FEATURE BBC DESIGN AWARDS
Designs of the times
Fast becoming known as a style hotspot, Glasgow is set to further enhance its stylish credentials as it hosts the ceremony for the 1996 BBC Design Awards. Susanna Beaumont
Citizens’ Advice Bureau, Chessington: ‘Although it’s only the size of a double garage, we’ve had pe0p|e wandering around the building for hours and not getting bored,’ says architect Gabriele Brarnante of her mini- office block. Built for Chessington’s Citizens‘ Advice Bureau, it’s a two- storey cube measuring only 10ft x 10ft, but Bramante believes the trick is to follow the principles of Japanese garden design. ‘Every element has a direct proportional relationship with the next.’ she says of
checks out the line-up Of all that’s hOt in British her building which has been described as a Mondrian in 3-D. ‘The eye design is lead on through the use of light. layering and colour. constantly
engaging and giving the impression of more space.’ Once based in Japan. Bramante. who now works in London. says that traditional Japanese design is her trademark: ‘This site was horrendous. the design came out of the constraints — it was like doing an embroidery. But we followed a formula right through to the bookcases and furniture.
. Nothin is arbitar ,eve thin relates.’ Architecture s y y g
Watersports Centre, liverpool: Previously confined to a clutch of portakabins, Liverpool’s Watersports Centre was in desperate need of f” . _ ~ " new facilities. The London-based architect Julia Barfield got the job. ' .
Confronted by a difficult dock location, Barfield, after much , __ .g A , . _ JR}- experimentation, went for a boathouse style set directly onto the -* ’ , _ , . " .. ~m4~vv~°5~r§§f'1:-' ; ’3 '
water. ‘We’re excited by structure which means not divorcing ” ‘ ' " ‘ ‘ ’ engineering from architecture,’ she says of the steel framework Channel 4 Headquarters, tendon: Like some huge exoskeleta]
centre. ‘This is a pretty unique statement.’ Also using teak, linoleum and red cedar wood, the Watersports Centre is set on the water in a way similar to an oil rig. Barfield, who has researched dock architecture, declares the centre to be a ‘contemporary statement on architecture with roots in the past’. Moving swiftly on, she now has her eyes on the Millennium and is designing the giant Big Wheel set to stand on London’s South Bank to celebrate 2000AD.
creature, Channel 4’s new central London headquarters has its insides on the outside. Standing near the Thames, it’s all glass and steel with the air vents and lift shafts running up and down the building’s facades. This is a characteristic mark of Richard Rogers, the architect who gave London the Lloyds Building and Paris the Pompidou Centre. Arranged around an inner quadrangle, the buiding is 15,000 sq m of stylish media space, designed by Richard Rogers Partnership architect, John Young. The entrance lobby runs the full height of the building and is supported by an array of steel hawsers. The floor is paved with sheets of glass and beyond the vast main
doors is a ‘drawbridge.’
16 The List 28 Jun. ll Jul I996