SITE SEEN
RECENTWORK
Conservation architect Izaak Hudson of Purcell Miller Tritton reports on the final stage of work to repair an important group of historic buildings in Southampton and create an ultra-modern visitor attraction
High-techmoves in with ancient
“Cornerstone” Vol 28 No 4, 2007), the £3.7m Phase II programme of internal repairs, landscaping, re-servicing and new build work commenced on site in 2009. It was completed this summer, led by the same contractor, Linford, which completed phase I. As well as allowing the grade I listed Scheduled
Ancient Monument, and its garden, to re-open as a modern museum complex, the work covered the repair and conversion of the nearby grade II* Westgate Hall, a timber-frame building dating from the early 15th century. Westgate Hall forms the education centre for the museumsite, as well as being available to the public for events. The work involved in bringing the Tudor House site
T
up tomodern visitor standardswas quite a challenge. Many of the major elements of work which occupied my timemay seem far removed from the normal fabric repair issues which one would assume would normally occupy a conservation architect, but are vitally important if work is to appear as considered and visually discreet as possible. Themuseum brief required a new cafe and much
enlarged WC facilities, and it was clear from the outset that these elements would not fit within the existing building, and would have to be accommodated in new structures. These elements were designed in a modern way with an oak-boarded single-storey cafe with an intensive planted roof, and an oak-boarded, zinc-roofed WC block. The overall level of intervention necessitated 12 separate statutory consents across the site, with a total of 121 separate conditions to be discharged or complied with! It is easy to see how private developersmight be
44 Cornerstone, Vol 32 No 3 2011
udor HouseMuseum re-opened to the public on the 1st August, after more than a decade of development and repair work, principally funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Southampton City Council. Following the completion of the Phase I external fabric repairs in 2008 (see
tempted to shy away fromthe legislative complexity involved in modern historic building projects. Although Tudor HouseMuseum has acquired quite
an interesting collection of objects in its own right over the years, themajor draws of themuseumare the building and the garden. The challenge of how best to interpret them, and how to present different phases of construction and history simultaneously, led the exhibition designers to develop a high-tech son-et-lumière introductory show, accompanied by computerised lighting and interactive display units throughout the building. As the interactive display units are rotated around the room, the screen displays a three-dimensional computermodel of the view which can be switched between previous incarnations of the room over the centuries. Coordinating the physical infrastructure and wiring
required for this exhibition design – as well as that involved with two new lifts, and complete re-servicing of the building for heating, plumbing, electrical wiring, internet, background lighting, exhibition lighting, emergency lighting, smoke detection, ventilation, catering services and the sprinkler systemthrough the tight confines of a scheduled monument – proved as ever to be one of the biggest challenges involved in a major historic building project. Fortunately, much of the cabling and pipework could be routed at basement level, and duct risers hidden in cupboards and flues, but the building has been pushed to the limit in what will actually fit behind the scenes. It is very difficult at design stage, for example, to foresee that one single exhibition lighting rig would
THE LIMIT INWHAT WILL ACTUALLY FIT BEHIND THE SCENES’
‘THE BUILDING HAS BEEN PUSHED TO
require a bundle of 16 cables to feed via an oak- panelled ceiling and through slender suspension rods, but we didmanage to fit it all in somehow or another. One area where this level of intervention was
eminently justified was the installation of a water mist sprinkler system to protect both the public and the extremely vulnerable urban timber-frame building itself. The building has little in theway of horizontal circulation; rooms follow themedieval hall-house model of opening into each other, so that the only escape routes are often through suites of adjacent rooms. The cost and visual implication of physical fire upgrade to meet modern standards would have been considerable, and there would always likely to be inherent weakness through unseen cavities and flimsy timber elements that only a fire itself might highlight. A strategy of escape and protection was developed
which relies primarily on the installation of a Marioff watermist sprinkler system. Amist systemwas chosen because it offered the best combination of cost, sprinkler head flexibility, protection, low damage on discharge and small pipe diameter (an important consideration to get the systemto thread though the building). The overall system protects the whole building, including new build elements, at a total cost of 2 per cent of the overall capital construction budget. As well as providing excellent protection to the building, the systemhas saved much in excess of its cost in physical upgrademeasures. Because themist systemworks on a volumetric
technique to absorb a fire’s energy, installation flexibility has allowed us to position sprinkler heads in less obtrusive positions than would otherwise be the case. Using sidewall sprinklers enbled oak ceilings to be left intact. To get this right required a long, detailed design process and negotiationswith a specialist sub-contractor more at home in themarine industry. However we are very happy with the end result of
not only the sprinkler installation but the whole project, and themuseumof course is now open for visitors to judge for themselves.
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