Jewish Community Centre London : Information

11 Sep 2009 Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ Jewish Community Centre gets planning go-ahead A new home for the JCC for London (JCC), designed by architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, has received the unanimous go-ahead from Camden Council’s planning committee. The 30,000 sq ft centre on Finchley Road in North London will replace the former Alan Day Mercedes garage and signals a new cultural hub on this heavily trafficked road. The JCC set its architects a considerable challenge: to provide a home for their ground-breaking and varied programme while establishing an arts and community focus in the local context - bringing light, life and activity back to the street. Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands have responded with an elegant three-storey linear pavilion set back from Finchley Road, creating a new landscaped piazza and relating to the Camden Arts Centre’s gardens opposite. This contribution to the streetscape is central to the project, with the piazza working as an ‘external room’ to the amenities on the ground floor and public space linking the centre’s activities to the street and inviting in the community beyond. The centre is accessed by an off-centre footbridge bringing visitors in at mezzanine level. An airy reception acts as main distribution point for the centre’s functions: library, café, auditorium and screening room, classrooms, dance and rehearsal studios, nursery and offices, arranged vertically with privacy increasing with each floor. The most public activities are located at lower ground level with direct access to the piazza, while the nursery sits on the first, its enclosed garden screened for shelter and amenity. The main façade is fully glazed with rooms that are screened or open onto galleries according to function. Rooms are intermittently extended to the perimeter of the galleries giving articulation to the façade. The service core along the south west boundary provides vertical circulation and services for the active spaces overlooking the new piazza below. A ‘campanile’ of 14 apartments located on the north eastern corner replaces the existing residential accommodation on the site, and functions to enclose the piazza and signpost the civic nature of the scheme. Alex Lifschutz felt JCC’s brief was an opportunity to make a real contribution to the streetscape and community: “The piazza is designed to activate Finchley Road, functioning as an outdoor room - equipped to host events, markets, ice skating - for the JCC’s programme, as well as inviting in the wider community.” Nick Viner, chief executive of the JCC, said the new building “will befit a community centre which is truly the heart of the community, catering to the needs of all – young and old, religious and secular” Jewish Community Centre London images / information from Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands London Architect London Buildings Jewish Community Centre - Building Information Architect: Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands Project Manager: Davis Langdon Planning Consultant: DP9 QS: Gardiner & Theobolds Services and Sustainability Engineer: Norman Disney Young Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor Transport Engineer: Faber Maunsell Acoustic Engineer: Cole Jarman Associates Environment Engineer: Faber Maunsell/Aecom Access Consultant: All Clear About the Jewish Community Centre for London The JCC aims to foster and develop an inclusive Jewish community for anyone and everyone who associates with being Jewish, to whatever extent. It seeks to attract Jews of all ages, persuasions and lifestyles, as well as the wider community, by creating a welcoming environment in which all feel at home. Rooted in Jewish values, the JCC’s social, cultural, educational and recreational programme provides multiple pathways into the richness of Jewish life. The JCC building will be a meeting place for all those attracted by any aspect of Judaism.