A Slice of Town.

Quayside mixed use development for commercial and penthouse living.

Contract Value: £10,000,000

Entry for a RIBA International Open Design Competition on behalf of Britain’s Energy Coast West Cumbria and Magnus Homes for a £10m mixed-use development on a prominent site adjacent to Whitehaven Harbour.

The proposals aim to provide an interface between the harbour, town centre and community whilst creating a building that delivers a cohesive composition of form along the full length of the quayside. The proposals seek to provide careful articulation and proportion that is aesthetically sensitive to the immediate setting and wider historic context of Whitehaven. The design combines function and materiality within an extremely deliverable and efficient layout.

The proposals set out to provide desirable residential accommodation, accessible and effective commercial business space and a memorable back drop to the harbour and community activities throughout the year providing a unique slice of town, hill and sea views.

The building is divided vertically in section with B1 office and public facilities interfacing with the street and quayside at ground / first floor levels and within the renovated former Bath House. The upper three floors comprise the residential accommodation which affords glorious far reaching views. At basement level an efficient double banked fully secured car park layout with provision for cycle storage, refuse and plant is discretely accessed from Strand Street.

The upper three floor levels provide unique residential accommodation where the overriding aim was to design each individual unit to be a penthouse, this is achieved by each apartment having a series of double height spaces, wall to wall sea views and an extensive sheltered south facing garden terrace and / or sea facing balcony. Apartments, which are served by two vertical cores at either end of the site, are accessed from a central corridor which is generous in width, natural daylight and ventilation. The circulation spine delivers an extremely efficient layout and allows the requirements of the brief to be exceeded whilst reducing the overall mass and height of the building. Every apartment type is between 90-120m2 in area and is arranged over two floors. Each dwelling will have an open plan living arrangement facing the harbour and sea beyond. The open plan living arrangement is further enhanced by very generous floor to ceiling heights and the life-style plan is supported by a separate utility area to remove noisy appliances and dirty activities from the living areas whilst affording ample storage space. On the apartments south side quiet sun drenched bedroom spaces are located that can alternatively be used as an additional living space with views above the roof tops of Whitehaven towards the Lake District. The dual aspect layouts provide opportunity for natural cross ventilation, day long solar access and provides each resident with a unique slice of sea, town and hill view.

The proposed design seeks to optimise the extent of the urban block to provide an efficient building layout. The historic urban block pattern and continual frontage is reinstated onto Strand Street and the Quayside by virtue of the office floor plate which runs the full length and depth of the site on the ground and first floors. This floor plate is punctuated by a new pedestrian link that holds the memory of the former Mark Lane, purpose and activity to this new link is delivered by locating the main entrances of the office space along this route.

The superstructure of the building follows the same grid formation generated by the urban design strategy. Simple load bearing concrete fin walls at 3.75m centres to upper floors and 7.50m centres to lower floors neatly link together the car parking, office and residential accommodation. This structural grid that runs across the short section of the site can be easily and quickly constructed using slip form construction methods. Once the fin walls are constructed subsequent work phases can be carried out simultaneously across the building with the potential to significantly reduce construction times.

The scheme has the scope for a selection of environmental considerations to be combined within the innovative design solution to achieve or exceed BREEAM Excellent and CSH Level 4.