Portfolio 2.2 - Heaton Hall

PORTFOLIO 2.2 Heaton Park visitor centre BENJAMIN CARTER

TERRITORY - HEATON PARK

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Heaton Park is situated in north Manchester, in a region defined by a more undulating topography than most of central Manchester.

Heaton Park itself is a sculpted landscape, excavation and land displacement have created a pretend pictureque landscape.

Its boundary is defined by artificial features and land use, a reservoir to north, a motorway to the east, a golf course is inhibitive to passage, and a perimeter wall circumscribes the limit of the park.

Set within the landscape are a number of monuments, objects in field. The most prominent landmark is the original hall, situated at the heart of the park.

1. Prestwich 2. Heaton Park Metrolink station 3. Motorway 4. Heaton Park reservoir 5. Grand Lodge 6.Papal Monument 7. Former town hall facade 8.Boating Lake 9. Parklife grounds 10. Ceremonial/historic approach to Hall 11. Tram museum 12. Heaton Hall 13. Stables restaurant 14. Animal Garden 15. Dell 16. Temple 17. Main car park 18. Dower house/apiary 19. Cold War telecoms tower

The hall and its environs adopt a quasi - acropolitan connotation, by its positioning at the highest point in Manchester.In building upon this lofty plateau pavilions such as the neoclassical temple and dower house, this quarter of the park retains an impression of nobility.

The proximity of monuments within here condenses visitors to the park within this area.

SITE SELECTION

STABLES

HEATON HALL

The rationale for selection defies the brief’s implicit stipulation for a peripheral site, instead, the intervention will be situated adjacent to Heaton Hall. The factors influencing selection are elaborated over the next few pages.

The compelling logic behind the decision to situate the new architecture is fundamentally grounded in the geometry of the park. The high topography on which the site rests and the convergent routes to the site informed the choice of location.

The programmatic requirements of the brief could be better acheived by locating the visitor centre at the heart of the park, facilitating intuitive wayfinding and orientation. The site’s location on at Manchester’s highest point allows prospects within and beyond the park to be established, which acts as an navgational aid, the new architecture should frame and celebrate these vistas.

Finally, the opportunity to integrate the intervention with the hall presented itself subsequently reconciling the hall and the park condition and opening up a currently autonomous and hermetic object.

HEATON HALL - VACANT RUIN 1 2

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View from gardens (now cleared) towards Heaton Hall’s south elevation

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Ceremonial approach to portico from historic driveway

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Built: 1778-1789 Purchased by city council: 1902 Heaton Hall is a neo-Palladian estate located centrally within Heaton Park. It forms the spiritual and geographic heart and acts as an orbital point for circulation around the park from a number of satellite pavilions around the park, (particularly at the periperhy).

The hall itself has fallen into disrepair following neglect since the building’s purchase and a fire in the west wing, slowly the hall has been scaled down with the removal of original features such as the glass roof of the orangery. Various attempts

by Manchester Art Gallery have been made to occupy a wing of the building, as yet plans have not come into fruition.

Public room within Heaton Hall Poché alcove identifies space being within original hall

Oblique view to Conservatory Cafe and Heaton Hall (partially shrouded), site is now vacant.

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The orangery before removal of skylights after purchase by the council.

SITE READING 1

CIRCULATION Heaton Hall is an orbital point at the heart of the park. Its central position generates a cyclical pattern of movement whereby visitors return to this point after visiting the satellite attractions at the park’s periphery.

Consequently, the hall and other proximate monuments constitute the salient location of the park and forms the circulatory and social node.

SITE READING 2

CONVERGENCE

In contrary to the majority of the park’s routes, an implicit linear geometry could be identified converging on the site. Sightlines established by these routes signified that any intervention would be a prominent addition to the area, and consequently must not alienate itself from the existing architecture. Additionally, where the routes could continue over the site, the new architecture should allow new trajectories and prospects to exist countering the current condition.

SITE READING 3

CURRENT CONDITION

The Hall’s west wing is currently undergoing renovation following a fire and years of neglect on the part of Manchester City Council. The condition of the hall’s internal and external spaces is poor; the most visible facade (to the west) is an incoherent assemblage of smaller annexes which undermine the holistic identity of the hall and present an unprepossessing image of the hall. The current land use for the interstitial space between the Hall and the Stables is a staff car park and service yard - the elected site responds to this by proposing a suitable programme to replace this.

SATELLITE SITUATION

The dispersal of monuments within the park can be described as satellites around a central orbital node, situated at the convergence of primary routes through the park, this node corresponds to thelocation of the site.

