphic element to the mirrors as the viewer explores the space.
In this work viewers are challenged by what the reflections reveal, another reality, far from what is visually expected, engaging the viewer to reconsider the objects reflected.
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at William Benington Gallery appeared first on Dezeen.
Je Ahn of London-based Studio Weave discusses how a series of design and build workshops are reintroducing architects to working on site in this movie by Stephenson/Bishop and Andy Matthews.
Studio Weave co-founder Ahn led this year’s Studio in the Woods summer workshop programme for students, architects and designers, first initiated by architect Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio to encourage a more hands-on approach to design.
“It started when a collective of architects came together as friends with the desire to make things with their own hands in the landscape,” says Ahn.
Participants use teamwork and communication to design and build as they go rather than drawing and planning off site.
“As architects we are getting pushed further away from what’s happening on site and the real world,” Ahn says. “You imagine things through your drawings and students are exactly the same, doing hypothetical projects that look beautiful… but how they’re actually built and realised is another matter.”
Sixty students, practising architects, furniture designers and sculptors spent five days creating timber structures amongst the woodland while camping on site last month.
Designers led five teams to build small shelters hidden in the trees, weave planks between tree trunks and create seating that skirts the edge of the woods.
The workshops take place in a different rural location each year. This year’s site was in Stanton Park, near Swindon in Wiltshire.
Swindon Borough Council acted like a client for the permanent structures, the first occasion this has happened in the programme’s seven-year history.
“This is the first time that we have a lifespan of these structures, which changed the dynamic of the design quite considerably,” says Ahn.
The designs were responses to a narrative about an imaginary community of industrious folk living around the site, created as part of a wider project that Studio Weave has been working on with the council.
“The Studio in the Woods workshop changed the way we practice and how we see things,” Ahn concludes.
Studio Weave’s previous rural projects include a hand-painted bird-watching cabin in Kent and a series of giant horns for listening to countryside sounds in Derbyshire.
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Photos are by Jim Stephenson and Andy Matthews.
Studio Weave sent us the information below:
Now in its seventh year, the people behind Studio in the Woods have taken the summer building workshop to public land for the first time. Located within ancient woodland just outside Swindon, the design and construction of five large timber structures was led by a group of award-winning architects, engineers, and furniture makers, with 60 participants who camp on-site for five days.
Studio in the Woods is an ongoing educational programme promoting the exchange of architectural knowledge and skills through experimentation and direct building experience. It was initiated by Piers Taylor in 2006 and continues to offer the opportunity to “learn by doing” in a reaction against the seeming disparity between designing a building and how it is realised; increasingly architects must imagine the making process through drawing. Studio in the Woods offers the chance to learn from the makers and work collectively.
Evening talks by invited speakers are organised for each evening once tools are put down for the day and before a group dinner. Participants include architecture students, practicing architects and a wider audience with an interest in sculpture, landscape and building with materials to hand.
This year’s workshop forms part of a wider project at Stanton Park and the adjacent Stratton Woods, to the north-east of Swindon. Over the last eight months, architecture practice Studio Weave has been working with Swindon Borough Council and the Woodland Trust on reinterpreting the two neighbouring woodlands and how the public perceives, uses and navigates them.
Set with the challenge to tie the sites together through one engaging narrative, Studio Weave have written a story surrounding a community of industrious woodland folk called the Indlekith, who live at a much slower pace to humans – a pace more akin to that of nature. The Indlekith are difficult to spot but clues of their existence lie in the smells, sounds, and textures of the woods. All five structures illustrate this narrative in a different way by responding to various characteristics of the woodland and how our senses interact with these.
Studio in the Woods 2013 was made possible by the generous support of Swindon Borough Council – the landowner of Stanton Park – making it the first time the workshop has had a client. This meant that health and safety has played an important role in designing for construction and lifetime use with the structures required to have a life span of five years, which has changed the dynamic of the designs from previous years.
