Wednesday, 5 September 2007

Local Material

Savill Building


The Savill Building in Windsor Great Park was recently awarded a prestigious architecture award, ‘National Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) award’. The building was created as a visitor centre in the grounds of the Great Park and includes a nursery, a restaurant and a lecture theatre.

Matt McGrory was one of the architects who designed the building and usually works on projects such as residential buildings, offices and retail outlets and says, ‘the Savill project was completely different to anything we’ve done before. Completely out of the ordinary’. So it just goes to show that we should be taking risks and trying things that are not necessarily in our comfort zones.

The building was built using timber from the Great Park itself which I think adds to the overall uniqueness of the building. Judges on the award panel said, ‘…the innovative use of traditional materials means that it harmonises well with a skyline of mature trees as well as being an object of great beauty and grace in its own right’.

Matt McGrory goes on to say that ‘we wanted to use locally sourced natural materials, something that corresponded with and related to, and was in harmony within the natural surroundings’. Again this makes the building that more interesting using the actual surroundings as a means of constructing the final product.

The structure will be put forward for the RIBA Stirling prize which will be presented to the winning team in a live television broadcast on Channel 4 on October 6.



Article from the Slough Express 29/06/07 Page 13


http://www.e-architect.co.uk/oxford/savill_building.htm

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