PROJECT MANIFESTO

The intent of this project is to reconcile the park and the hall condition by developing an architecture sensitive to the particularity of place and mediating between an architectural and topogrophical idiom. The elected site necessitates a reverent approach to the existing and characteristically distinct architecture of Heaton Hall, a response which must balance the need to defer to the existing whilst avoiding either the pastiche or the formally anachronistic.

Not only must this architecture mediate the geometry of the respective layout of the hall and of the park but must too find an architectural expression which does not undermine the neoclassical lexicon by mimesis or neutralise it by intervening with a formally inappropriate, overbearing or irreverent imposition. However, it is not the intention to be subordinate. The programme specifies a visible and legible architecture, in order to satisfy brief and heritage considerations the visitor centre must balance integration with hall and park whilst maintaining a sense of autonomy from either condition.

With this in mind, as well as routine elements of the brief, I have sought to develop an intervention instructed by the park’s architectural paradigm. An architecture which, whilst acknowledging the neopalladian architecture ubiquitous in the park, recognises the need to be contemporary and embedded, not an anomaly but not a facsimile. This project has consequently been an exercise in translation and sythesis; between tradition and contemporaneity, between scales, architectural and topographical and finally re-establishing the authority and accessibility of the hall at the heart of the park.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

ABOVE Selected diagrams extracted from informal sketchbook BELOW Amalgamated drawings from A4 sketchbook

The plan developed as a conversation with the existing hall; elaborating an attenuated classicism in tandem with establising a permeable ensemble to diminish the inaccessibility of the hall.

No direct precedents were sourced, latent influences assumed a subordinate role as the hall primarily led the design process. New thoroughfares were driven the through the new plan as a result of existing routes through the hall, the structuration of programme was so arranged to align appropriate adjacencies from the hall to the new architecture, open spaces were placed to break down the totality of the hall, establishing a new spatial sequence between hall and parkland.

PROGRAMME AND SPATIAL STRUCTURATION

LONGITUDINAL SECTION LOOKING SOUTH

INTEGRATING PLANS In response to the brief’s programmatic multiplicity each space has been divided into separate buildings constituting a greater ensemble. This satisfies the need identified at the concept stage to open-up the hall: consequently by arranging spaces across a campus of buildings instead of one addition the plan can reconcile the hermetic nature of the hall with the expansive nature of the park. Intermediate open spaces (the courtyard, walled garden and street) establish and indoor-outdoor rhythm and serve to integrate the two distinct conditions of the park and hall, of nature and architecture.

New established routes in red

Courtyard plan with flattened elevations, demonstrating the varying degrees of permeability which encourage movement towards the park

FINAL DESIGN

- Beauty evolves out of a will to be that has its first expression in the archaic LOUIS KAHN

View to Heaton Hall and visitor centre from south approach

ELEVATIONS Completing the linear landscape

NORTH ELEVATION - Inverted horizontally to align elevations

SOUTH ELEVATION - facing park proper

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Intervention

Stables

Intervention

Heaton Hall

Orangery

Atmospheric section

THE SECTION AS A LIMINAL MEDIUM

sectional sequence

event space

walled garden

The section is broken by the rhythm of indoor/outdoor spaces, serving the purpose of reconciling the open park condition and the hermetic hall condition with a series of partially enclosed spaces.

pavilion

foyer

shop

courtyard

loggia

The walled garden satisfies the brief’s requirement for a captured landscape area; a micro enclave set within the ensemble. It terminates the enfilade through the hall and the new architecture, providing an equivalent bookend to the orangery on the hall’s opposite end.

The architecture of the new ensemble reduces the autonomy of the hall, allowing it to become better integrated into the parkscape whilst not directly modifying any part of the hall.

Whilst the hall requires remediation work, to replenish the hall’s rooms with the programme necessitated by the brief would be improper and historically irreverent.

looking north

walled garden towards event room

Whilst the walled garden corresponds to the park, the other large public space introduced as part of the new architecture is the courtyard, a wide open piazza which serves the counterpoint the verdure framed by the peripheral colonnades. walled garden towards pavilion

Clear vistas and a duality of scales established by the ensemble - that of the park and that of the situation serve to orient visitors on a local and regional level.

