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Wysing Arts Centre
Wysing Arts Centre
Fox Road, Bourn, United Kingdom
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Other Projects by Hawkins\Brown
Wysing Arts Centre
Fox Road, Bourn, United Kingdom
Firm
Type
YEAR
2008
SIZE
25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft
Wysing Arts Centre (WAC), a thriving and visionary rural arts
centresituated
on the outskirts of Cambridge in Bourn, has relaunched following a £1.7million redevelopment programme
with new buildings designed by London based architecture practice Hawkins\Brown.
Shortly after the relaunch principal funder - Arts Council
England, East – announced a boost in core funding to the organisation, counting
Wysing Arts Centre among the 35 centres of excellence in the region to benefit
from a £32 million investment programme 2008-11.
The rural arts centre in Cambridgeshire
has provided accommodation and support to artists since 1989 and has made a
significant contribution to the UK’s visual arts output. With new facilities in
place Wysing Arts Centre will fast establish itself as a national and
international centre of excellence for the development of artists, making an
impact beyond its geographical location, as well as closer to home.
Hawkins\Brown’s new studio-block and
reception provide a striking yet sympathetic counterpoint to existing converted
farm buildings on the centre’s 11.5 acre site in the heart of Cambridgeshire
countryside.
With
a strong track record on other rural arts projects including the acclaimed
Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire, Hawkins Brown were appointed in
February 2004 after a high profile competitive interview.
The £1.25 million construction
programme will ensure the long-term sustainability of this valuable regional
arts centre, creating the ideal environment for artists to research, develop
and produce work.
When Wysing Arts selected Hawkins\Brown
to masterplan the re-development of their premises, the centre had outgrown its
dilapidated building stock. The centre
had virtually no public profile – even locals in the nearby village had
understood the hand painted ‘Wysing Arts’ sign on the front of one of the
buildings to indicate a crayon factory. The site, an old farm consisting of 11
acres of low grade arable land, a grade II listed farmhouse and several other
farm buildings, was purchased by the founders of the centre in 1988 to provide
cheap artist studio space for individual artists. However by 2004 the artists
were struggling to work in converted cowsheds with no insulation or heating, no
water supply or drainage, poor lighting and in some cases no natural light (a
testament to the centre’s resourcefulness).
Masterplan
Hawkins\Brown’s first strategic move
was the proposal to demolish the large existing cowsheds to the front of the
site and to position the new studio-block in this key location. This increased
both the visibility of the farmhouse and the principle activity of the centre –
artistic production.
The two new structures are informally
grouped with the existing buildings to form a number of external spaces of
varying enclosure and character. The provision of individual buildings has a
number of advantages: it provides an appropriate sense of scale and place, it
allowed easy phasing of construction, and it creates external circulation
routes and thus re-connects the building user with the centre’s unique location
in the Cambridge countryside
Studio
Block
Responding to the brief, which called
for a ‘serious’ building, the principal façade of the new studio-block is an
ordered rectilinear timber elevation with full height glazed panels. Although
there is a clear contrast with the adjacent farmhouse, the composition of the
studio-block facade refers to the aesthetic of the farmhouse’s timber frame
structure in material, proportion and rhythm.
The studio-block’s structure is
directly expressed. Transverse masonry walls support the pre-cast concrete
plank floor and roof; the long elevations are clad with a modular, glulam frame
in-filled with timber windows and ventilation louvres stained to match the
farmhouse structure. To the south of the building a timber deck provides access
to the studios and shade from direct sunlight.
Internally Hawkins\Brown have strived
for uncluttered simplicity, generous proportions and maximum day-lighting. The
interior is robustly detailed – structural walls are plastered, concrete
soffits are generally left exposed and the interior of the timber facades is of
laquered Douglas fir. The spaces are reminiscent of the urban warehouse spaces
frequently inhabited by artists working in the city.
Reception
Midway through the construction of the
studio-block, Wysing Arts secured additional funding allowing the Reception
block to proceed. In order to fast-track completion, the whole building was
instructed as a variation to the main contract.
The Reception building is a single
story steel frame shed clad in profiled steel sheet. The pitched roofed form is
typical of the local farm-building vernacular and sits easily with the adjacent
gallery. Within this shed-like structure timber clad accommodation ‘boxes’ are
inserted to house office, WC and kitchen facilities.
