BRIEF : Lumsdale Mills Visitor Centre
Function
The architectural challenge is to design a destination that celebrates and welcomes visitors to the site. The built environment you provide is to consist partly of museum / nature centre (for exhibitions related to the site), with associated study and refreshment facilities, and partly overnight accomodation for groups who may be visiting for the purposes of study, work or pleasure. Overnight residents may, for example, include the following:
Accommodation
You are required to design three individual units:
Character
The architecture you propose must act as an ‘environmental filter’ (working with the existing context to provide a comfortable external/internal environment for building users) as the same time as creating a distinctive ‘atmosphere’. An expressive and meaningful built environment is required, that relates both to its immediate site and to the wider area. Your design is required to respond to the site, demonstrating strong visual and spatial connection to the landscape, the topography and the historic surroundings (with special reference to the existing ruins).
The Design Challenge
You will need to consider how each unit connects with the site. This means using your site analysis to justify placing, orientation, form and function in a meaningful way.
Function
The architectural challenge is to design a destination that celebrates and welcomes visitors to the site. The built environment you provide is to consist partly of museum / nature centre (for exhibitions related to the site), with associated study and refreshment facilities, and partly overnight accomodation for groups who may be visiting for the purposes of study, work or pleasure. Overnight residents may, for example, include the following:
- a group of eco-tourists, environmentalists or naturalists who have come to visit the area to become absorbed in nature.
- a group of researchers such as arboriculturalists, biologists, ecologists or astronomers who wish to study, to conduct experiments and to collect data.
- familes who wish to spend time together in natural surroundings and to learn about the heritage of the site.
Accommodation
You are required to design three individual units:
- exhibition area
- facilities for overnight residents
- supplementary buildings which may be needed in order for this typology to function.
- one embedded in the landscape
- one situated on the landscape
- one elevated above the landscape
Character
The architecture you propose must act as an ‘environmental filter’ (working with the existing context to provide a comfortable external/internal environment for building users) as the same time as creating a distinctive ‘atmosphere’. An expressive and meaningful built environment is required, that relates both to its immediate site and to the wider area. Your design is required to respond to the site, demonstrating strong visual and spatial connection to the landscape, the topography and the historic surroundings (with special reference to the existing ruins).
The Design Challenge
You will need to consider how each unit connects with the site. This means using your site analysis to justify placing, orientation, form and function in a meaningful way.