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12 BUILDINGS RCKA

GROWING UP IN PUBLIC
The translucent skin of RCKas south London youth centre encloses a building in which the architects involvement extends far beyond the design, writes Ellis Woodman
Pictures by Ioana Marinescu

The entrance viewed from Wells Park.

gainst the current backdrop of cuts across nearly every sector of public building, the ongoing transformation of the stock of Britains youth centres provides a rare cause for celebration. The governments Myplace programme was established in 2008 with the aim of directing capital funding to youth facilities in the countrys poorest areas and has to date handed out 240 million to 63 projects. The past 12 months alone have seen Myplace-funded buildings open in Birmingham, Sheffield and Middlesbrough, as well as across half a dozen of Londons outer-lying boroughs. Falling within the capitals 25% most-deprived wards, Sydenham in south-east London is characteristic of the communities that have received funds and was certainly in need. By 2007 the former school hall that represented the borough of Lewishams sole youth services facility in the area had fallen into such a state of dilapidation that it had been closed. Now, thanks to 3.5 million of core funding from Myplace, its site has been redeveloped and a considerably larger and infinitely more architecturally distinguished building realised in its place. Dubbed after a competition among local teenagers The New Generation Youth and Community Centre (TNG), the project is the first standalone

building to be completed by former Young Architect of the Year shortlistee RCKa. Alongside a substantial portfolio of housing commissions, youth facilities form a major part of the practices workload an interest that stems from the experience of practice partner Dieter Kleiner in developing one of the first Myplace-funded schemes in Norwich while he was employed at Hudson Architects. The TNG commission grew out of a modestly funded review that the practice was asked to undertake by Lewisham, which addressed the possibilities for the redevelopment of all of the boroughs youth facilities. The TNG site had already been identified as a priority case but ambitions for its redevelopment escalated quickly when RCKa identified that the land in the local authoritys ownership was significantly larger than had originally been thought. The design emerged from an extended consultation process involving as many as 30 stakeholders, including local youth theatres, Millwall Football Clubs youth outreach

The winter garden opens on to a netted multi-use games area.

A steering group of local young people proved particularly impactful

programme, church groups and the Centrepoint homeless charity. A steering group composed of young people from the area proved particularly impactful. RCKa had originally conceived the building as standing parallel to Wells Park Road the most heavily trafficked of the three streets that frame its site but the steering group voiced concerns about both the proximity of the buildings entrance to what it felt was an often hostile pub and about the schemes failure to address the adjacent park from which Wells Park Road takes its name. The architect duly rotated the project through 90 degrees, so that it now addresses the comparatively quiet street that borders the park. Counterintuitive as it may be, the change has in fact had the effect of increasing the buildings presence on Wells Park Road. On the primary, upward-sloping approach along the street from the east, we are now confronted by its largest elevation, addressing us across a level platform on which a netted multi-use games area has been established. Ranging across the entire width of the site and adopting a simple box-like massing, the building has a commanding even monumental presence. That the effect is in no way forbidding has much to do with the delicacy of its cladding, the larger part of which comprises a skin of corrugated polycarbonate.

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14 BUILDINGS RCKA

The foyer extends fluidly towards communal spaces on the lower and upper levels.

LOWER FLOOR
Taylors Lane
1 Main hall 2 WCs 3 Training kitchen 4 Climbing wall 5 Caf 6 Winter garden 7 Multi-use games area 1 2

Wells Park Road

5 6

ENTRANCE LEVEL
1 Vocal booth 2 Recording studio 3 Managers office 4 Break-out space 5 Main entrance 6 Foyer 7 Hall balcony 8 Youth base 9 Winter garden balcony 1 2 3 4 5

UPPER FLOOR
1 Youth forum 2 Youth forum terrace 3 Soft space 4 Activity/ IT zone 5 Winter garden balcony 6 Consultancy room 7 Health clinic 8 Meeting space

4 8 6 7

SECTION LOOKING NORTH

1 Youth forum 2 Consultancy room 3 Health clinic 4 Meeting space 5 Youth base 6 Main hall 7 Caf

4 5

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The winter garden extends down the full length of the buildings east elevation.