Je Ahn, director at Studio Weave, says “Studio in the Woods provides an interesting solution to this problem of how to experience the parks. This is a design and build workshop where participants turn up without a design or knowing the site. They spend only a few days designing and building at the same time, responding very closely to the immediate context. There is minimal drawing but lots of communication and a strong emphasis on building the team.”
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happening on site” – Studio Weave appeared first on Dezeen.
Chevron motifs taken from military uniforms are interspersed around this cafe at London’s Royal Arsenal Riverside by Paul Crofts Studio (+ slideshow).
London-based Paul Crofts Studio referenced the area’s history of producing arsenal when designing the Cornerstone Cafe in part of a former munitions store.
“The warehouse building was part of a larger complex of munitions factories supplying all the armed forces during the First World War,” Paul Crofts told Dezeen.
Created by tessellating wood and white solid surface tiles, the chevron patterns that cover one wall and the counter front are based on the V-shaped badges used on army and navy uniforms to indicate rank or length of service.
“The inspiration for the chevron pattern was derived from the insignia on military uniforms and the repetition of the pattern was inspired by archive photos showing the endless stacks of the munition shells,” said Crofts.
The studio stripped back the interior to the original brick and render wall finishes and installed wooden seating booths with green upholstery along one side.
In the centre of the cafe, oak tables with white powder-coated metal legs are printed with grey and white arrows that alternate with the wood.
Various shapes and sizes of Paul Crofts’ Nonla pendant lights are suspended from the ceiling, positioned between the white truss beams.
Blackboard menus are mounted on the walls between strips of hot-rolled steel above oak display boxes for storing crockery and dry snacks.
Paul Crofts Studio also recently completed a bakery with a graphic based on a magpie nest etched into the wooden counter.
The most popular cafes we’ve published lately include a Bucharest coffee shop with 276 cups suspended from the ceiling and a waterside bistro in Vietnam with a roof supported by conical bamboo columns.
Photography is by Chris Tubbs.
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Paul Crofts Studio sent us the project description below:
The cafe can be found in the industrial setting of the former factories and warehouses of Royal Arsenal Riverside, an area famed since the seventeenth century for producing munitions for the Royal Navy and armed forces. The building has been stripped back to a shell, while retaining character and authenticity.
Paul Crofts Studio’s scheme for the cafe leaves original features intact and exposed, while inserting new elements to contrast with the existing fabric of the building.
A chevron motif derived from the insignia on military uniforms can be found throughout the scheme, seen on the table tops, oak display boxes, and the counter and display wall. Banquettes upholstered in a military green create a delineation between old and new, running in a continuous line from the window reveals to the waiter station by the main door.
Bespoke solid oak tables, featuring the chevron motif screen-printed in a mixture of grey and white, have metal powder coated legs inspired by an industrial workbench. The Nonla lights by Paul Crofts – a contemporary interpretation of a traditional utility light fitting – appears in various sizes, while unfinished hot-rolled steel is used to line the kitchen walls and for the wall-mounted menus.
The scheme’s focal point is provided by the service counter and display wall, the design of which provides a deliberately new intervention to contrast with the rough surfaces of the existing interior. Created from a combination of solid wood and CNC-routed HI-MACS solid surface material in pure white, the chevron motif is inset in an irregular pattern to take the design from wood on one side, to white on the other. Display shelves are edged with a brass trim.
The industrial look is leavened by the use of clean white and warm timber, with homely café chairs by Hay and chalk boards behind the counter adding to the relaxed atmosphere.
The post Cornerstone Cafe by
Paul Crofts Studio appeared first on Dezeen.
British studio MoreySmith delved into the archives of online fashion retailer Asos for textiles patterns to use while refurbishing the brand’s London headquarters (+ slideshow).
MoreySmith overhauled interiors as Asos doubled the space it uses at the art deco Greater London House, formerly the Black Cat Cigarette Factory in the north London borough of Camden.
The fashion company originally occupied the second and fourth floor in part of the building, but took over the bottom three storeys of the same portion to form a coherent office space. “It was the first time the company has been on adjacent floors, so we wanted to connect them all together visually,” MoreySmith design director Nicola Osborn told Dezeen.
