The Welcome Building

THE WELCOME BUILDING

SEPTEMBER 2017

The Welcome Building in Bishop Auckland consists of a new viewing tower and central ticketing hall for the The Auckland Project. It acts as an access point and gateway to the wider site whilst also giving views over the town and landscape setting. The tower – a timber framed structure – is now well under way on site.

The building team has worked tirelessly and with the highest level of precision, to build the in-situ concrete lift shaft. Working from the ground up seemed to take an age.

Meanwhile, the enormous larch glulam beams have been carefully crafted and manually grey-oiled in the joiner’s workshop.

The frames are now being lifted into position on site and suddenly the building can be seen. Almost in an instant. As if the past four years had happened in the blink of an eye.

We are so excited and proud – even – to see this fantasy project becoming real at last. But with completion on the horizon, time seems to now move all too fast.

NIALL MCLAUGHLIN APPOINTED PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

OCTOBER 2015

Niall has been appointed Professor of Architectural Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Niall has been teaching at the Bartlett for 25 years and alongside his new role will continue to teach on the MArch Architecture Unit 17 with Michiko Sumi and Yeoryia Manolopoulou, as well as continuing to develop his design research folio in building design, material behaviours, building use, cultural meaning and user experience.

Professor Bob Sheil, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture said ‘Níall takes up this new role as one of our most admired and influential design tutors. Throughout his time at the school his profile as a skilled and significant practitioner has grown to international status and throughout this period we have witnessed his considerable investment in architectural research both through UCL and Níall McLaughlin Architects.’