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The City of Melbourne has a draft masterplan for the transformation of the north bank of the Birrarung/Yarra River. The Greenline project, by Aspect Studios and TCL, is set to create a four-kilometre stretch of interconnected promenades, parks and open spaces between Birrarung Marr and the Bolte Bridge in what will become Melbourne’s largest green […] More
Sheerness is on the north-eastern tip of the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. For almost 300 years it was a Royal Naval Dockyard. In 1960 the Royal Navy sold the dockyard and it became a commercial port. Since then it has carried on business behind the original high brick wall; some Georgian terraces and, between them, a handsome tower belonging to the former Dockyard Church, are the only clues to the site’s illustrious past. With little hope of success, an unflagging group set about rescuing the church for the use of people in Sheppey and north Kent. But against all expectations, in the last week of July, the Sheerness Dockyard Trust handed over the restored building to its new users, a co-working enterprise called Island Works. ‘Our building is now theirs,’ the Trust’s chairman Will Palin told me with a hint of pride.
The church was designed and built between 1823 and 1828 by George Ledwell Taylor, surveyor to the Admiralty, as a proud ornament within the naval estate, but also to serve the wider town. Little more than 50 years later it was badly damaged in a fire. After repairs it remained in use as a parish church until 1973.
After 1960, the new operators of the port sold or demolished many of the historic buildings that remained and attrition continued, with the Dockyard Church suffering another serious fire in 2001. Swale District Council purchased it – the structure still standing proud, but now like an open sore in the small town – in 2016 and ownership passed to the newly formed Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust.
The transformation of that fire-blackened shell and tower is a triumph. Members of the Trust (all volunteers), brought their wide range of experience and contacts to the task but none more so than Palin, who oversaw the restoration of the Great Hall ceiling paintings at the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich and is now CEO of the Barts Heritage Trust.
Column inches: the restoration by Hugh Broughton Architects and Martin Ashley Architects has preserved the original fabric wherever possible. Photo: Dirk Linder; courtesy Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust
In Sheerness, restoration of the Dockyard Church is the work of Hugh Broughton Architects and Martin Ashley Architects. Their approach is happily light-touch, retaining traces of the past rather than trying to repair all the damage. Original fabric takes precedence so that even the ventilation grilles remain as found.
The open hall is flooded with natural light, amplified by massive glazed ‘lanterns’ inserted within the new timber roof structure. A grid of decorative iron columns from the 1880s and a simple generous gallery are almost the only additions, apart from a few self-contained meeting rooms downstairs.
Historic England funded the work on the tower, which included the reinstatement of the upper-level balustrade to gain a little more height. In 2019 the National Lottery Heritage Fund introduced a new ‘heritage enterprise’ category to support projects ‘that seek to achieve economic growth by investing in heritage’ – a description that couldn’t fit the Dockyard Church better. It was awarded £5.2m, while prodigious fund-raising efforts targeting trusts and foundations raised a further £3.2m.
The church is now a new kind of co-working space, a sibling for an earlier venture in Canterbury, Fruitworks Coworking, which was set up by the Kent Foundation in 2011. In the soaring, inspiring spaces of the comfortably furnished building, which is bathed in natural light, local young people and new businesses can choose between short-term membership or longer commitment, on the model of a gym. Once there, everybody has access to advice and support from the Kent Foundation.
Too big to flail: Great Dockyard Model from 1830 was made to a scale of 1:60 and measures 40 by 36 feet – shown here at the Boat Store in Sheerness in the 1960s. Courtesy Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust
The transformation of the former church is very welcome in this economically and socially depressed corner of north-east Kent. Only one important hope remains unrealised: the repair and full display of the Great Dockyard Model of 1830. Owned by the Trust, three sections of the 1:60 scale model are displayed on the ground floor but the model must find another home in order to be shown in its entirety (40 by 36 feet). In a cruel irony, the Boat Store, a Grade I-listed structure of 1859 that once housed the model is now hidden and inaccessible behind the brick walls and security equipment of the current commercial operators, Peel Ports.
