This award winning radical design was engineered by Anthony Ward, who worked with Architects Design Partnership to win this competition entry.
The building’s strong and natural structural form emerged from the fusion of ideas between the architect and engineer, given a real green field site and a blank canvas.
The skeletal steel tube bowstring arches give a clean structural line, and a single internal row of pencil columns defines a central corridor, propping the three-pinned arch to enable the lightweight structure to carry the sedum roof.
The building features strong sustainable design principles and won a commendation in the Civic Trust Awards in 2003.