Shelley Smith, project architect, Jacobs Architects on work at MyPlace Youth Centre, Havering
Havering council had applied for MyPlace funding and, as one of its framework consultants, we worked with it to establish the brief for the building. It became clear that local people needed an arts/media centre as opposed to a sports facility, as the site is next to a leisure centre. It has a large flexible hall for drama or musicals and the retractable seating can be folded back for dancing. There’s an IT hub, communal open space, recording suite, bike workshop and games room.
The council’s aspiration was for the building to be out of the ordinary, so we suggested it should be zero carbon. The council got behind the idea and covered the extra costs involved – about £200,000 for the higher specification of windows, photovoltaics and insulation – above the £3.8m MyPlace grant. We went for a passive design approach to minimise the operational energy used, so the building has 250mm wall insulation, thick foam panels on the roof, and high-spec double glazing. The roof overhang has also been designed to provide solar shading.
Steni Nature panels were selected as rainscreen cladding on one elevation for their aesthetic qualities and speed of installation. We wanted a render-type finish but were concerned the building might suffer graffiti or accidental damage and we wanted the opportunity to replace the panels. They’re composite panels with a surface of aggregated stones and reinforced with fibreglass, so they’re durable and maintainable. The panels were also suited to the construction method – there’s wall build-up over a timber frame and joists at 400mm centres, so screwing in panels was easier than creating a boarded surface and rendering it. The panels were face-fixed with colour-coded screws and the lower levels finished with an anti-graffiti coating.
The building was specified in 2009 when there was little awareness of embodied carbon. But we’ve done a retrospective study on how we could also have brought down the embodied carbon, and we’re using the building internally within the company as a case study.