A large Asos logo hovers above the reception desk on the ground floor, positioned in front of vertical slats wrapped in material used for the brand’s clothing designs. “The initial brief was to create brand identity as soon as you came into the ground floor,” said Osborn. “The fins are behind the reception are all Asos materials.”
A new staircase links the floors the company now takes up, connecting the ground floor reception to a cafe on the first level and a coffee bar on the second to create a central hub.
Wooden stair treads are decorated with pictograms, which look like labels added to shipping boxes the company uses to distribute its goods worldwide. Glass-fronted offices and meeting spaces are made semi-translucent by light geometric motifs that also reference fabric designs.
Hidden behind the serving area of the cafe, a private dining room doubles as an extra conference space. A mixture of furniture styles populate the employee lounge areas and casual meetings take place in an open environment with booth seating.
We filmed a couple of movies with MoreySmith director Linda Morey Smith while she was a judge for the Inside awards 2011. During these interviews she spoke to us about her office designs for drinks brand Red Bull and Sony Music.
Other offices for fashion brands on Dezeen include the OMA-designed G-Star Raw headquarters in Amsterdam and the west London base of Net-A-Porter.
See more office architecture and interiors »
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Read on for more information from Morey Smith:
Architectural designers MoreySmith have completed the newly-expanded headquarters for online fashion retailer Asos at Greater London House.
The extensive 100,000-square-foot refurbishment has more than doubled the space Asos currently occupies in the building.
MoreySmith’s new design includes a flexible events space, a showcase/press area, fashion-themed meeting rooms, open-plan offices and a tour route for visitors where they can follow the full journey of a garment from inception to completion, showcasing the innovative fashion and technology-led business.
New staircases connect three floors at the heart of the office space; including a reception, café, meeting rooms and coffee bar. This central hub brings a dynamic and dramatic impact to the Asos brand identity and gives a creative and welcoming space for more than 1200 people, to collaborate and breakout from the open plan workspace.
MoreySmith has created a space which acts as a window to the Asos brand, taking inspiration from Asos’s values and commitment to maintaining a high caliber of employees.
“Asos had a very clear vision which was to create the next chapter in the Asos success story, designing a space where people want to be, where they can innovate together and continue to build the story.”
Home to a variety of companies, the vast former Black Cat cigarette factory was reinstated in the late 1990s to its original art deco grandeur, an architectural icon to 1930s design. Asos’s expansion reflects the company’s significant growth in the last year, where its active customer base rose 35% to 5.4 million across 160 countries.
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by MoreySmith appeared first on Dezeen.
UK studio Designscape Architects has completed two buildings for artist Damien Hirst. One is an art production studio that appears to change colour from blue to green and the other is a glazed brick building designed for using toxic chemicals (+ slideshow).
The two buildings are located near Damien Hirst‘s existing studio in Stroud, Gloucestershire. The Science Studio provides the British artist with a generous workspace, high-security art store and private gallery for showing work to clients, while the Formaldehyde Building provides a controlled environment for working with chemicals, particularly the preservative previously used by the artist to create sculptures from dead animals.
Diffused internal lighting was an important requirement for the Science Studio, so Designscape designed a windowless building that brings in daylight through rooftop glazing.
Without windows, the aluminium-clad exterior walls presented a blank canvas, so the architects added stripes of graphic tape to create flashes of blue and green on the edges of each raised seam.
“The aim was to produce a wall that was intriguingly blue from one direction and green from the other,” they explained. “If you stand halfway down the elevation, you are not quite sure whether the building is blue or green.”
Nine-metre walls give high ceilings to rooms inside the studio, while the gallery is housed in an adjoining 18-metre-high block that is clad with dark grey panels. Interior walls are lined with plywood and plasterboard, providing a strong surface for hanging artwork.
The neighbouring Formaldehyde Building was designed to fit the shape of its site, with one extremely pointy corner.
