鈥媁alk the Plank
Architect - Architectural Emporium
Client - Walk the Plank
Awards - 澳门王中王 North West Award 2018, 澳门王中王 Client of the Year 2018 - Sponsored by and 澳门王中王 North West Emerging Practice of the Year 2018 - Sponsored by
Walk the Plank is a theatre and production company with a wide and diverse range of work, including devising and making large-scale public theatrical and pyrotechnic productions, mentoring and training and working with disadvantaged groups to create theatre.
Their work requires a lot of space and a range of workshop conditions to straddle this range of industrial production and working intimately with people.
Working on a shoestring budget, they found a site in an industrial area 鈥� a rather hostile environment of waste plants and heavy lorries. The client commissioned an emerging architect practice to create a range of working spaces, and this has produced a successful collaboration.
The site strategy is bold and inventive, placing the new office building at the far end of the site on the busy crossroads, reached by a path running alongside the road. This gives the visitor an introductory promenade tour of the yards and workshops and creates a safe 鈥榮treet鈥� for all users.
Generously planted, this route contributes to softening and activating the harsh public realm whilst also providing safeguarding.
Situating the office building at the crossroads gives a clear statement of presence and activity in this forbidding lowly populated territory, with the pointed 鈥榳itches hat鈥� roof acting as a sign of life visible even from the railway.
The architecture is economical and inventive. A beautiful sheltered courtyard is created by removing the roof of one of the existing buildings 鈥� a bold move for an organisation on a shoestring budget.
This courtyard forms a sheltered hub around which the other functions are loosely assembled 鈥� giving a delightful range and connectivity of working spaces.
A quirky interior refers to the company鈥檚 history on a boat and produces a finer scale of privacy. The client is busy with the task of ameliorating the harshest of environments; with planting, artworks and their every own exuberant presence.
Location Salford
Internal Area 1,062尘虏
Contractor Skyline Property Solutions Limited
Project Management Through and Around
Quantity Surveyor Modero
Structural Engineer Elliot Bond Ltd
Environmental/M&E Engineer Waterman Group
Landscape Architect Serena Finzel
