Golden Lane Sport and Fitness, Leisure Centre London, Architect, Building, Location
Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre, London
Building Redevelopment, England – design by Cartwright Pickard, Architects
28 May 2012
Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre London
Location: just north of the Barbican Centre, London, England
Address: Golden Lane Estate, Fann St, London EC1Y 0SH
Phone: 020 7250 1464
Design: Chamberlin Powell & Bon ; redevelopment – Cartwright Pickard
photographs : Hundven Clements Photography
Cartwright Pickard has finished work on the Grade II Listed Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre, for the City of London Corporation. The leisure centre, now renamed Golden Lane Sport and Fitness, is home to the only public pool in the Square Mile and much-loved by architects and locals alike.
Golden Lane Sport and Fitness is located at the heart of the celebrated Golden Lane Housing Estate. The original design commission was won through architectural competition by Chamberlin Powell and Bon, who later went on to design the Barbican, in 1952. The centre takes an ‘L’ shaped form around a quadrangle and is the conglomeration of two formerly separated buildings; the two storey swimming pool and badminton court and the single storey club rooms.
A key aim of the refurbishment was to provide a wide range of fitness options for residents and visitors, encouraging greater use of the leisure centre, generating greater income and modernising it to a standard that allows it to continue to serve the community for years to come. To achieve this, the design refurbishes the swimming pool, badminton court and changing rooms, inserts a new gym and dance studio and creates a new, fully accessible, reception area and circulation routes. The contractor for the works was Quinn London and Fusion Lifestyle, a registered charity, has bee appointed to manage the centre.
The design team acknowledged the importance of maintaining the character of the original Grade II Listed building while delivering a project that performs to changing patterns of use and meets modern standards for access, health and safety and environmental performance. Cartwright Pickard studied key aspects of the original design in order to retain and enhance these features wherever possible, and identified and removed interventions that deviated from Chamberlin Powell and Bon’s vision. Non-original and inappropriate accretions have been stripped away to reveal as much of the existing building as possible. For example, reinstating the transparency of the swimming pool enclosure and retaining the distinctive concrete vaults of the club rooms.
photographs : Hundven Clements Photography
The new entrance is more inviting in appearance, more generous in space and unlike the previous design, provides internal access to all areas of the building and has a reception desk that faces guests as they arrive at the building. The new gym has been inserted into the vaulted club rooms and is now accessible from the reception area via a new circulation route. This new layout retains the existing pavement lights and uses them to provide natural daylight into what were secluded areas hidden away in damp and unattractive storage spaces. This also improves energy efficiency by using natural light in key circulation areas to reduce the cost and energy consumed.
Where new interventions were necessary they have been clearly defined from the existing building and designed so they help to express the best features of the original design and not compete with them.
The new dance studio has been created between the swimming pool and the sports hall This is enclosed by fully glazed walls that allow for maximum transparency in order to reduce the visual impact on the existing building structure. A new changing area gives members good quality facilities close to the new gym with a rationalised layout that avoids the ‘crossing‘ of people entering the pool area and entering the changing rooms. The staff room is conveniently located close to the reception area and is readily accessible to staff members with improved storage facilities.
The existing building was thermally inefficient so the works sought to produce a facade that provides a greater degree of insulation, reducing energy loss and heating bills. The largely-glazed façade of the swimming pool and badminton court raised the challenge of improving the performance of the building fabric while maintaining the transparency and external appearance as much as possible. The solution was to re-create the original glazing with a modern double glazed alternative. Colours and details were carefully matched to provide a high performance envelope that is virtually identical to the original.
James Pickard, Director of Cartwright Pickard says:
“It has been an honour to work on such an architectural icon. We have done our best to sensitively refurbish the building, helping the council to reduce running costs and bringing the facility up to modern standards so that it can continue to be a central part of the estate for years to come.”
photographs : Hundven Clements Photography
Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre – Building Information
Project Team
Client: City of London Corporation
Architect: Cartwright Pickard Architects
Contractor: Quinn London
Operator: Fusion Lifestyle
M&E Engineer: Synergy Consulting Engineers
Cost Consultant: Cyril Sweett
Structural Engineer Dewhurst McFarlane
Photographs: Hundven Clements Photography
Location: London
Type of project: Retrofit-refurbishment
Completion: 2012
Contract duration: Approx 12 months
Gross internal floor area: 1,300 sqm
Form of contract/ procurement: Design & build
Total cost: £2.3m
Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre London images / information from Cartwright Pickard
Golden Lane Estate London
Location: just north of the Barbican Centre
1953
Design: Chamberlin Powell & Bon
photo © Nick Weall
Golden Lane Estate
Golden Lane Estate architects : Chamberlin, Powell and Bon
Location: Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre, London, England, UK
London Buildings
Contemporary London Architecture
London Architecture Designs – chronological list
London Architecture Tours by e-architect
Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre Context
Barbican Centre
1982
Chamberlin, Powell and Bon
photo © Adrian Welch
Barbican Centre
Golden Lane Campus
2008
Nicholas Hare Architects
image from architect
Golden Lane Campus
Golden Lane Estate Leisure Centre context : Moorgate
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