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Building Factory Setting

Feilden Fowles has found appropriate expression for a rural food production campus, discovers Graham Bizley

Photos Max Creasy AT288-18-Feilden-Fowles:AT Template 09/05/2018 14:31 Page 3

The Mendip Hills stretch east to west across At Dulcote Quarry, near Wells, limestone In 2015 the quarry was bought by food Somerset, from Weston-super-Mare on the was extracted from the hillside from at least producer Charlie Bigham’s to create what it coast, through the kast landscape around the mid-nineteenth century until the 1990s, grandly calls a ‘food production campus’ Cheddar Gorge and on towards Frome. mainly for crushing into aggregate. The for its oven-ready meals. The site already As across most of rural England, the ground excavation has left a roughly rectangular pit had planning permission for light-industrial is hidden beneath crops or woodland, so surrounded on all sides by high banks and a and office development, but working with where bare rock protrudes it has a dramatic 50-metre-high sheer cliff on the north side. architect Feilden Fowles, Bigham’s has effect, like something primordial breaking Wildlife has adopted the quarry, including come up with a much more ambitious the genteel surface veneer. Somerset’s largest colony of great crested 20-year masterplan, the first phase of which newts in a pond in the north-west corner is now complete. and a pair of peregrine falcons nesting on the cliff above. AT288-18-Feilden-Fowles:AT Template 09/05/2018 14:35 Page 4

Right Masterplan, ground- and first-floor plans and section through kitchen one. The masterplan anticipates the growth of the business on the 18-acre site over

20 years. 2

Below The quarry in use in the 1960s.

8

1 5 7 6 4 9 3

Key

1 Quarry entrance and gatehouse

2 Existing pond

3 Water treatment plant 10 20 4 Phase 1 kitchen 16 21 19 5 Phase 2 dispatch 15 17 18 6 Phase 3 kitchen

7 Phase 4 kitchen 14

8 Cafe pavilion 13 9 Yard

10 Main entrance 12

11 Storage 11

12 Preparation

13 Cooking

14 Assembly

15 Chill

16 Packaging

17 Office

18 Changing

19 Development kitchen

20 Cafe

21 Terrace

22 Service void

23 Plant 23 23

22 22 16 16 15 14 13 12 11

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Below It is a remarkable project in several ways – Feilden Fowles’ masterplan divides the site The external form is a composition of not least that an architect was involved at in two, placing all the buildings on the asymmetric roofs which shift in size, all. It is accepted by planners and the public south side and leaving the north side free material and colour to reflect varying internal activities. alike that light-industrial sheds are what for the existing ecology to expand and they are, and that employing an architect thrive. Four large buildings are proposed – Constructed from a steel frame and would impose an undue cost burden on three containing kitchens and offices and insulated panels, the ground floor businesses trying to minimise overheads one for dispatch – linked by a pedestrian production area is clad in a grey micro- rib insulated panel. Red sinusoidal and maximise flexibility. Company founder ‘street’ or path along the middle of the site. panels clad the plant and storage space. Charlie Bigham has a longer-term vision, in Near the path the landscaping will Offices are overclad with rough sawn which the distinctive location and purpose- include social and community spaces such Siberian larch. designed building reflect the company’s as a cafe and pavilions for workers to eat Windows at the end of each primary ethos. “We won’t make our food in a factory lunch, becoming wilder towards the cliff axis through the production floor or shed”, he says. “High quality food can where it culminates in a series of linked provide connections to the landscape, only be made in a high quality environment”. ponds. Cars and HGVs are kept separate on while rooflights allow daylight deep the south side of the buildings, supressing into the plan. their visible presence on the site.

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Left, below The generously scaled timber entrance tower provides visual links into the quarry and to the landscape beyond.

A single entrance reflects Charlie Bigham’s desire to encourage a collaborative and non-hierarchical relationship between the office and production staff.

