Walking the Line
I ran out of time in my blog entry the other day, so I couldn’t jabber on to you about the Planning Inspector’s verdict on the Welcome Building design itself.
The Welcome Building design has been a tricky one to get right. Setting aside any considerations of cost, there were originally two schools of thought. The first that it should be a building that stood out and shouted ‘come and find out about the Arboretum’, the second was that anything we built should be very much subservient to the landscape it is to sit in. I know that the various Friends I’ve spoken to over the last year veer between the two views themselves – and I know that to some people in both camps we’re never going to be able to get the balance right.
We took the opportunity of the appeal period to put up a temporary exhibition on the hazel hurdles near the outdoor café to check what our visitors thought of the design – if we’d got it wrong we wanted you to tell us. We provided feedback cards and we were really encouraged that there was almost unanimous support for the proposed design. The most frequent comment was relief that we weren’t going to ‘spoil’ the arboretum with a massive and obtrusive design.
The Planning Inspector showed a real grasp of this design challenge for the Arboretum and described it better than I can: ‘such a building has to walk a fine line between deference and empathy with context whilst establishing a visual presence commensurate with its purpose.’ His verdict is that ‘the sum of the building’s attributes constitute a simple, even self effacing building, intelligently designed to use the local topography to its advantage, engage and empathise with the existing landscape features of the site whilst fulfilling its role as both a focus and a prelude for visitors entering the arboretum. In incorporating these elements the proposed building achieves the difficult task of walking the line, delivering a well mannered building with the desired visual presence whilst avoiding material harm to the designated heritage asset and its setting.’
We’re delighted that an impartial observer feels that way – it’s what the capital works team have tried so hard to achieve. I know that to some people – dare I say it? – the building isn’t inspiring – to those people I’d ask you to wait until it’s a living breathing building, serving its purpose and looking like to was always mean to be in that location. We’re confident that we’re walking the right side of the line the Inspector describes.
The best thing about the Inspector’s verdict? We can really get cracking with the fundraising now – funders like to see that what they’re contributing to has planning permission, and that’s a problem that we can now put in the past.