- approach from park, staff offices housed in narrow block to the left

longitudinal section

THE PLAN AS AN QUASI - URBAN SEQUENCE

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gatehouse walled garden pavilion colonnade street courtyard loggia hall stylobate

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Heaton Hall - Central villa

Heaton Hall - visitor centre

ROOMPLAN The plan of the pavilion and complex drew inspiration from the Palladian and Roman villa typologies, both ingrained in the language of classicism. The structuration of rooms is spatially inflected towards the plan of Heaton Hall and adopts certain devices such as pochÊ and alcoves. The language is adapted by attenuating and opening-up the pavilion’s plan to loosely define spaces and to resist a hermetic relationship with the park.

The spatial effect engendered by the plan and section is at once archaic yet contemporary by modernising a familiar typology.

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event/ education room store staff offices walled garden foyer artefact galleries shop locker room toilets coffee house terrace colonnade antechamber (draft lobby) vestibule loggia rooms to be appropriated by MAG

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elevation in perspective - north

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Atmospheric elevation

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PAVILION PLAN

PAVILION SECTIONS

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coffee house

Entrance Foyer Information desk Enfilade Seating/gathering point Artefact galleries Shop

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colonnade

Male WC Female WC Disabled WC Lockers Storage External colonnade

antechamber

vestibule

PROPOSALS A NEW PERMABLE LANDSCAPE

yard car park

EXISTING SITE CONDITION -

PROPOSED INTERVENTION

The current site was exposed by the demolition of the Conservatory Cafe soon after purchase by Manchester City Council. What remains is a service yard and car park, ironically forming the most prominent facade of the hall; as most approaches to the hall frame this view.

The proposal seeks to address the aforementioned issues with the site and ameliorate the vicinity by improving permeability, visibility and unity between the Hall and its associated landscape. The views to the right correspond to the proposed equivalent of the current condition (left).

It defines an unprepossesing and utilitarian space, which elongates the impermeable block formed by the hall, drawing a line across the park. The material of this yard is brick, weakening the overall impression of monolithic solidity otherwise perceived.

The language of the intervention reflects that of the hall but with a contemporary inflection. ‘open’ architectural devices, such as loggias, colonnades, arcades resist the architecture becoming an obstacle to the park and frame new views out to the landscape.

PROPOSED NORTH AND SOUTH ELEVATION

ELEVATIONS

GATEHOUSE

The elevations demonstrate a reliance on the language of trabeation, each building manifests an inflection towards its own unique programme, purpose or location whilst still maintaining the same tectonic rationale.

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The language of the facades reinforces a sense of the genius loci by subscribing to the existing architectural lexicon found ubiquitously and exclusively in Heaton Park.

PAVILION

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COLONNADE

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FACADE STUDIES

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Travertine panelled internal soffit Metal stud panel attachment 130mm rigid board insulation Cast in-situ concrete structure Steel stone-to-structure anchor Damp proof membrane around window mullion Anodised blackened aluminium, slim-framed window Vertically fluted stone architrave Cavity Steel stone-to-structure anchor Sealant around stone panels Precast concrete column (white cement + marble aggregate) Damp proof membrane Counter flashing over gutter lining Chamfered concrete parapet (concealed flashing) Steel I-beam section eave strut Cement panel with 20mm rain gap Steel anchor Steel Battens attachment Zinc standing seam roof below cement panel 20mm rain gap

Pavilion hybrid structure uses a steel roof mounted on a concrete frame to minimise quantity of concrete used.

PAVILION

West elevation

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Material precedent Lynch Architects, Victoria

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South Elevation

Travertine panelled interior soffit Metal stud panel attachment Rigid board insulation Anodised blackened aluminium, slim framed window Mechanically operated ventilation louvre Laminated glass sunscreen, etched with stone vein pattern In-situ cast concrete Sealant Ashlar sandstone fascia panel Stone-to-structure anchor Stone capping Damp proof membrane Zinc standing seam roof

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COLONNADE

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Colonnade eaves detail 1m

Colonnade building uses integrated environmental modifiers to regulate internal temperature; translucent and patterned sunscreens shield mechanical louvres from view whilst reducing solar gain.

MATERIALITY - EXTERNAL

Pavilion colonnade

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Art gallery loggia

Pre-oxydised copper drainage spout

Fluted stone capitals

Proud of entablature to express tectonic independence of post and beam

Existing masonry west facade

Stabilised by concrete pilasters of loggia, left exposed to express contemporary and pre-exisitng sturcture

Sandstone architrave

Noble materials signify the importance of the threshold and announce entry to the hall

Inset glass vitrine

Anodised black aluminium frame inset within sandstone architrave. Used for the display of artwork

Precast concrete column

Material continuity; white cement and marble aggregate

Bronze full height handle

Handle will weather with use, revealing the tarnish of years of handprints.

