32
PROJECT REPORT: EDUCATION & RESEARCH FACILITIES
What Jobson describes as a brise soleil “canvas” was created using corten steel
Jobson; “we could play around with perspective to make it kind of recessive to the site.” The auditorium/lecture theatre was seen as “almost like a piece of sculpture,” he explains, whereas the library provided an end point to the whole composition.” The site’s topography enabled the landscape to ‘wrap’ around the rotunda building – there’s a four metre drop from the West Downs building side, which allowed the building to sit within the bank. The architects were also then able to manipulate the rest of the site to improve access for users with disabilities, which had previously been an issue with the halls of residence.
The materials chosen were strongly influenced by the surroundings. The West Downs building features flint as well as brick, which is common to the halls of residence. The architects specified the same brick on the rectangular building which faces the halls – albeit with a different, grey coloured mortar.
The south-facing front facade is glass, so solar gain needed to be controlled. What Jobson describes as a brise soleil “canvas” was created using corten steel, to match the colour of the West Downs building’s brick. The architect explains that they took the opportunity to “treat it not just as a facade, but also a piece of artwork,” he says. “We played around with the textures of it using different blade depths, widths and gaps where we could.” The final design
was a product of around 30 different computer models: “We chose one that had that lightness of touch but also a sense of backdrop, an artistic element.” The architects decided to continue the corten on the rotunda auditorium, but in a different way. “Because it’s an auditorium space on the main road you can’t have any windows; acoustically it had to be pretty much a sealed box,” Jobson explains. Angled corten fins were specified to offer something “quite textural” to enliven what’s essentially a windowless form. Another key element is noticeable when approaching the site – a flint wall, which echoes Winchester’s history as a fortified city – parts of the old flint city wall are still visible. The architects’ concept was to create a new wall which actually felt like it “existed before we got there, like a found object,” Jobson explains, thus helping “connect to the old city,” although in a “very contemporary take.” This is one example where the architects’ strong relationship with the university was crucial, with the high cost of building a hand ‘knapped’ flint wall. Luckily the university “were keen on having that sense of history.” Corten elements such as window frames were incorporated, suggesting rusty metal objects often found in stone walls. A final, and subtle, element is the use of glass reinforced concrete panels using a pure white stone aggregate around the entrance, a “slightly poetic” move, says
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
ADF MARCH 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
