award winning architects

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Gwent Archive & General Offices Building The Works

Client:
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council
Location:
Ebbw Vale

We understand the issues involved in the sustainable refurbishment of heritage assets, and how this can imply a series of opportunities and constraints that are often absent from new build projects. The £9m refurbishment and extension of the 1913 Grade II* listed General Office building at the former steelworks, Ebbw Vale is an excellent example of this.

Abandoned after the departure of Corus in 2002, the building badly needed a sustainable operational model to survive. An emerging business plan brought together the activities of a new HQ for the Gwent Archive, an interactive Genealogy Experience, a 5D cinema, a café, educational facilities and council offices. We worked for 12 months with the client teams and CADW to explore the extent to which modern activities could be contained in an Edwardian structure. The resulting design is intrinsically bound to the qualities and limitations of the building. Gwent Archive, for example, knew that their clients would be attracted by the heritage aspects of the new premises, but realised that no amount of refurbishment could bring the existing building up to the exacting environmental standards of modern archive facilities.

So the staff are housed in the pleasant, naturally ventilated former clerks offices, while the fragile archives are in an adjoining new £4.5m BS5454 compliant facility featuring an innovative double skin for humidity and temperature control, and a sedum roof. A £500k advanced works contract was carried out to make the building water tight, with the main works commencing in early 2010.

The vast majority of the original building remains, but surplus low quality extensions have been removed and the exterior is being restored to reflect its original quality using materials to match the original. Examples of this include the surface fixing of all electrical sockets and lights, the restoration of the existing parquet flooring and the decision not to install suspended ceilings. Despite the general completeness of original historic fabric no original external doors could be found and extensive archival research has not uncovered any photographic evidence. The designs for the new external doors were thus prepared, in conjunction with CADW, using patterns from the period and taking cues from the internal doors which were largely intact. Internally there is also much of the original building and its finishes remaining to inform the refurbishment. Doors, ironmongery, the grand stone staircase and glazed wall tiling dados all remain and have been repaired, or restored where necessary.

There were inevitably tensions between the requirements of modern building regulations and heritage impact that needed sensitive negotiation. However, the building has proved an adaptable asset. For example, the high thermal mass, tall ceilings and large openable windows are ideally suited to many administrative and educational uses, with good ventilation, views and daylight. The floating timber floors mean the building is surprisingly adaptable to today’s requirements for underfloor structured cabling.

The refurbishment was subject to grant funding from the Heads of the Valleys Programme and CADW, and was included within the 2008/2009/10 Capital Programme. We developed a good working relationship with CADW conservation officers, discovering mutually acceptable design solutions whilst providing suitable information to secure the necessary funding.

Our interior design team were appointed for a comprehensive fit out of the restored building. This included an interactive genealogy visitor attraction to act as an interpretation centre for the story of the growth, decline and rebirth of the Ebbw Vale valley. We collaborated with writers to develop a ‘storyboard’ for the way each room would work thematically, and with lighting designers and visual installation companies for the exhibition. The timing of this work was critical, because decisions about how the sequence of rooms was developed as a narrative had major implications for room occupancies, AV and IT requirements, and even structural openings.

This project has been a four year collaboration of Stride Treglown’s architectural, interior design, and historic building specialist teams working across two offices. The completed project was opened to the public in September 2011.