Built Environment Centre
2006
This project is an education centre for the built environment, that can move around between different sites in Hull. The building itself is seen as an education tool that overtly expresses the processes that enable it to function, both structurally and environmentally.
We wanted the building to communicate stories about the surrounding area and reflect the work of local people. In particular, we took materials and products already made in Hull and used them to create the architecture. The building is formed from a kit of parts that can be assembled and re-assembled on future sites, with the upturned caravans referencing both the building’s mobile nature and a key manufacturing industry in Hull.
The building floats on a raft of timber floor cassettes, supported by pre-cast concrete pad foundations that bear down on the estuarine mud underneath. The centre is powered by renewable energy sources with an array of wind turbines and photovoltaics standing outside the front of the building like a mechanical garden.
Revd Michael Hills, the local community leader said of the project, “This community is consulted to death … We are asked for our views on almost everything, and mostly nothing ever happens. Here, for the first time, we can see how the communities’ concerns have been reflected in an actual proposal… You asked for our stories of Hull and we can see them in this building and we think it’s beautiful … It is the best piece of consultation we have ever had in the area.”