Glazed white brickwork gives a clean surface to the exterior walls, screening an internal layer of concrete blocks.
Louvred openings in the walls ensure a constant stream of natural ventilation, creating a safe environment for working with poisonous chemicals.
Designscape Architects is a Bath studio led by architects Chris Mackenzie and Spencer Back. Past projects include an extension to an English country house that reverses the building’s orientation.
Other studios designed for prolific artists include a galvanised steel workshop for Antony Gormley and a studio for Vivienne Westwood in London. See more art studios on Dezeen »
Here’s some more detailed information about the construction of each building:
Science Studio
Science Studios is the largest art production studio in the world, incorporating a high security art store and private gallery for showing art to clients.
The studios and art stores have stringent requirements for diffused daylight, as well as privacy and security, so all the daylight is provided from the roof except in the staff amenity areas. This results in very big elevations with very few openings – 70 m long and 9 m high without interruption. The walls are clad in 200 mm thick mineral fibre filled composite metal panels which provide an airtight, fireproof, highly insulated and secure external envelope. Inside these walls there is a high density blockwork wall clad in ply and plasterboard to provide a high-strength hanging wall for artwork, as well as providing a services zone, additional security and additional thermal mass.
The idea of the standing seams, with blue on one side of the seam and green on the other the Client’s brand colours was to make the most of this unusual opportunity with a very big, uninterrupted façade. The aim was to produce a wall which was intriguingly blue from one direction and green from the other. If you stand half way down the elevation, you are not quite sure whether the building is blue or green.
The snap-on overcladding, which protects and extends the life of the mineral fibre panels is made of pre painted hard tempered aluminium. The metal came to site as a coil, and the building was used as a production factory to decoil and form the cladding into trays. Then the colour was applied to the preformed standing seams with a specialist graphic tape (made by 3m).This is a technique very much like a traditional standing seam system, but the seams are preformed and then snap together so no tools are required to close up the seam. This technique is rarely if ever used in the UK, but is more common in the US, but was used in this case because it allowed the application of the coloured tape on the sides of the seams without the risk of damaging the tape during installation.
Once formed and coloured, the panels were carried outside manually and hoisted up (they are extremely light and easily handled by 2 people) and then snapped into place on the façade. Setting out and detailing had to be meticulously planned in order to ensure that there were no unfortunate alignment problems at the openings, and the all the details were first trialled on a sample panel which was essential in order to iron out some issues which would otherwise have ruined the simplicity of the façade.
The gallery is 18m high by 70m long, and is expressed as a separate volume and clad in a dark metallic grey Kingspan micro ribbed panel. These panels were made especially long by Kingspan – they exceeded the normal maximum length by several metres, but because they are made in a linear production line, all that was required was to cut them longer than the normal limit, and then arrange special transport to get them to site. The setting out and installation of these again had to be thought through meticulously, so that the cumulative installation tolerances could be accommodated and the cladding module would coincide neatly at the openings without cutting panels. Corners were designed to take out any final tolerances, with the corner panels being mitred along their full length and then fixed using a @damage and fillA technique making a countersunk hole in the cladding using a ball hammer, installing the fixings, and then repairing the panel with an epoxy filler and overspraying the damaged panels. The resulting finished fixing is invisible, but does require exceptional workmanship to get it right. Finally, the mitred corners were covered by a small 100 x 100 mm angle bonded in place and the coping was made to a matching dimension.
Formaldehyde Building
The building houses a specialist studio facility which uses various chemicals and is therefore fitted out with specialist finishes and services which enable a safe working environment and safe ventilation. The chemicals being used react with and corrode many commonly used building materials, so the choice of glazed brickwork provided a solution that is naturally resistant to the chemicals, but also expresses the use of the building through the choice of external finishes. The client demanded a high quality of finish and detail, and the form of the building – which was dictated by the shape of the site, combined with the other requirements to produce a number of challenges.
The end result is a very high quality and durable building envelope, with all the openings covered in louvre clad doors to produce a fine – grained monolithic, wedge of a singular material.
