STIRLING STORIES
SEPTEMBER 2015
On the 29th of September Niall is taking part in a talk at the RIBA alongside Neil Gillespie at Reiach and Hall for Maggie’s Lanarkshire, Roisin Heneghan at Heneghan Peng for University of Greenwich, Graham Stirk at Rogers Stirk + Harbour for Neo Bankside, London, Paul Monaghan at AHMM for Burntwood School, Southwark and Stuart McKnight at MUMA for the Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester to tell their stories behind their Stirling shortlisted projects. The event will be chaired by Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum.
NAZRIN SHAH BUILDING – STEELWORK
JULY 2015
Just over two years since our first tentative steps towards imagining what sort of space a new auditorium for Worcester College might possibly be like, we find ourselves enclosed within a spidery sketch, looking up to the trees through a skeletal enclosure of steel. We watched in excitement as our drawings were scribed across the site, first in neon spray paint and little red sticks, later excavated into deep ravines. We pick our way across the lines that had become so familiar on paper and are now concrete obstacles in a muddy field. The reality of this transition only became real as we stood looking across at the steel columns in this picture. They map out the positions of the stone fins that radiate around the curved facade of the new auditorium, with the sloping beams above us silhouetted against the bright July sky marking the future locations of the sculpted folds to the soffit.