TEN OF THE BEST

摘要

Brutalism is not often an easy style for new architecture to compliment, particularly when the existing buildings are part of a highly regimented university campus masterplan with a lakeside setting. But this is a task that Patel Taylor's new additions accomplish with both sensitivity and vigour, crafting a highly nuanced and individualistic contemporary response to both physical and natural context that merges perfectly with its overriding 1960s physical backdrop. Two new buildings have been created: The first is a new student centre whose pale stone walls, strong horizontal lines and pilotti-supported double-height canopy speak of a rhythmic, pavilion-like elegance that merges seamlessly into its lakefront setting. The second, the library, on the other hand, evokes the more strident monumentality of the original blocks, hoisting a muscular four storey concrete block high above another double-height canopy. The entire composition is woven into the lake and grounds by means of a powerful linear landscape comprising a series of new axial routes. Together, both buildings and landscape offer a superlative masterclass on how sensitivity can energise rather than dilute intervention.