Project Title: The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum
Location: Coventry
Wood Species: SPRUCE (FINLAND- PEFC CHAIN OF CUSTODY)
Product Description
The Project
A design competition to refurbish & extend the existing Herbert was won by Pringle Richards Sharratt in 2001. The proposal was to turn the former back of the building into a new front towards University Square and Sir Basil Spence’s cathedral (the City’s principal tourist attraction), with a route connecting it to the previous main entrance - a two storey high glazed arcade flanked by new galleries and a history centre with a welcoming frontage facing the square.
Central to the design of both the arcade and adjacent history centre is the use of engineered timber. The former is expressed as a dramatic glulam gridshell, while the latter is topped by a curving glulam beam and solid timber panel structure supported by tree-like clusters of turned spruce columns. These key elements provide the gallery with a vibrant new civic identity that is both highly contextual and sustainable.
The partially glazed arcade roof is designed to act as a filter, gradually reducing natural light levels from the main entrance to the entrance to the galleries and to facilitate natural ventilation of the history centre and the arcade. A diagrid roof was chosen for reasons of structural efficiency inspired by the interior of the cathedral roof. The diagonal-based geometry also enables the roof to terminate at 45 degrees ensuring the glazed entrance to the arcade addresses University Square and the cathedral.
The single-storey history centre with reading room, search room and offices faces onto Bayley Lane and has a sloping terne-coated stainless steel mono-pitch roof formed from glulam beams and ‘LenoTec’ solid timber panels. The timber beam and slab structure curves upwards as it meets the edge of the arcade, before bifurcating into a barrel-vaulted diagrid. The panels were favoured for their lateral strength (necessary to stiffen the frame), self-finished aesthetic, and ability to form curves. It is the first time that curved solid timber panels have been used in the UK.
The vaulted diagrid arcade roof structure springs from the curved glulam beams and paired columns forming the eastern edge of the history centre roof. On the eastern side of the vault steel pin-joint assemblies transfer the structural loads into the concrete roof beams of the gallery. The timber beams are interconnected through galvanised steel node assemblies, which also support glulam timber purlins spanning in north-south direction. An extruded aluminium framing system covered with a combination of square insulated stainless steel cladding panels and partially opening rooflights forms the external envelope.
The northern edge of the diagrid is partly supported by the glazed end wall/entrance to the arcade. The weight of the roof combined with substantial wind loading requirements for the facade necessitated a composite structure - glulam bolted to T-shaped steel columns - in order to minimise the size of timber sections.
BUILDING OWNER: COVENTRY CITY COUNCIL
ARCHITECT: PRINGLE RICHARDS SHARRATT ARCHITECTS
BUILDER/MAIN CONTRACTOR: GALLIFORD TRY CONSTRUCTION
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS: ALAN BAXTER & ASSOCIATES
JOINERY: FINNFOREST MERK GmbH
OTHER ASSOCIATED COMPANY: LICHTTECHNIK
WOOD SUPPLIER: FINNFOREST MERK GmbH
