New appointment in Devon

Connolly Wellingham Architects have been appointed to undertake a feasibility study at St.Michael’s Church in Shute, Devon, exploring opportunities for improving community use of the space, whilst strengthening the congregation’s continued worship.

The GII* listed building dates to the 13thC, and its fascinating history has been closely tied to the adjacent Shute Barton Estate for hundreds of years. We are really enjoying immersing ourselves in the wonderful archive research undertaken by the PCC to date, and working with them to secure a sustainable future for the church.

Listed Building Consent submitted in Devon

Connolly Wellingham Architects have submitted Listed Building Consent for the conservation and repair of a fire damaged, Grade II* Manor House dating to the 15thC. The initial design exercise sought to establish the pre-fire condition of the perished medieval roof timbers by thorough examination of minimal surviving fabric, before proposing an appropriate replacement structure in green oak.

The replacement roof will be finished in timber shingles to match the previous condition, noted in the 1980s listing description. This is believed to have replaced an earlier thatch roof, and is unusual for high status houses of this typology. The damaged condition has uncovered a wide breadth of pragmatically agricultural details, from historic earth mortar on reed lathe and thick roundwood window lintels, to more opportunistic areas of concrete block infill.

Striking the correct balance of historical memory and contemporary performance has made this one of our most technically and philosophically nuanced projects to date.

Determination is due in October.

Porrdige Yard

It’s been a couple of months since I handed in the last of my university work and I’m delighted to say that my studio project, Porridge Yard has been nominated for the Architects’ Journal student prize. I’m flattered to be included in the magazine’s latest print edition, especially amongst such high quality, scholarly and beautiful work.

As time moves on and the spectre of deadlines and scalpel injuries become distant memories; it feels like an appropriate moment to pause and reflect on the project.

Rather than go through every reference or detail I want to discuss a couple of themes that run through the proposal, they also happen to be things that we talk about around the office, particularly when we have more pressing concerns – such as lunch.

The first theme is Civic-ness. Understandably, civic is often conflated with ideas of the city, the urban, however Tony Fretton uses the word to describe aspirations of generosity. Generosity is something that resonates with my project Porridge Yard, whether that’s through its holistic programme that confronts issues of youth exclusion and juvenile re-offending or through its formal manifestation.

The building is situated in Redcliffe Wharf in Bristol’s Harbourside, a site now synonymous with student projects. The former glassworks and storage yard remains empty, with abandoned industrial buildings in various stages of dereliction wrapped around the site boundary, facing out towards the water. The patchwork cobbled surface is evidence of a vibrant industrial past, with the dusty path that cuts diagonally through it indicating the limitations of the site in its current state: It is a shortcut to somewhere else.

The introduction of a quad typology divides the site into a series of manageable public spaces, including a street, plaza, park and a garden square that sits at the heart of the plan. The existing pedestrian desire lines are maintained and dissect through the proposal, encouraging the building and its users to engage with its neighbours and the wider city.  At a smaller scale, the theme of civic generosity is expressed through the deep walls that are punctured with niches that offer a place to sit and even house a community pizza oven.

The second theme is reference, specifically in relation to an immediate context and historic precedent. I know that at CWa we spend a lot of time forming a detailed understanding of place, of how a proposal might be situated within a setting that is often historic. This results in a conversation on how to respond to a rich architectural history in a manner that is unashamedly of its time. Similarly, Porridge Yard enabled me to explore my fascination with historic building typologies, such as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon or the Medieval Keep, in which a large central space is surrounded by deep, massive walls that are extruded to provide service rooms and stairs.

There is an enticing comparison between the solid/void form of the Keep and the manmade sandstone caves that border the site. It is a similarity that the proposal pursues. The deep earth façades of the building echo the red buttresses, blind openings and arches of Redcliffe Caves. In contrast, the courtyard cloister develops a tectonic language that is light and natural, with vertical repetitive oak columns and fins dividing bays that frame the public garden. I’m sure that there is a tough exterior/gentle interior metaphorical connection between the building and user, although that feels too easy to mention, so I won’t, even though I just did.

The final theme is communication and has as much to do with process as it does with the final design proposal. Porridge Yard allowed me the time to rigorously investigate ideas using a variety of mediums such as woodblock prints, casts and models in addition to more conventional drawing methods. The skills developed over the course of the studio have already been applied to the work we’re doing at CWa. Which reminds me, I should probably get back to doing some real work.

