A civic and cultural centre of folded limestone beside the Liverpool waterfront.
For visitors, learners and neighbours: galleries and exhibition spaces, performance and event rooms, learning and community spaces, a café, and a tall open atrium that leads to a public plaza and the water.
Interlocking limestone volumes and a large cantilever with a timber-batten underside shelter the entrance. Weathering steel, glass and planted terraces answer the red-brick warehouses around the dock without copying them.
Natural stone, timber and weathering steel that gain character with age, in a plan that can change its programme over time.
Manchester, United Kingdom · Civic and cultural
Interlocking stone volumes and a bold cantilevered gallery float above a glazed ground floor, in warm stone, bronze fins and glass. Broad stairs rise from the canal-side to the entrance and double as seating, so the building can be used before anyone steps inside.
Robust stone, bronze and glass that gain character with age, and a flexible plan that can change its programme without changing its structure.
Gairloch, Scotland, United Kingdom · Civic and cultural
Three connected volumes with asymmetrical pitched roofs echo the scale of the village. Local stone, weathered timber and dark metal roofing keep the palette quiet, and large panes of glass frame the loch and the mountains from the main hall.
Robust materials for a coastal climate and flexible rooms that can change use, so the centre can serve the village for generations.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates · Civic and cultural
A simple pitched stone volume with a skylight, a tall carved bronze screen on the entrance front, and a low cloister of classrooms and halls around a courtyard of olive and date trees. Light falls through the screens in patterns across the prayer hall.
Thick stone, deep shade and a quiet geometry that suit the climate and should not date.
