WARWICK HALL COMMUNITY CENTRE
St John the Baptist Church, Burford
MAJOR EXTENSION AND ADAPTION OF LISTED PARISH HALL
St John the Baptist Church in Burford undertook a bold new redevelopment project at Warwick Hall to unite the church and local community through the building of a new community facility. The brief was to extend and adapt the listed building to provide a new hall flexible enough to meet the wide ranging needs of today’s end users. The challenge was to deliver a new confident community facility within one of the most historically sensitive church building settings in the country.
The design ethos was to reafirm the significance of the original range by removing later extensions and to then rebuild in a manner that respected this unique setting. To minimise the impact of these new facilities the massing is split into a cluster of smaller structures expressed and clearly separated from the original Hall. These solid stone elements protrude sensitively from behind the churchyard wall but are set back to allow the Warwick Hall gable and churchyard wall to dominate the boundary.
Due to the narrow nature of the site and the lack of opportunities for windows a series of carefully located roof lights, clerestories and glazed links have been introduced. This ensures there is plenty of natural light but also provides opportunities for glimpses back to the existing church and enables users to orientate themselves at all times within the building.
The entrance foyer and cafe space is intended as the heart of the building and hopefully a true centre of activity for the community. Both halls will be visible and accessible from the foyer and it is hoped that different users of the building will all meet here and become aware of the variety of other activities on offer. Within the foyer cafe it has been decided to retain the stone nish of the churchyard wall internally as a reminder of this unique location within Burford but also as an aid to orientating yourself around the building. Access is relocated to the heart of the building to provide level access and allows the old hall to return to its original proportions unhindered by lobbies and corridors. By re-orientating the building towards the churchyard a new dialogue between the church and the Warwick Hall is created.
The new hall needs to serve the church and the town in a way that no other local hall currently can, it needs to accommodate a multitude of activities simultaneously. In order for the hall to be truly exible it has to have the ability to either be a private, intimate black box space or the very opposite – a visibly open hall filled with light and views. This can be achieved via a series of sliding screens and glass sliding doors as well as roof lights and clerestories with black-out blinds. It is hoped that the hall will be able to provide an intimate space for concerts or prayer one day and then be a hub of community activity the next with kids groups and a local day centre for the elderly.
Rear extensions to the hall were removed to make way for a clearer hierarchy of old and new that come together with a glazed circulation link that provides fantastic framed views back towards the church.
The Warwick Hall has been described by the Bishop of Dorchester as this generation’s ‘gift’ to Burford, building on successive generations of work over centuries in order to build, develop and maintain the church and its setting. The building is unashamedly of its time but crucially it sits comfortably within one of the most picturesque churchyards in the country.
WARWICK HALL COMMUNITY CENTRE
WARWICK HALL COMMUNITY CENTRE
St John the Baptist Church, Burford
CONSTRUCTION PROCESS
The use of traditional materials was fundamental to contributing to the grain of this setting but these textures are complemented with contemporary structural glazing and zinc cladding, and detailed in a manner to ensure the building reflects its use and expresses its inclusivity. Environmental and financial sustainability are paramount to the church. Future operational costs are as much of a concern as initial capital costs, so an integrated approach to energy usage, generation and conservation has been adopted and this includes a ground source heat pump heating and cooling system for the entire building. Vertical boreholes 120m deep were located within the garden to achieve this.