Historic England regards the Boat Store as the earliest surviving example of a multi-storey iron-frame and panel structure in the country. Is it too much to hope that the positive developments next door will persuade the Boat Store’s reluctant owners to release it, allowing it to become the best possible home for the Great Dockyard Model, once again? More
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House, Royal Australian Mint has released a collection of commemorative coins. Each coin will have a detailed illustration of the Sydney Opera House and the number 50. The limited-mintage collection includes two 50-cent uncirculated coins that depict the Sydney Opera House viewed from the west, with […] More
The Australian Capital Territory government will hold a competition to find ideas to transform Canberra’s City Hill from a “roundabout rabbit warren” into a city park attractive to people. A five-hectare landscaped hill surrounded by the Vernon Circle, City Hill was central to Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin’s design for Canberra, which marks a […] More
The library, the law court, the town hall, the city square, the memorial or the cemetery – historically, these were the hallmarks of civic design. But are they still the case?
Coming to Melbourne on 8 September, The Architecture Symposium: Acts of Generosity will seek to expand the boundaries of civic design, exploring projects that commit generous acts of design that go beyond the formal architectural brief.
“We are interested in projects that consciously contribute to the evolution of architecture and, more importantly, support the evolution of society,” said guest curators Amy Muir of Muir Architecture and Rachel Neeson, of Neeson Murcutt Neille.
“This symposium explores our industry’s responsibility to community through built outcomes – how has it changed and how can we further challenge the status quo?”
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James Loder will discuss Wardle’s work at UTAS Inveresk. Image:
Adam Gibson
One speaker will be 2023 Gold Medal winner Kerstin Thompson, who will discuss her practice’s sensitive design for the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Melbourne.
Also speaking on civic memory will be Mat Hinds of Taylor and Hinds and Rebecca Digney of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, who will discuss a proposed truth-telling project at Wybalenna, an Aboriginal settlement established on Flinders Island in 1834, where hundreds of banished Tasmanian Aboriginal people died premature deaths under the “protection” of George Augustus Robinson.
James Loder of Wardle and Simone Bliss of SBLA Studio will discuss their practices’ respective university and TAFE revitalization projects, while Danielle Peck of Architecture Associates, Graham Crist of Antarctica Architects and Peter Stutchbury of Peter Stutchbury Architecture will present of “shared civic assets” – a library and a tourism centre.
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Danielle Peck of Architecture Associates and Graham Crist of Antarctica Architects will present Drysdale Library. Image:
Supplied by architects
Other speakers include Jocelyn Chiew, City of Melbourne (Dodds Street Linear Park, Vic); Bridget Smyth, City of Sydney (George Street pedestrianization, NSW); Kevin O’Brien, BVN (Yarrila Place, NSW); Nicholas Braun, Sibling Architecture (Darebin Intercultural Centre, Vic); Challis Smedley, Challis Smedley Architect on behalf of Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects (Bondi Pavilion, NSW); Aaron Peters, Vokes and Peters (Nambucca Heads Library Extension, NSW); Sonia van de Haar, Lymesmith (Parramatta activations, NSW); Annabel Lahz, Lahznimmo Architects (Mahon Pool Amenities, NSW); Ross Harding, Finding Infinity (A New Normal, Vic); and Emma Williamson, The Fulcrum Agency (Martu Community-Led Design).
The day will conclude with a panel discussion with co-curators Amy Muir and Rachel Neeson, Kat Rodwell (Balert Mura Consultancy), Carey Lyon (Lyons) and Philip Thalis (Hill Thalis Architecture and Urban Projects), moderated by Shelley Penn (Shelley Penn Architect).
For further information, and to buy tickets, head here.
The Architecture Symposium is a Design Speaks program organized by Architecture Media and supported by major partner Informed by Planned Cover, supporting partners Tasmanian Timber and Galvin Engineering, and hotel partner Ovolo South Yarra. More
Sydney practice Chrofi has won a design competition for two significant buildings on the Parramatta riverfront: a 52-storey mixed-use tower and an eight-storey commercial building. The eight-storey commercial building will be built from mass engineered timber, with the mass timber structure reading as “the defining architectural statement of the building, bringing a warmth and natural […] More
The Australian Tapestry Workshop has revealed the finalists of the 2023 Tapestry Design Prize for Architects. The prize invites architects from around the world to design a tapestry for a hypothetical site, which this year is the Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects. The finalists are: Bundanon Tapestry – HeliotopeCounterpoint – Adjacency StudioFata Morgana […] More
The $146 million redevelopment of the Hellenic Club of Canberra has been approved by the ACT’s Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate. Designed by Fender Katsalidis and Oculus, the project will see a 12- and a 16-storey office building constructed on the site of the existing club in the town centre of Woden. The existing […] More