Commenting on the scheme, Jason Martin,
Project Architect and Associate, Hawkins Brown said:
“We have brought to the area a building
which provides a public statement about Wysing Arts Centre’s high ambitions and
forward thinking attitude. Internally we
have strived for uncluttered simplicity, generous proportions, maximum
day-lighting and beautiful materials – in short an environment conducive to the
artists’ creative process”.
centresituated
on the outskirts of Cambridge in Bourn, has relaunched following a £1.7million redevelopment programme
with new buildings designed by London based architecture practice Hawkins\Brown.
Shortly after the relaunch principal funder - Arts Council
England, East – announced a boost in core funding to the organisation, counting
Wysing Arts Centre among the 35 centres of excellence in the region to benefit
from a £32 million investment programme 2008-11.
The rural arts centre in Cambridgeshire
has provided accommodation and support to artists since 1989 and has made a
significant contribution to the UK’s visual arts output. With new facilities in
place Wysing Arts Centre will fast establish itself as a national and
international centre of excellence for the development of artists, making an
impact beyond its geographical location, as well as closer to home.
Hawkins\Brown’s new studio-block and
reception provide a striking yet sympathetic counterpoint to existing converted
farm buildings on the centre’s 11.5 acre site in the heart of Cambridgeshire
countryside.
With
a strong track record on other rural arts projects including the acclaimed
Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire, Hawkins Brown were appointed in
February 2004 after a high profile competitive interview.
The £1.25 million construction
programme will ensure the long-term sustainability of this valuable regional
arts centre, creating the ideal environment for artists to research, develop
and produce work.
When Wysing Arts selected Hawkins\Brown
to masterplan the re-development of their premises, the centre had outgrown its
dilapidated building stock. The centre
had virtually no public profile – even locals in the nearby village had
understood the hand painted ‘Wysing Arts’ sign on the front of one of the
buildings to indicate a crayon factory. The site, an old farm consisting of 11
acres of low grade arable land, a grade II listed farmhouse and several other
farm buildings, was purchased by the founders of the centre in 1988 to provide
cheap artist studio space for individual artists. However by 2004 the artists
were struggling to work in converted cowsheds with no insulation or heating, no
water supply or drainage, poor lighting and in some cases no natural light (a
testament to the centre’s resourcefulness).
Masterplan
Hawkins\Brown’s first strategic move
was the proposal to demolish the large existing cowsheds to the front of the
site and to position the new studio-block in this key location. This increased
both the visibility of the farmhouse and the principle activity of the centre –
artistic production.
The two new structures are informally
grouped with the existing buildings to form a number of external spaces of
varying enclosure and character. The provision of individual buildings has a
number of advantages: it provides an appropriate sense of scale and place, it
allowed easy phasing of construction, and it creates external circulation
routes and thus re-connects the building user with the centre’s unique location
in the Cambridge countryside
Studio
Block
Responding to the brief, which called
for a ‘serious’ building, the principal façade of the new studio-block is an
ordered rectilinear timber elevation with full height glazed panels. Although
there is a clear contrast with the adjacent farmhouse, the composition of the
studio-block facade refers to the aesthetic of the farmhouse’s timber frame
structure in material, proportion and rhythm.
The studio-block’s structure is
directly expressed. Transverse masonry walls support the pre-cast concrete
plank floor and roof; the long elevations are clad with a modular, glulam frame
in-filled with timber windows and ventilation louvres stained to match the
farmhouse structure. To the south of the building a timber deck provides access
to the studios and shade from direct sunlight.
Internally Hawkins\Brown have strived
for uncluttered simplicity, generous proportions and maximum day-lighting. The
interior is robustly detailed – structural walls are plastered, concrete
soffits are generally left exposed and the interior of the timber facades is of
laquered Douglas fir. The spaces are reminiscent of the urban warehouse spaces
frequently inhabited by artists working in the city.
Reception
Midway through the construction of the
studio-block, Wysing Arts secured additional funding allowing the Reception
block to proceed. In order to fast-track completion, the whole building was
instructed as a variation to the main contract.
The Reception building is a single
story steel frame shed clad in profiled steel sheet. The pitched roofed form is
typical of the local farm-building vernacular and sits easily with the adjacent
gallery. Within this shed-like structure timber clad accommodation ‘boxes’ are
inserted to house office, WC and kitchen facilities.
Commenting on the scheme, Jason Martin,
Project Architect and Associate, Hawkins Brown said:
“We have brought to the area a building
which provides a public statement about Wysing Arts Centre’s high ambitions and
forward thinking attitude. Internally we
have strived for uncluttered simplicity, generous proportions, maximum
day-lighting and beautiful materials – in short an environment conducive to the
artists’ creative process”.
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