Waterworks

The United Kingdom’s industrial heritage owes its legacy to the far reaching network of Victorian canals and locks which have stitched the industrial North and Midlands to the key ports located along this great kingdom’s coastline.

Over time a cultural, sociological and fiscal shift has seen the face of our industrial landscape fall into decline. Subsequently the canal network has been reinvented as a destination for tourism and leisure. As part of this transformation the character of the canal network has also changed, with waterfront residential developments taking pride of place along the canal edge, bringing with it a domestic softening to the rough Industrial Age aesthetic of Arkwright, Stevenson and Brunel.

This evolving threshold, where city meets the canal side, is a curious mix of heavy iron, brick arches and concrete, sitting alongside box hedge, balcony and tea shop. In many respects the brief for this project sits on the divide between these two conditions - industrial and domestic - an object which is industrial in execution, but domestic in use; a scheme therefore bridging the divide between Object as Art and Object as Utility, both in form and materiality.

The context for this brief, is a series of fringe sites skimming the afore mentioned canal edge; gaps between development, voids within the march of contemporary progression. A chance then, for a reflective pause and celebration, before this age-old condition is lost forever. Thus the programme for the competition aims to locate a temporary, mobile structure onto three seemingly redundant sites, housing facilities for leisure and activity, as well as places for meeting and greeting.

Conceptually, the building form is derivative of the canoeist’s profile in full motion; a series of peaks and troughs; a rhythmic stretching and pulling, and the long low glide of a canoe in perfect pitch. The building thus, becomes a series of repeat modules arranged in a linear format along the canal side. Each unit, prefabricated and identical, is thus representative of a canoeist, whilst the canal edge becomes the canoe.

Programmatically, the notion of the lock, overlays an additional range of function and flexibility. Each module is operable via an oversized brass wheel, which open large vertical side panels into the horizontal position as deck and jetty when fully lowered. Thus the surrounding site flows under and through, in the same manner as a canal flows through the gate of a lock.

In fabrication and erection terms, these modules are easily delivered by barge and unfolded on site. Whilst still at an early concept stage, the illustrations opposite indicate the folding methods which we feel may be applicable to a larger scale fabrication and erection process.

When seen in plan (as if from a nearby bridge or multistorey building) the building reads as a large 8 man canoe, each jetty an oar, and the kayaks and canoes read as oversized paddles. Whilst this is a simple metaphor for the internal function, the form is abstract and highly sculptural. The skin is a titanium wrap, folded and pleated, with perforations which permit light leakage at night, a beacon perfectly reflected in the stillness of the canal. The sculptural form facilitates a landmark structure which will carry with it the regenerative aspirations of the area.