Hugh Broughton Architects has accomplished a delicate restoration of a Nineteenth-century church to supply a group hub in a historic dockyard on the Isle of Sheppey.
Referred to as Sheerness Dockyard Church, the grade II*-listed constructing has been upgraded with a brand new roof and inside areas designed by Hugh Broughton Architects to switch ones gutted by hearth in 2001.
The transformed church now comprises an exhibition space, cafe, occasions house and enterprise incubator hub for the local people.
“We aimed to protect no matter was discovered after which introduce new components to permit the church to perform as a youth enterprise centre and group facility,” studio director Hugh Broughton advised Dezeen.
“The outcome celebrates the historical past of the constructing while additionally clearly expressing its new perform in order that ecclesiastical iconography is subdued and the brand new use is widely known.”
Positioned in a distinguished place within the port city of Sheerness in north Kent, the church is a key a part of an 18th-century masterplan by Scottish civil engineer John Rennie. Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Belief commissioned its transformation.
“The church stood on the apex of Rennie’s masterplan,” Broughton defined. “We wished to return its dignity in order that it might as soon as once more present the point of interest for the remaining components of the masterplan,” he continued.
Sheerness Dockyard Church is positioned in a cluster of buildings near the doorway of the previous dockyard, which incorporates the previous captain superintendent’s home and naval terraces. A dockyard wall separates it from the city centre.
Externally, Hugh Broughton Architects aimed to revive the church to its unique kind, as designed by naval architect George Ledwell Taylor in 1828.
This consists of the church’s parapets and its roof, which is animated by metal and timber flitch trusses.
Working with conservation specialists Martin Ashely Architects, the studio additionally ensured that the stone clocktower was fully reconstructed and new home windows, doorways and iron railings devoted to the unique design of the church had been added.
Internally, the Hugh Broughton Architects preserved as many unique options as doable, together with fluted forged iron columns. These distinction with light-touch modern interventions supporting the house’s new use.
“Internally there was so little historic cloth, particularly plasterwork, remaining that our philosophy was to protect all the pieces we might,” Broughton advised Dezeen.
“When including new components, the strategy was to obviously specific their development fairly than to masks them in ornament.”
On coming into, Sheerness Dockyard Church’s new makes use of fan out across the central nave, the place a sophisticated concrete ground includes a central aisle of relaid unique stone tiles.
The bottom ground is given over to a restaurant and glazed assembly rooms, whereas a newly added first ground includes a co-working house.
The primary ground is constructed to the footprint of the church’s unique tiered seating galleries and supported by the prevailing iron columns. It options metal hyperlink bridges.
Slatted timber ceilings conceal insulation and enhance acoustics within the house, whereas 4 giant round roof lanterns fill the house with pure gentle.
The transformation of Sheerness Dockyard Church was funded with a £5.2 million grant from the Nationwide Lottery Heritage Fund, together with funding from supporters together with Historic England.
Hugh Broughton Architects was based in 1996. The studio has beforehand added a timber viewing deck to a restored Thirteenth-century tower in York and created an oxidised-steel extension for a museum on the former house of the artist Henry Moore.
The pictures is by Dirk Linder.