Travertine ground floor cladding

Travertine wainscot over repaired brickwork conceals existing material diversity on along ground floor.

MATERIALITY - INTERNAL

Pavilion foyer In-situ coffered concrete clerestory Inset travertine ceiling plate

Structural concrete mullions Inset anodised black aluminium clerestory windows

Travertine panelling 100mm travertine stone cladding over concrete frame

Oak panelling PochĂŠ rooms lined with oak

Glazed vitrines for the display of artefacts integrated toplighting and UV resistance

Crafted stone information desk Terrazzo floor inlay Light marble flecked finish with darker separator bands

Polished oak floorboards

Material selection

Material selection was informed by the existing hall’s materiality. Externally, the project had to integrate visually with the existing architecture, therefore Ashlar Sandstone panels were chosen to unite the two architectures. The tectonic application of the panels, however, is entirely modern.

Internally, material is panelled and inset as is tradition in estates but combined in an unexpected manner which feels classical yet inherently modern. A liberal and refreshing assemblage of contemporary materials such as concrete with traditional and noble materials such as Travertine stone, terrazzo, oak and brass details; ordered in a manner to suggest a hierarchy of spaces commensurate to the richness of the material.

Light and material effect

“the plan is a society of rooms” - LOUIS KAHN

Gatehouse

The gatehouse pavilion is situated at the beginning of the spatial sequence when the ensemble is approached from the park, an ascent up a narrow flight of stairs opens up to the walled garden, flanked by the high sandstone walls of the architecture.

Contained within are staff offices along the garden’s long edge and an event and education space within the garden pavilion. The space is lofty and looks out towards the park approach in one direction and inward towards the garden.

Walled Garden

In direct counterpoint to the courtyard, the walled garden provides a visual relief to the rigorous attentuated classical language otherwise pervasive in the new architecture.

The garden also provides counterpoint in terms of scale, a small hortus conclusus, an enclave within the vastness of the park proper.

Pavilion

The pavilion building is the most central of the ensemble, it contains artefacts recovered from the hall and the majority of the programme necessitated by the brief, arranging the spaces around a central noble room in a plan which modernises the Palladian villa plan.

The pavilion forms the heart of the new architecture, a spatial and material grandeur engenders a sense of place similar to that of Heaton Hall; preparing the visitor for the opulence of the grand and noble rooms within.

Courtyard

The courtyard is a simple plateau, travertine forms the terrain, concrete arcades line 3 of the courtyard’s edges, the fourth is left open in the direction of the main approach.

The courtyard fulfills the role of primary congregation space, its openess permits flexibility, to be inhabited by large groups, kiosks, market stalls, events.

Loggia

The loggia accentuates the threshold between interior and exterior; adopting the traditional typology of the covered arcade. It serves to prolong the transitional sequence from park to hall and provides a contemporary counterpoint to the hall’s existing portico.

The loggia defines the threshold at which the hall’s internal enfilade becomes external, where it becomes integrated into the new quasi-urban network of the ensemble.

Colonnade

The colonnade forms a shroud; the architecture of the colonnade is inflected towards the hall’s architecture to form a respectful facade to the south. This appropriate architecture shields a more geometric architecture to the north.

The colonnade reconciles two conditions - to the south it opens to the park and establishes prospects to the city, whilst it frames the courtyard to the north.

Coffee house

Situated at the former location of the now demolished Conservatory Cafe, the coffee house is a small but adequate insertion into the architecture of the colonnade.

The Stables cafe will continue to function as the site’s primary eatery, whilst the coffee house will profit from wide views over the lawn, dropping away, revealing the view of Manchester; the adjacent terrace acts as a viewing point for this prospect.

COLONNADE -

The colonnade is a liminal threshold between the ensemble and the park, it enables views through to the verdure to the north and out over Manchester to the south. It is an formal device which continues the language of the hall and forms the most prominent elevation of the intervention.

ART GALLERIES -

The west wing of the hall will be appropriated by the Manchester Art Galleries realising the historic intentions of the organisation to have a permanent space in the hall. New routes into the hall are enabled by the architecture of the intervention; here, the image shows the gallery accessed from the adjacent loggia

FOYER -

A rich and refined materiality of travertine, terrazzo and oak with details in bronze, set within a frame of pale concrete creates a neutral architecture which does not compete with the hall’s architecture.