Joe

Retro-Fit for Purpose

Who thought we'd only need 12 weeks for this much reflection, reaction and reinvention? 

We at CWa have been so very lucky: loved ones, friends, associates and team members remain relatively safe and well, and we are so grateful for it. Like many I'm sure, lockdown has seen me looking longingly out of the window: Admiring the weather, waving to neighbours, enjoying an explosion of summertime flora and fauna, with clean air, quiet roads and empty skies. It's been a time of daydreaming. Of thinking what could be. 

Three things struck me during this time: 

- As an avid monitor of our national grid, our energy needs dipped only slightly these past weeks- even with such dramatic changes in lifestyle. This is quite significant: If we are to meet commitments to dramatic reduction in CO2 outputs, we need to keep thinking at a national scale: Something only possible at the level of central government. 

- But we are making incredible inroads. At the time of writing, we haven't burnt any coal on the grid for nearly two months- and I remember getting excited by the record of 24 hours only a few years ago! To put this in context, we have burnt coal continually since the industrial revolution. We broke our record for wind generation this January (17129MW), and solar PV generation this April (9680MW). These are exciting steps, on a long journey- but absolutely in the right direction.   

- This brings me back to my window. Alongside generation, we need to think about efficiency, and we need to think about our existing building stock. A key point of weakness in the thermal efficiency of any building will be their windows (especially so in a solid masonry building with leaky, single glazed, sash windows). I tried to think about all the things I could do to improve the efficiency in and around my window at home.

Double glazing the panes considerably improves their all important U-Value. Integrating brush strips and seals into the sashes improves air tightness around this traditional unit. Incorporating solid timber shutters that close at night creates an insulating pocket of air between the window and the building interior- keeping it warmer. 

As is fairly typical, my radiator sits beneath my window. Mounting the unit on an insulated board improves the thermal efficiency in this localised area- improving the dissipation of heat into the rest of the room (and not just into that bit of wall behind!). Finally, increasing the size of the radiator itself, and reducing the temperature of the hot water (the Delta) being fed into it, improves the efficiency of the boiler whilst maintaining the "BTU" value required (these last bits took some Googling!). 

Of course with historic buildings, there are limitations and sensitivities- as there should be- and there are myriad more sensitive ways to achieve similar results. The main thing is that all buildings will need to do their bit, and now feels like the time. 

Ferg.  

Refurbishment and extension approved in Bath

Connolly Wellingham Architects have received Planning Permission for works to a 19thC quarryman’s cottage in the Bath conservation area. The proposals include a timber framed extension on the rear elevation, opening the living spaces to the generous garden, and a companion structure at the opposite end of the lawn providing home-office studio space to support flexible 21st century living.

Higher Planes

A recent discussion in the studio saw us debating our all time favourite adaptive reuse projects, and I thought the results would make for an interesting set of journal articles – as well as a good chance to keep our minds moving during these bizarre times of industry-wide inactivity. There are many buildings I have visited over the years that could lay claim to the top spot, but I wanted to kick the series off by sharing some photos and drawings of the Basilica di Santa Maria delgi Angeli e dei Martiri.

To start the story properly we must begin with the construction of the Great Baths of Diocletian, between 298 and 306 AD at the top of Rome’s Viminal Hill. The site was the largest and most ambitious thermal baths in the Roman world when it was built; a sprawling complex of domes and vaults housing hot pools, cold pools, gymnasia, civic meeting spaces and gardens arranged around a vast central frigidarium. As well as playing a key function in the health and hygiene of the populace, it was the heart of community life. The baths fell into disuse when the aqueduct that fed its water supply was destroyed during a sack of the city in the 5th Century. For the next thousand years the baths stood as an increasingly precarious ruin, as generations of Romans mined the structure for valuable construction materials.