Eschewing the standard method of joining the panels by lapping, the architect has instead buttjointed them, locating an expanded foam strip behind the joint and an aluminium coverstrip in front so as to maintain an elegantly taut and pinstriped surface. However, the sheerness of the buildings skin is offset by the revelation of what lies behind it. The supporting frame of narrow softwood members is clear to see while, at the top of the building where the cladding extends to form a parapet we are presented with the effect of daylight shining through. Only where the facades approach the pavement is the polycarbonate abandoned in favour of a more hard-wearing material in the form of a run of polymer-reinforced Ductal concrete panels. These register as a plinth but one that is expressly hung off the structure rather than being built up from the ground, maintaining a sense of the wall as a single curtain. By employing the polycarbonate panels as the formwork against which the concrete panels were cast, the architect has even ensured the continuity of the profile from top to bottom. Large, loosely arrayed floor-toceiling windows admit views deep into the interior, their projecting reveals incising the cladding like cookie-cutters. The entrance is formed by a still larger opening, which stands midway down the park-facing elevation and is framed by an incidental rise in the height of the plinth. Entering, we find ourselves in an interior dominated by one material: engineered timber forms both the wall and roof structure and has been left exposed in every room save for an acoustically lined performance space. Chosen for its robustness and imperviousness to attempts at value engineering the material has been lightly stained. Vinyl signs introduce notes of colour but the kind of day-glo palette that is so frequently adopted by youth facilities is notable by its absence. The other immediate impression is of spatial expansiveness. The buildings section is highly elaborate but has been configured to allow the full dimensions of the interior volume to be taken in at a glance. The foyer is located on the intermediary of the buildings three floors the consequence of a substantial drop between the level of the street from which we enter and that of the games area cut into the hillside on the buildings far side. Foyer is, in fact, a rather limiting description. There is a reception desk here but, on my visit, a few days before the buildings opening, Kleiner was hoping to negotiate the removal of some seating so as to allow the spaces use to be left as open-ended as possible. He recounted with enthusiasm a visit to a youth centre in Bolton where the entrance area had been temporarily co-opted as the site of a wrestling tournament. Wide, rambling stairs connect this level to spaces of similarly generous size and minimal programmatic definition on

the floors above and below: an arrangement that the architect has likened to the work of the pioneering stage set designer Adolphe Appia. Certainly it comes powerfully imbued with a sense of dramatic potential: every level feels at once a place to perform and to be seen and, thanks to the provision of large areas of internal glazing, the rooms ranged around the buildings perimeter are also drawn into the action. Even when the building is relatively unpopulated one senses that it will feel far from empty. For all its complexity, the interior communicates a strong sense of discipline: an impression that derives not just from its reduced material palette but from the geometry that governs its plan. Looking up to the roof we find that structure stated explicitly in the form of a grid of beams, set out on a 3.75m square module. Well-suited to accommodate the smallest of the spaces required by TNGs brief,

The day-glo palette so often adopted by youth facilities is notable by its absence
this dimension was ultimately selected because it accorded with the largest size of ETFE pillow that could be installed without the need to add reinforcement to deal with snow loading. Value engineering meant that fewer skylights were installed than had originally been intended but the interior still feels richly illuminated, with daylight entering the compact plan from every direction. One feature that looked certain to be lost completely in the course of a 500,000 cost-cutting exercise that followed the return of the tenders was the winter garden that extends across the full

length of the elevation addressing the games area. Kleiner isnt sure how it survived this process we couldnt afford it but we kept it anyway not least because it does not directly support any requirement of the brief. Nonetheless, he felt there was a strong case for incorporating an area where individuals could remove themselves from the hubbub of the primary shared space. The winter garden answers that demand very effectively. Bridges at the upper levels provide places of still greater retreat while there are plans to develop the space into a real garden by introducing trees and tomato plants. TNG clearly represents a particularly significant project for its architect, offering evidence not just of RCKas considerable design abilities but of its skills at conjuring a project from the myriad needs of a community and in securing the necessary backing to make it happen. It was the architect who identified

the possibility of the project being backed by Myplace and led the bid that secured the funding against a field of 240 competitors. However, what is ultimately most striking about this project is the way that the many competing desires that informed the brief have been reconciled into such a rigorously conceived design: a political and architectural triumph in equal measure.

PROJECT TEAM Architect RCKa Client Lewisham Council/Myplace Structural engineer Atelier One (pre-tender) Buxtons (groundworks) Engenuiti (cross-laminated timber) Services engineer VZDV Employers agent Hunters Acoustician Ion Acoustics Cost consultant Andrew Morton Associates Main contractor Mansell