黑洞社区

In late January, at a point when most of us were still struggling to spell coronavirus let alone imagine it would reach the UK, you probably read a headline on 黑洞社区鈥檚 website that made your jaw drop.

鈥淐hina building hospital in six days for coronavirus patients,鈥� it said, accompanied by a picture showing 35 diggers on a vast, empty site.

The hangar-like buildings erected in Wuhan could care for 1,000 highly infectious patients suffering from this strange new disease. To all but a few specialists, the speed seemed extraordinary, the kind of thing that can only happen in China.

Yet just two months later Britain was frantically starting work on similar facilities to cope with a feared tidal wave of patients as the pandemic began to wreak havoc across the world.

The main difference was that the UK鈥檚 surge hospitals were created in existing buildings repurposed at breakneck speed.

The construction teams told 黑洞社区 of the exhilaration of working against the clock and without the usual protocols that can drag out a hospital project to many years not days.

鈥淓veryone just rolled up their sleeves and started on it,鈥� recalled James Hepburn, an engineer and principal at BDP who worked on the first NHS Nightingale at London鈥檚 ExCeL.

鈥淲e were just a group of willing people who鈥檇 turned up to work out how to deliver this brief of creating 4,000 bed spaces. It was slightly surreal.鈥�

The idea for using conference centres came to Hepburn when he and his friend Matthew Shaw, chief executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital, chatted over a beer on Skype in mid-March and the conversation turned to the news from Italy.

He and some colleagues started brainstorming and produced a short concept paper and Revit model. It was becoming clear that thousands of beds might be needed so he downloaded the floor plans for the ExCeL. They calculated it could cope with 4,000 ICU beds.

It was just so quick. By the middle of the week you could see what everyone had been working towards taking shape. It was hugely rewarding and a big relief

James Hepburn, BDP

鈥淚 remember Matt鈥檚 partner [an anaesthetist, just like Hepburn鈥檚] being very grumpy and saying it was miles away and you鈥檇 struggle to get staff there. But it鈥檚 the only one that鈥檚 big enough,鈥� said Hepburn.

A few days later three architects and three engineers from BDP found themselves at the ExCeL with others from the Richard Stephens Partnership, main contractor CFES and the army, all fresh from helping the Royal Free Hospital set up a covid isolation ward.

Just 24 hours after arriving on site with 20 people, the floor was being laid and bed bays were marching across the enormous, 500m x 86m halls. 鈥淚t was just so quick,鈥� said Hepburn. 鈥淏y the middle of the week you could see what everyone had been working towards taking shape. It was hugely rewarding and a big relief. I鈥檝e been an engineer for 20 years and normally find it hugely frustrating that it takes so long to do things.鈥�

The number of people on site seemed to double every day, with 500 at the peak. The days were long and intense, but the sense of everyone pulling in the same direction was palpable.

Ten days after they started, the hospital received its first patients 鈥� and Hepburn was in bed at home with covid.

Meanwhile in Scotland, a similar drama was unfolding as Glasgow鈥檚 Scottish Event Campus (SEC) was converted into the NHS Louisa Jordan, by a team including Balfour Beatty and Aecom.

Colin Carrie, a director of Keppie Design, had phoned NHS Scotland to offer the firm鈥檚 help. Fortuitously Keppie was also working on a project for the SEC so Carrie and fellow director David Ross were able to hit the ground running.

鈥淲e had all the live drawings and knew the halls pretty well,鈥� Ross told 黑洞社区 in an interview two days after it opened. 鈥淭hat familiarity really benefited us that first day.鈥�

That was Friday 27 March. Over the weekend they did a feasibility study and on the Monday it was signed off by the Scottish government and a fire officer. 鈥淚t felt like we didn鈥檛 really go home from that point,鈥� said Keppie. 鈥淭here were some pretty late nights and there were some early rises, particularly in the first week when all the pressure was on the architectural team to get the drawings out that the MEP [mechanical, electrical and plumbing] consultants could lay their work on and contractors could start buying from.鈥�

He describes those first few days as intoxicating but intense, sending photos of sketches to colleagues who issued them as CAD drawings from home the same night.