Legend has it that the idea to convert the ruin into a church came to a Monk named Loreto Antonio Lo Duca following a vision received in 1541, when he saw a bright shining light emitting from the central hall of the crumbling edifice. It took another twenty years (and the succession of two new Popes), before designs were completed and works began. Michelangelo Buonarotti was appointed to oversee the design by Pope Pius IV, key to which was creating an appropriately dignified architectural setting for Pius’ own tomb. By this time Michelangelo was well into his late eighties, and consumed with his work at Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Much of the interior today is the result of Luigi Vanvitelli’s baroque overhaul in the 1750s (including a decorative marble floor with an inlaid sundial illuminated by light streaming through a small hole in the roof), so it is difficult to know how sparse or elaborate Michelangelo’s scheme was. We do know that the arrangement of liturgical spaces in amongst the ruined baths remains largely true to his 16thC designs; a Greek Cross of four equal transepts, centred on the remains of the vast frigidarium.

Aside from uniting one of Rome’s most typologically symbolic relics with one of the Renaissance’s most brilliant architectural designers, for me the church is more than the sum of its (extraordinary) parts. It exemplifies well the way apparent limitations of an existing structure can seed innovative solutions and surprising variations to well established archetypes (see my earlier blog on this subject here). In this instance, the existing proportions of the baths’ central hall created a transverse nave, significantly wider than its depth, resulting in a remarkable expanse of space beyond the proportionally constrained domed ante-chamber, and giving the chapels at each end a much more dramatic perspective. Heightening this sense of discovery is the omission of any ornament or ceremony to the façade (a subsequent change); instead the nave is entered through the craggy apsidal remnants of the former caldarium, creating an austere contrast to the scale of space and sumptuousness of decoration within.

Over a century after Alberti began the analysis and celebration of surviving Roman architectural relics, one can see how the glorification of classical ruins may have evolved into a reverence bordering on spiritual. Capitalising on the authentic purity' of the ancient baths to create a sacred space of divine worship remains in my view a masterpiece of ‘creative reuse’.

Charlie

images from the wonderful online archive at www.santamariadegliangeliroma.it

Finding the Everyday

Like many of us right now I’m finding solace in daily exercise, taking the form of a run if I have the energy and a walk if I don’t. Whilst on a recent jaunt around my particular patch of south Bristol, I stumbled across this strangely evocative scene. The half demolished/half built garden brought to mind a painting by Danish artist Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.

The piece titled A Courtyard in Rome (1813) depicts - as the name would suggest - a courtyard, bathed in sun, surrounded by rustic buildings and a terrace defined by plant pots. In the essay, ‘A Real Living Contact with the Things Themselves’ Irénée Scalbert uses the painting to mark a moment during which scholars engaged in The Grand Tour moved their attention away from the picturesque landscapes and classical language that had interested the previous Romantic generation. Instead, they turned their gaze towards what surrounded them, the ordinary, the everyday. In this case, that meant recording the lives and spaces of peasant Italy, away from the well-trodden paths of baroque Rome and Tivoli, towards the communities and rural landscapes of Capri and Naples. What they found in the ordinary was no less picturesque. Through a concentration on the things that surrounded them, artists, writers and poets discovered the extraordinary and a certain beauty.

This brings me back to that piece of smashed-up yard in Bristol. Perhaps beauty is a bit strong, however as the world feels like it’s on pause, moments like these that make me pause on my walk, feel evermore worthwhile.

Joe

Listed Building Consent granted in Wiltshire

It has been a busy week for our farmhouse refurbishment project in Wiltshire; Listed Building Consent has been formally granted and the contractor has begun investigative opening-up works of the existing structure. We are trying to learn as much as we can about the different phases of the house’s history as we progress detail design, before commencing construction works this summer.

Site Progress in Cotswolds

We have enjoyed following the construction progress of the new events hall at Owlpen Manor on the Estate’s official Instagram account – www.instagram.com/owlpenmanor.

The larch for the frame was carefully selected from various locations around the Estate’s woodland to minimise the ecological impact of the felling, before being seasoned and fabricated by Tom and his team at Round Wood Design back here in Bristol.

The completed hall will overlook the Tudor gardens to the south, sitting as a contemporary friend to the 15thC Tithe Barn. All images copyright of the Owlpen Estate.

Pre-Contract Meeting in Hampshire

Construction information has been approved by the PCC at Holy Trinity Colden Common this week, with the contract signed and ready to commence after Easter. A group of volunteers from the congregation have done a great job clearing the west end of furniture and finishes, ready to receive their new kitchenette and WC.

The new facilities will improve the congregation’s ability to host events in the nave throughout the week, maximising the community’s access to this significant listed building.