European Copper in Architecture Campaign - United Kingdom

The new building steps back as it rises on the east and north façades to provide an appropriate scale at street level and at a distance, whilst masking the five storey façade of an abutting building. It is composed of the retained façade, in which two windows are left vacant to make clear that it is only a wall, tied to a sculpted stepped copper clad and roofed element which joins this to a five storey cubed brick building behind.

The building was specified to have long life, low maintenance materials. This was a deliberate capital investment to minimise the maintenance and running costs of the building over its lifetime. To this end copper was considered a very appropriate cladding and roofing material.

The building is spatially dense and geometrically complex but through the use of a very limited range of natural materials and careful detailing throughout, from the external relationship of the principal constituent parts to the composition of door furniture, it is consistently legible.