鈥淚t was that immediate,鈥� said Ross. 鈥淪ome of the drawings were issued at 2am. But we knew we were doing something really worthwhile.鈥�

After that, exhibition centres across the nations were repurposed by teams or contractors and consultants including BDP, Stride Treglown, Todd Architects, the IHP joint venture between Vinci and Sir Robert McAlpine, Mott MacDonald, Mace and M&E contractor NG Bailey.

Award-winning buildings

The pandemic has put paid to big award ceremonies, with the RIBA Stirling Prize being cancelled this year. 黑洞社区 and sister title 黑洞社区 Design were unfazed by the restrictions imposed by covid and hosted online versions of the 黑洞社区 Awards instead.

The quality of the entries was not at all diminished by the pandemic, with some very strong projects on the shortlists. Cullinan Studio鈥檚 National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) took 黑洞社区鈥檚 top projects prize, the 黑洞社区 Magazine Project of the Year. Completed in February by Balfour Beatty, NAIC is a partnership between Warwick University, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors UK and is one of the largest research and development centres in Europe. It pulls together a multitude of uses including reception and exhibition space, research offices, design halls, an advanced propulsion laboratory, a garden and a collaborative hub. These disparate functions are unified by one of the largest timber roofs in the world. Our judges were inspired by the project, saying it looked like a great place to work, heroic yet flexible and people centred.

MICA, the firm previously known as Rick Mather Architects, is proof that architectural practices can prosper after the death of their founder. MICA won 黑洞社区鈥檚 refurbishment category and 黑洞社区 Design鈥檚 Architect of the Year Refurbishment category and the Gold Award. Croydon鈥檚 Fairfield Halls was entered for all three awards. Unloved for many years, Fairfield Halls is considered to be the sister building to the Royal Festival Hall, which features the same Scandinavian modernist style.

MICA has sympathetically refurbished and extended the building, including clearing out inappropriate changes to the foyer and reinstating the original design intent. It has rebuilt the Arnhem Gallery extension to double the space and provide new rehearsal and conference facilities and generally updated the building to take advantage of modern technology.

The finished project (Vinci was main contractor) looks fantastic and reinstates one of Croydon鈥檚 best buildings from the 1960s redevelopment era, providing a multipurpose entertainment venue for the town鈥檚 booming population.

Civic buildings

This year saw the completion of three very different civic buildings. First up is RIBA Royal Gold Award winning practice Grafton鈥檚 Town House at Kingston University. Principally a university library, the building also includes dance studios and rehearsal spaces. Crucially for a civic building, it is open to the public, who can use its cafes, roof terrace and courtyard. The building, constructed by Willmott Dixon, features an intriguing precast concrete colonnade that projects in front of the redbrick and precast concrete trimmed walls. This provides a buffer zone between the building and the road, with terraces straddling the gap. The colonnade gives the building a distinctive, imposing presence with the rectilinear theme of the columns carried inside for the internal structure and distinctive ribbed wall treatments to the covered courtyard.

Over in Hackney is the UK鈥檚 first example of a floating church, which has been designed by architect Denizen Works and built by Turks Shipyard. Christened Genesis, it is a purpose-built 8.5m-wide canal boat that hosts a church called St Columba East with a unique pop top type roof similar to those found on camper vans. The sides are made from a concertinaed sailcloth that functions in the same way as a pair of bellows. Raising the roof increases the height of the church to a suitably imposing 3.6m, with light percolating through the sailcloth at night so it acts as a beacon, drawing people towards the church. Moored by Here East at the Olympic park, the idea is that the boat can fit under low canal tunnels with the roof in the retracted position and bring a place for prayer to the new and growing communities around the Olympic park.

Continuing the religious theme and less than two miles away, the same borough hosts a very different church which has recently been refurbished by the master of minimalism, John Pawson, in collaboration with conservation architect Thomas Ford & Partners, and with Rooff as contractor. Past alterations and accretions have been stripped from the Georgian St John at Hackney Church with new interventions that include a raised sanctuary which also functions as a stage, two new chapels, serveries and storage. These interventions are executed in the same dark oak as the original features, with the wooden panelling lining the sides of the lower level featuring an attractive ribbed finish reminiscent of the pipes of an organ. This provides a bold contrast with the smooth white walls, columns and ceiling of the original building and clearly demarcates new from old. As you would expect from Pawson, the interventions are clean, crisp and well-proportioned and blend in well with the rather austere, ordered Georgian interior. With two new churches to choose from, Hackney churchgoers can go forth and rejoice!