The building is constructed as a steel frame with an internal leaf of concrete blockwork, bracing the frame and providing the inner leaf of a cavity. The brickwork is therefore a ½ brick thick outer leaf of a cavity wall.
The choice of glazed brickwork and the requirement for a high quality finish led the designers to decide that a standard 10mm brick joint would not be acceptable, and so a 4mm joint was adopted in order to produce the aesthetic quality the client was looking for. This raised a number of challenges:
» Putting wall ties into a 4 mm joint – The solution was to make every brick as a “pistol”, so that the actual brick bed joint was in fact 12 mm, with only the visible face of the brickwork having a 4mm joint for pointing up. This thick bed joint also assisted with the control of thermal movement.
» Avoidance of movement joints in the brickwork – there are only two vertical movement joints in the building façade, and these are disguised by a full height louvred panel. The mortar and the pointing up mix were designed by a specialist engineer and are soft, flexible lime mortar mixes, allowing sufficient movement to avoid thermal expansion cracking.
Coordinating brickwork with 4mm joints sizes around openings. As the perpendicular joints are changed from 10 mm to 4 mm it means that, with a whole number of bricks dictating an opening width, then the bricks at the opening jambs will no longer be exactly a ½ brick – one side of the opening will be 6mm more than a ½ brick, and the other will be 6mm less than a ½ brick.
The solutions to the issues outlined above involved the manufacture of a large number of brick specials. The specials used included the pointed end of the building, copings made into precast units, glazed headers for corners and jambs, (not exact ½ brick sizes) slips for cladding lintels, brick slips for cladding a door, and all the “standard” stretcher bricks were cut as pistols. The Design Team worked closely with Ibstock to develop the details and the range and quantity of brick specials.
The nature of this facework is very unforgiving and required unusually tight manufacturing tolerances (dimensions and colour) and meticulously accurate setting out and gauging, using 4mm tile spacers and specially design stainless steel gauging rods to maintain an accurate face dimension of the brickwork in order to achieve the end result.
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for Damien Hirst by Designscape Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
Offset gabled volumes form a new classroom and play area at this infant school in Oxfordshire, England, by local firm Jessop and Cook Architects (+ slideshow).
Jessop and Cook Architects designed the adjoining buildings with the same profile, but shifted the timber play area sideways from the brick classroom.
“The different materials for the covered external canopy help create a warm friendly feel to the place and help define the spaces,” project architect Dan Wadsworth told Dezeen. “We didn’t want to just tack on a canopy and felt continuing to use brick would be too heavy and overbearing.”
Covered in cedar shingles on the outside and clad with stained planks of the same wood inside, the timber structure provides a sheltered outdoor play area open to the playground. “We created a small enclosed secret garden for the children to play in,” said Wadsworth.
Windows in the roof let in extra light, as well as the gap at the back where the two structures misalign.
Glass doors fold back to merge the play space with the classroom, which is normally entered from a door on the other side of the timber building.
Low wooden partitions house toys and learning materials for the 30 pupils, plus break up the single room to make smaller zones for different activities.
Steps in a back corner sit below a lowered portion of ceiling to create a small performance space. Additional teaching rooms and bathrooms are located at the back of the bulding.
Other primary schools we’ve featured include a modern version of traditional Japanese schoolhouse in Tokyo and one in The Hague that snakes around its site like a crocodile.
Photographs are by Nikhilesh Haval.
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Jessop and Cook Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
One level of this London boutique designed by Studio Toogood is bright and minimal, while the other looks like a dark nightclub.
Studio Toogood divided the two-storey Browns Focus store so daywear is displayed in a clean, white space in the basement and eveningwear can be browsed on the darker upper level. “A brilliant-white basement represents daywear and a midnight-blue minimalist ground floor taps into the spirit of dressing for the evening,” said the studio.
Shoppers step up from street level to the upper floor or descend into the basement, which can be glimpsed through a floor-level window in the entrance.
