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THE winning design for the National Railway Museum’s new Central Hall has been chosen.
London-based architectural practice Feilden Fowles has beaten 75 other teams to win the international competition to create the York museum’s new £16.5 million Central Hall building, a key element of the museum’s Vision 2025 masterplan.
Not only will the 4500 square metre building celebrate and showcase the latest developments in railway technology and provide a worldclass visitor entrance, but become a shining example in low-carbon and sustainable architecture.
The competition jury, chaired by Dame Mary Archer, praised the winning team’s proposal for its elegant but functional design, as well as its ambitious energy strategy.
Inspired by the site’s former use as working railway buildings, the designs featured in the proposal reference the history of locomotive roundhouses with a central two-storey rotunda, clad in recycled copper and featuring high, glazed ceilings with timber radials.
Carbon footprint
The proposal – which will be shaped by the museum and the winning team – dramatically reduces reliance on concrete and steel by creating a timber frame structure. The combination of passive design principles and active systems, including the use of recycled copper and local York stone, will reduce the site-wide operational carbon footprint by 80%.
Central Hall will be the centrepiece of the museum’s transformational masterplan to create the ‘world’s railway museum’ and will include a spectacular 1000 square metre gallery to showcase the future of railway technology.
Museum director Judith Mcnicol said: “Feilden Fowles demonstrated a real sensitivity to the site’s railway heritage and to the historic character of the city of York. The building will play a vital role in linking the museum and will provide a focal point for the wider York Central development.”
The masterplan is the ‘cultural anchor’ of York Central – one of the largest and most ambitious brownfield regeneration projects in Europe. York Central has received outline planning permission and £77.1 million of Government investment. Including a new park and green spaces, it will create up to 2500 new homes and an additional 6500 jobs.
Dame Mary Archer, chairman of the board of trustees of the Science Museum Group and also of the strategic board of York Central, said: “While the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus is dominating our lives, we all want to see hope and ambition beyond the present dangers. So we are holding steady with our ambition to make this the world’s greatest railway museum.
“If anything, the wider situation has strengthened the resolve of the Science Museum Group to move forward with our transformational plans for our five sites outside London, investing in a sustainable future and playing our part in keeping culture at the heart of our communities.”
Award-winning architectural practice Feilden Fowles has a reputation for delivering exemplary projects in sensitive historic settings, and recently completed the Stirling Prize-shortlisted new visitor centre for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Feilden Fowles’ design concept was developed with fellow team members, Max Fordham MEP (Services) Engineer and Price and Myers Structural and Civil Engineers.
Challenge
Fergus Feilden, Director of Feilden Fowles, said:“we’re thrilled to win this nationally significant competition. The brief combined three of our passions – museum architecture, great railway architecture of the 19th century and working in Yorkshire. Central Hall is both a tremendous challenge and a unique opportunity to create a new face and connected experience for the museum. We can’t wait to start work with such a fantastic client.”
The proposal also proved popular with the public, who were able to see the finalists’ schemes in a free exhibition at the museum and online gallery and add their comments.
Seventy-six teams comprising 241 firms from 19 countries entered the competition, which was launched in September 2019 and run by Malcolm Reading Consultants.
The competition jury comprised Dame Mary Archer; Sir Ian Blatchford, director and chief executive of Science Museum Group; Gitta Gschwendtner, director of the Gitta Gschwendtner Design Consultancy; Zoe Laughlin, director of the Institute of Making; Karen Livingstone, director of masterplan and estate of the Science Museum Group; Judith Mcnicol; Michael Squire, senior partner in Squire and Partners; and Malcolm Reading, the competition director.
The National Railway Museum is ranked amongst the most popular attractions in the UK and welcomes more than 700,000 visitors annually.
Feilden Fowles was founded in 2009 by Fergus Feilden and Edmund Fowles and specialises in delivering socially and environmentally sustainable buildings across a variety of sectors.
The Science Museum Group unveiled its focus on sustainability in February as part of the Government’s UK Year of Climate Action, launched by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.