Arts and leisure feature in a number of recent projects in both new building and adaptation of existing, often in sensitive locations.
Battle of Hastings Visitor Building
Visitor Building - interior
A significant new visitor building on the site of the Battle of Hastings. The site, which is one of English Heritage’s largest in terms of visitor numbers, and of international importance, has previously had very inadequate facilities; no café or toilet accommodation on the site and tired interpretation and orientation space.
The new building has been placed near to the abbey gatehouse of 1338, one of the finest monastic gatehouses in England, and on steeply sloping ground leading towards the battlefield. The two-storey structure is partially cut into the existing ground and is curved to closely follow the site contours.
Large areas of glazing give extensive views from the café and circulation spaces back to the gatehouse, along Park Lane, and towards the battlefield. English Heritage required that the contemporary style of the building reflect the historic abbey and town buildings close by. To achieve this, local materials have been used such as Sussex sandstone, oak and brick. The outer stone walls reinforce the Precinct Wall, while the curved inner wall of oak evokes a medieval palisade, a powerful visual and physical anchor in the site. The height of the building is kept to a minimum, and is finished with a shallow pitched roof in matt finished stainless steel.
The interior of the building is richly textured and follows the palette of natural materials used outside, unfinished oak, stone flooring and exposed concrete. Limited landscaping to the immediate vicinity of the building is designed with the intention of allowing the natural woodland of the site to extend around the building. The lower ground floor provides a 45 seat auditorium and interactive interpretation space.
Kew Gardens Orangery
Kew Gardens Orangery Terrace
At Kew Gardens, a World Heritage Site, The Grade I listed Orangery by William Chambers has been extended to provide a 300-seat restaurant and catering accommodation. The new building is conceived as a series of shallow vaulted pavilions projecting out from the north wall of the Orangery and separated from it by a lightweight glazed link. A generous stone-paved terrace completes the setting of the building and provides additional outside dining space.
The Orangery originally had a variety of minor incremental buildings attached over the years, which could neither appropriately nor adequately support its use as a restaurant and shop. The practice was briefed to rationalise the existing buildings to provide an improved facility. Feasibility studies suggested that only a complete demolition of all buildings except the Orangery itself, and construction of a new, single contemporary extension, which related to the line of the original walled garden, would provide a better functional and aesthetic solution. The existing Orangery was repaired and refurbished, with a new terrace, as a restaurant. The extension provides a servery, kitchen and conference spaces within a building that is both entirely contemporary and respects the Orangery and the historic setting of Kew Gardens.