2007
BDP Architects
Shetland Museum photo © Mark Sinclair
Shetland Museum and Archives opened May 2007
£11.6m
cultural hub + visitor attraction
Facilities: café restaurant, archives, gift shop, boat restoration
sheds, auditorium, learning room, exhibition space, administration space,
curatorial space, conservation space
Materials: harled masonry walls, slate pitched roofs, timber windows
Key space: Boat Hall
BDP’s Shetland Museum Wins Top Prize At Wood Awards
17 Oct 2008
Shetland Museum and Archives, designed by BDP, has won the Gold Award
in this year’s Wood Awards. The project was shortlisted in three
categories, and won the Commercial and Public Access category, eventually
going on to win the top prize at the award ceremony in London last night
(15 October 2008). The awards aim to recognise, encourage and promote
outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation in wood, the worlds
most naturally sustainable material.
Shetland Museum photo © Mark Sinclair
Architect Angus Kerr said of receiving the award “We are extremely
proud to have won the top award against such fantastic competition, there
are a lot of good buildings using wood. BDP champion the use of wood in
their projects as a sustainable alternative to many modern materials and
Shetland Museum is a fine example of its use in an innovative and successful
way.”
The museum represents an important new cultural hub as well as a major
new visitor attraction and landmark for these fascinating islands. The
new 3,500 m² building, which utilises old boatsheds, has five times
the previous Museum display space and three times the previous archive
storage area. Facilities include the café restaurant, an Archives
repository and search room, gift shop boat restoration sheds, an auditorium
seating 120, a learning room and a temporary exhibition space and administration,
curatorial and conservation spaces.
Externally the building form is largely derived from traditional early
Shetland buildings - Lodberries, whose gable ends rise from the sea -
and is constructed of traditional materials of harled masonry walls, timber
windows and slate pitched roofs.
Contrasting with these traditional forms, the building’ presence
is punctuated by the iconic timber clad Boat Hall. Conceived as four large
polygonal shapes, separated by narrow vertical glazed strips, their colour
and form echo the sails of the Herring drifters which wintered in and
around Hays Dock in the last century.
The Shetland Museum was chosen as a best practice example by the Scottish
Executive in its strategy for architecture. It has won the Glasgow Institute
of Architects Design Award and was shortlisted for both a British Construction
Industry Award and the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award
this year. It also reached a shortlist of the final four for The Art Fund
prize (Formerly The Gulbenkian Prize) one of the most prestigious awards
open to all museums and galleries in the UK, and is shortlisted in the
world architecture festival awards due to be announced later this month
in Barcelona.
BDP was lead consultant, architect, landscape architect, interior designer
and acoustic consultant for the £11.6m building, which opened in
June 2007.
PM’s Award
The Shetland Museum and Archives by BDP is the only Scottish project shortlisted
out of 21 in the UK for the Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award
Shetland Museum
architect : BDP
Shetland Buildings
Scottish Architects
Scottish Architecture
Museum
of Scotland
Hay's Dock restoration
2007
Nicholas Grove-Raines Architects
Shetland building : Lerwick
World Architecture : e-architect
- a guide to key buildings across the globe
Shetland Museum award : Wood Awards
Shetland School Building -
Mid Yell School
Comments / photos for the Shetland Museum and Archives page welcome:
info@e-architect.co.uk
Shetland Museum - page : adrian welch / isabelle
lomholt