MAKERS REVIVAL
Pair work
Nov. 2021 - Feb. 2022
DESCRIPTION
Accrington is a small town which suffered from the post war but full of hidden potential. It used to be a thriving industrial town for trade, craft and manufacturing. However, today, visitors do not often appear and young people are not keen on staying on either as there is not much attraction or opportunities happening. The challenge given is to transform a his-torical old building (St. James Old School) which is located in the historical town centre of Accrington into a new commu-nity hub of the town that can revitalise the absence of more public gathering spaces for interaction and social activities needed, in Accrington town centre. Tackling climate change at the same time, this building reuse project require us to design in more creative ways that we didn't expect and pushed us to think of passivhaus solutions design to upgrade the existing building without harming the environment. Unraveling the existing fabric structure and understanding its history and character was something we enjoyed throughout the design process.
So how does one stay motivated and connected? The pandemic made people realise the importance of local neigh-borhood bond and strong community ties for both social life and local economy. Social spaces play an important role in sparking engaging conversations and inspiring thoughts. Most importantly, it can benefit one’s physical and mental well-being by providing opportunities of participation.
Hence, The Makers Revival is a new art centre for the people in Accrington that brings people through a journey of creating and making. It facilitates a new library, studios, workshops, multipurpose hall, gallery space and an indoor green space. The spatial experience is well planned for encounters and opportunities to different activities and views. For exam-ple, the historical connection to St. James church as well as the context (vegetation and access to nature) is an important connection we would like to emphasise in the design as nature and the landscape has huge benefits to one's health and wellbeing (NHS, online).
Inspired by Carlo Scarpa, the journey is well designed for engagement with the original building fabric and character whereby the building is an ornament and part of the exhibition itself.
Connected View To the Garden
The Cafe
The Studio
The Garden
Walking on the St James' Street
We aim to create a tranquil and leisurely atmosphere on the St James' Street. The wall of the garden uses the same stone as the existing building. To increase people's curiosity, only few glazing exposed for people to look inside of the garden.
Site - Accrington
Accrington is a hill town located at the western edge of the Pennines within a bowl that is largely encircled by surrounding hills. It is one of a group of towns forming the sub-region of Blackburn which developed in the full flood of the Industrial Revolution. Whilst Accrington has been influenced by 3 diverse phases of develop-ment, agricultural, mass industrialisation and economic decline, it is largely a one period town, evolving in the industrial revolution and was transformed in a matter of a century into an important industrial centre. To note, the site/ building (not listed) is within the protected conservation area of accrington town centre.
Reused the Old School
In 1816, the old school was built by the congregation of St. James Church. Due to the in-creasing number of scholars, the school was relocated at Cannon Street where Mr. William Peel laid the foundation stone on 18th May 1895. The whole building are of stone, faced with best Yorkshire parpoints, with ashlar dressings. Today, the building is used as a com-munity centre with room and office hire services for community groups and organisations . Currently, it is occupied by the Hyndburn Voluntary, Community and Resource Centre and as a COVID 19 vaccination centre. It is also quite well maintained with its own distinct gothic character and ornaments as shown in the diagrams below.
There are some problems about the original building, but also new opportunities bring to the site.
The spatial diagram is the general idea about the design. The massing experiment is to test the form and find a better way to connect the old building and the new extension.
Environment Technology
JOURNEY THROUGH OLD AND NEW
The journey we create through the front courtyard to the back garden provide continuous experience from the existing character to a new essence of refreshness in the garden. The central atrium staircase acts as the transition between existing and new interventions.
As the building is located within the conservation area, we wanted to preserve its original gothic facade as much as possible. Hence, the interventions are subtly made to create a balance harmony with the existing building while at the same time extending the relationship of the user with St. James Church and its surrounding nature (garden). The new extension: blue metal cladding, inspired by the colour tone of St. James Church will be made of reused metal; the east wall of the garden will be made of reused stone from the wall that will be taken down for access to the garden.
Construction Details
Materiality and Ornamentation
Darwen Terracotta trip inspired us to be more creative for ornamental design and model making. To really understand the process and the patten design, we tried to make the wall tile by ourselves and test different patterns for that.
We also designed the pattern for the corridor's glass railing. The pattern combine with the original trefoil pattern on the staircase railing with new ideas.
1:10 Conceptual Model
Our model represents the change of spaces from the existing main hall (red) into a new circulation space (white) that will act as a transition between the old and new. We chose to build it in a 1:10 scale as we want to highlight ornament as a powerful language for enhancing user experience while bringing out the the historical essence of Accrington as well as the original building. The floor are of herringbone pattern laser cut on plywood. To accentuate the transition from old to new, we decided to paint the walls in the new circulation space in white, to bring the attention of the user to its feet, which is the 'ornament' and the main highlight of the design. There lay a mosaic tile pattern (laser cut onto 3mm plywood ) designed by us which is inspired by the Tiffany glass pattern found from the existing building. We wanted to not only introduce local features into the design but also focus on the act of stepping from the existing buildings' timber herringbone flooring into the new flooring made from thousands of mosaic tiles.
