Kielder Shelter Building, 55/02 Northumbria, Architect, Photo, Design, UCL Project

55/02, Kielder Shelter, Northumbria, UK

Kielder Water Shelter, Northumberland, England – design by sixteen*(makers)

19 May 2011

55/02, Kielder Shelter

Design: sixteen*(makers) at The Bartlett UCL

photo © UCL

RIBA Award winner, 19 May 2011

This piece, whose name refers to its grid reference, takes a worthy place among the architectural and art treasures of Kielder Forest, several of which have already won RIBA Awards.

The shelter can be seen in glimpses from afar, but its full impact is not revealed until the traveller arrives at the site through the maze of paths. Constructed from thick folded steel drawn, shaped and fabricated with painstaking accuracy, this bold red structure is an enigmatic resting point at the tip of a spit of land jutting into the lake. It picks up on the relationships between the verticality of the trees and the horizontality of the water. The smooth bright coloured manufactured nature of the steel makes an easy contrast with the organic mature woodland that surrounds it.

Kielder Forest and Water Park Shelter – Building Information

Title: 55/02
Location: Cock Stoor, Lakeside Way, Kielder Forest and Water Park, Northumberland
Architect: Bob Sheil
Client: The Kielder Partnership
Contractor: Stahlbogen GmbH
Structural Engineer: N/A
Services Engineer: N/A
Contract Value: £60,000
Date of completion: Jul 2009
Gross internal area: 30 sqm

RIBA Awards

Previously:

Company Description: Sixteen*(makers) is a multidisciplinary practice in architecture and research bridging thresholds between the IDEAL and the REAL. They collaborate out of a shared ambition towards sustaining an experimental approach in the practice and development of architecture, best described by the term ‘Design through Making’. In this manner, ’55/02′ is the result of an innovative and creative partnership between architects and manufacturers and is designed in collaboration with steel manufacturers Stahlbogen GmbH, led by one of sixteen*(makers) founding partners.

Sixteen*(makers) has executed a number of projects in the field of responsive constructs and environments where sites are central to the development of each project, and questions are asked about architecture and its users. In this regard, ’55/02′ responds to its surroundings with ‘manufactured architecture in a manufactured setting’ and contributes to the already blurred distinction between the natural and the artificial of Kielder Water.

Thus ’55/02′ has evolved as a design from the specific environment in which it is situated. The building consists of a pair of steel ‘shelters’ linked by a moveable screen. This allows visitors to adapt its overall configuration depending on weather conditions and create an open series of seats and windbreaks, or a smaller more protective weatherproof pod. The name ’55/02′ refers to the latitude and longitude of its location at Cock Stoor (55° 11.30 N, 02° 29.23 W) as a way to address the visitor towards the unique qualities of this place.

Location:Kielder Water & Forest Park, Northumberland, Northeast England, UK