The first phase is a kitchen building for 300 The most distinctive feature though is the It was important to Bigham that office staff, production staff and 50 office staff, and a kitchen’s entrance tower, a four-storey production workers and visitors all enter little gatehouse at the entrance from the structure pulled outside the volume of the the building in the same place, so they all road – the only part of the development main building and clad in rough-sawn go in via the tower up to a second-floor that is visible from outside and the only larch. Like the gatehouse it has a distinctive reception. Offices, a cafe, a roof terrace, building with any view beyond the site. angular form reminiscent of the functional development kitchen and the staff changing With its thin metal sheet roof the gatehouse industrial structures that once inhabited area are clustered around the reception, has the form of a simple hut that might the quarry. all of which are light, airy spaces with have been found in the working quarry. Cladding them in timber rather than rooflights in the north-facing roof pitches Rounding the corner, the kitchen building corrugated metal softens the forms and and great views out into the former quarry. swings into view. Its saw-tooth roof suggests signals the change of use while still making A polished concrete floor runs throughout a factory, and is clad in red metal that tones a strong, easily understood connection to and timber screens divide the spaces. with rusty iron staining in the surrounding the history of the place. Custom-made shared tables rather than limestone. A horizontal shelf half-way up individual desks make the office area an the cliff is reflected by a mid-height division informal and collaborative place, and I below which a steel exoskeleton protrudes. certainly wouldn’t mind it as my studio.

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Deliveries, preparation, cooking, packing Buildings offer a means for a company to and dispatch happen on the ground floor. project its values, both to the people that The internal planning is driven by the work there and to the public. The richly production process, but the architects detailed facades of Victorian buildings worked hard to break the mould of the like Glasgow’s Templeton Carpet Factory standard shed by providing natural represented the craft that went into their light throughout and views out into the products. In the 1920s and 30s factories landscape, even in the production areas. like the Hoover Building acted as giant The size of the bays varies to reflect the advertisements on the arterial roads into big functions going on inside, larger at the cities, and the imagery of technology has south end for food preparation and smaller been harnessed to express precision design at the north end where the offices, cafe and and manufacturing in buildings like Foster staff facilities are. & Partners’ McLaren Technology Centre. Branding is increasingly projected virtually, so the architecture of a physical building might no longer be seen as so relevant. On the other hand the experience of the workplace is increasingly important in the competition to attract the best employees and companies find real productivity benefits in a positive working environment.

Above, below Cafe with acccess to terrace; reception. AT288-18-Feilden-Fowles:AT Template 09/05/2018 14:39 Page 8

Feilden Fowles wisely avoided trying to As a model for development in a rural area, Project team Selected suppliers express the quality of Bigham’s ready meals Bigham’s West has much to commend it. & subcontractors in built form and instead have produced a It provides local employment without losing building that embodies the holistic values of greenfield land or adding another generic Architect Timber cladding the company in its relationship with the shed to the edge of a town. Noise and views Feilden Fowles Norclad Project team Insulated panels outdoors and its generous, considerate are limited by the quarry walls so its impact Edmund Fowles, Elli Kingspan working environment. on nearby houses is negligible, and it is Farrant, Rory Allen, Rainwater goods So how much more does it cost if you close to Wells and Shepton Mallet, so Ben Higham RWP Clearflow let an architect have a go at your shed – cycling and public transport are realistic Structural engineer Windows Structure Workshop Value Windows and most importantly, is it worth it? options, and car journeys should be short. (pre-planning), PEP Civils Roofing “We think the overall cost is probably Sadly the vision that enabled it is rare and & Structures Kingspan 10 per cent higher than a typical light expectations in rural areas are often low. Services engineer, QS, Rooflights industrial development”, says Bigham, If we want rural and urban areas to remain building contractor Brett Martin TSL Projects Lighting “but if we pull it off it would be something distinct, and not just to merge in ubiquitous Civil engineer Lightnet, Whitecroft unique in the food world”. suburbia, we need to think imaginatively PP Construction O!ce furniture The first phase currently stands alone, about where development occurs and how Landscape designer Timber Workshop but it is intended to be one of a group of it can be made specific to its place. Grant Associates Feilden Fowles has achieved a dramatic Client structures set in a landscape, where the Charlie Bigham’s elevations define spaces between them and transformation of the standard shed direct views into the surrounding greenery. through relatively simple means: some well- Future ambitions include a visitor centre, a detailed timber cladding, distinctive forms Bigham’s Academy for training and cookery and strategic choices of what aspects of courses, and nature walks around the rim of the building to express. Good design is as the quarry connected into the local public much about seeing what is there already footpath network, making the site more as creating something new.  accessible to the community.