THE BOATHOUSE

Proposals for a new boathouse and community centre

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

YARD Architects were approached in 2017 to design a new boathouse to be built within a grade II listed park in Northamptonshire. The client was ambitious from the outset, looking for an award-winning building that would provide a new focal-point and backdrop for commercial events and replace the original boathouse which was lost by fire.

We assisted the client in developing the detailed brief for the project, which evolved from a boat storage building and café into a larger community and function hall suitable for commercial hire. We carried out an internal design charette, where each member of the studio made physical models to explore numerous different conceptual approaches. The winner was “The Three Peaks” concept, which looked to take the utilitarian three pitched roof gable silhouette of the original boathouse, and distort it in 3 dimensions to enable it to address multiple aspects around the site.

The Three Peaks scheme was developed through RIBA Stages 3 and 4, resolving a number of complex issues on the site including ensuring that the building could flood without causing significant damage. The building would also sit within a critical location in the park at the confluence of a number of routes and vistas, and treatment of the elevations and access points to each side respond to issues of utility, aesthetics, wayfinding, and the ability to flexibly segregate front and back-of-house users.

Externally, the boathouse would be timber clad above a masonry and concrete plinth, set out at a level to enable a robust flood and user resistant base below a softer profile sitting within the verdant landscape. The profiled timber cladding set within expressed structural fins would provide depth and shadow across the facades, whilst an expressive overhanging volume forming part of the second peak provides external cover from the elements alongside a brise-soleil covered patio.

Internally, two of the three peaks would cover the internal hall, where exposed structure references the interior of a typical boathouse and the volume created by the distorted triple pitch provides light and volume. Carefully glazed facades provide views over the water, whilst the siting of the building away from the waters edge provides valuable external waterside space. Utility, changing room, and service zones are located in the smallest of the three peaks to complete the building.