Welded-steel panels, neon lighting and blue-tinted glass are all used on the upper floor to create an atmosphere more like an underground music venue.
Garment rails are formed from metal pipes suspended from the ceiling, bent into rectangles or hoops.
A midnight blue blob serves as the counter and a blue spun-metal disc with a light behind is attached to the wall above.
Surfaces in the basement are all white, only broken up by colourful woven rugs and stacks of iridescent boxes.
Changing room door handles appear to be made from scrunched-up pieces of paper set in plaster.
Studio founder Faye Toogood‘s furniture populates both floors, including vitrines made from metal lattices that are black upstairs and white downstairs.
The white mesh is also used for a seat and screens downstairs, alongside display counters built from piles of sawn wood lengths.
We’ve recently featured another Studio Toogood project: a fashion store that combines raw concrete and colourful fabrics.
Other recent retail interiors on Dezeen include an ochre-coloured boutique in Katowice, Poland, and a UK bakery with a magpie’s nest motif engraved into the counter.
Earlier this year we published a laundrette in Barcelona that also looks like a nightclub.
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The following text is from Studio Toogood:
Browns Focus by Studio Toogood
Browns Focus, one of the world’s leading destinations for newly discovered talent and emerging designers has been re-launched into a new and extended space with a new interior designed by Studio Toogood.
The space, set across two floors, is divided thematically – a brilliant-white basement, representing daywear, and a midnight-blue minimalist ground floor that taps into the spirit of dressing for the evening.
The club-like darkness of the ground floor has a postindustrial feel, with black rubber, welded steel-panelled displays, a graphic constructivist clothes rail and a sophisticated touch of blue-tinted glass.
By way of contrast, the area downstairs is glowing white and minimalist; walls of white mesh and rubber with a lacquered floor are offset by irregular display platforms, assembled from rubberised timber offcuts.
Both floors feature exclusive furniture designs by Faye Toogood, including her iconic mesh jewellery vitrines and a striking biomorphic cash-wrap counter. The result is a carefully balanced retail environment that complements and highlights the brand’s design-led fashion collections.
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Studio Toogood appeared first on Dezeen.
This apostrophe-shaped bridge in Hull, England, by London architects McDowell+Benedetti features a rotating mechanism so it can swing open to make room for passing boats (+ slideshow).
Scale Lane Bridge spans the river between Hull’s Old Town and the as-yet undeveloped industrial land on the east bank, creating a pedestrian route between the city’s museums and aquarium.
Working alongside engineers Alan Baxter Associates and Qualter Hall, McDowell+Benedetti designed the steel bridge with a slow movement so that pedestrians can continue to step on and off even when the structure is in motion.
The apostrophe shape creates two different routes across the bridge. The first is a gentle slope that stretches along the outer edge, while the second is a stepped pathway that runs along the inside.
A raised spine separates the two routes, creating a seating area overlooking the water as well as a lighting feature that points upwards like the fin of a giant shark.
The centre of rotation is a single-storey drum, with a restaurant inside and a viewing platform on the roof.
“The black steel bridge has a distinctive robust character and curving form, making it a memorable landmark that is unique to Hull and its industrial and maritime heritage,” said the design team.
The underside of the bridge is tapered upwards to allow smaller vessels to pass through without opening the bridge.
An installation by artist Nayan Kulkarni is also included, involving ringing bells and a pulsing light that are activated when the bridge starts to move.
“This has a practical purpose in alerting pedestrians to the imminent opening rotation and it heightens the drama of the ride,” added the designers.
Low-level lighting illuminates the walkways after dark.
McDowell+Benedetti has worked on several bridges in the UK. Others include a 130-metre long S-shaped footbridge in Yorkshire. See more bridges on Dezeen »
Photography is by Timothy Soar.
Here’s some extra information from the architects:
Scale Lane Bridge on River Hull in full swing
An innovative swing bridge over the River Hull has opened to the public, offering pedestrians the unique experience of riding on the bridge as it opens and closes to river traffic, believed to be a world’s first.
The black steel bridge has a distinctive robust character and curving form, making it a memorable landmark that is unique to Hull and its industrial and maritime heritage.
The winning entry in an international 3-stage design competition held in 2005, the bridge has been built to the original concept by the competition team, main contractor and M&E engineers Qualter Hall, architects McDowell+Benedetti and structural engineers Alan Baxter Associates. The scheme includes a new landscaped garden and square designed by landscape architects Grontmij with lighting by Sutton Vane Associates and an integrated public artwork by Nayan Kulkarni.
Located in Kingston upon Hull east of Hull city centre the bridge connects Hull’s Old Town Conservation Area to the undeveloped industrial landscape of the east bank. Designed as the first stage of a wider masterplan it will unlock the potential of the riverside to promote wider regeneration in the areas east of the city centre. Scale Lane Staith on the west bank has been re-landscaped with a series of stepped gardens leading to a new public square at the threshold of the bridge. The bridge provides a walkable route connecting the Museums Quarter on the west bank to Hull’s major attraction The Deep.
The River Hull has a tidal range of almost 7 metres and has exposed mud banks on the west side. The 16 metre diameter drum of the bridge sits snugly into the raised river bed on the west bank and cantilevers 35 metres over the water to the east side. The spine of the bridge arches up and over the river, allowing enough room for smaller boats to pass under without need to operate the bridge, and rotates using an electrical drive mechanism to open the route to river traffic when required.
The bridge’s sweeping form creates two generous pedestrian routes, one gently sloping and a shorter stepped walkway. The roof of the drum provides an upper viewing deck with a seamless steel balustrade, which gives the feeling of being on board a docked ocean liner.
The central structural spine of the bridge includes seating areas, creating a variety of places for people to pause on route to relax and enjoy the riverscape views. The spine rises into a back-lit rooflight which provides a marker for the bridge at night.
When activated the mechanical movement of the bridge is sufficiently slow to allow passengers to safely step onto the bridge from the west bank whilst it is rotating.
Artist Nayan Kulkarni has created a public artwork on the bridge, a sonic landscape in which to enjoy the riverscape. When the bridge opening is activated a new sequence of rhythmic bells is triggered which increases in urgency and combines with a pulsing light developed by lighting consultants Sutton Vane Associates. This has a practical purpose in alerting pedestrians to the imminent opening rotation and it heightens the drama of the ‘ride’.
At night low level fluorescents integrated into the parapet posts light the profile of the bridge and bring colour and sparkle to the blackened industrial riverscape.
Hull City Council is now actively seeking a tenant to occupy the restaurant space in the bridge hub. Once in place Scale Lane Bridge will become a lively animated public place at all times of the day, fulfilling the design team’s intention to create more than just a crossing but a destination in its own right.
At the official opening on 28 June 2013 Councillor Nadine Fudge, Lord Mayor of Hull and Admiral of the Humber, said: “It’s an honour to open this unique footbridge on behalf of the city, which links the Old Town to the east banks of Hull. Our Old Town has wonderful museums and attractions and it’s great that we’re able to add another experience for people to enjoy. Hull’s strong maritime history is echoed in the ships bells ringing as the bridge opens and we should be proud that we are continuing to reflect on our heritage.”
Jacquie Boulton, Area Manager at the Homes and Communities Agency said: “The opening of this bridge gives the city an excellent opportunity to connect the east bank of the river to the city centre creating opportunities for new economic development. It is great that we have been able to work with our partners to create a bridge that is not only useful to local residents and visitors to the city but is also such a fantastic design.”
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McDowell+Benedetti appeared first on Dezeen.
Saman Kesh nous prouve une nouvelle fois son talent indéniable pour la mise en scène et la réalisation avec ce court-métrage « The Controller ». Dans cette création parfaitement maîtrisée produite par Marq Films, une fille prisonnière aux pouvoirs impressionnants prend le contrôle de son petit-ami pour venir la secourir.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
