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THE WELCOME BUILDING

SEPTEMBER 2017

The Welcome Building

The Welcome Building in Bishop Auckland consists of a new viewing tower and central ticketing hall for the The Auckland Project. It acts as an access point and gateway to the wider site whilst also giving views over the town and landscape setting. The tower – a timber framed structure – is now well under way on site.

The building team has worked tirelessly and with the highest level of precision, to build the in-situ concrete lift shaft. Working from the ground up seemed to take an age.

Meanwhile, the enormous larch glulam beams have been carefully crafted and manually grey-oiled in the joiner’s workshop.

The frames are now being lifted into position on site and suddenly the building can be seen. Almost in an instant. As if the past four years had happened in the blink of an eye.

We are so excited and proud – even – to see this fantasy project becoming real at last. But with completion on the horizon, time seems to now move all too fast.

SMALL PROJECTS AWARD

OCTOBER 2014

“Small projects allow you to do something singular and very memorable…..Through small projects you discover yourself.” NM

Niall McLaughlin joined Maria Smith, co-founder of Studio Weave, to discuss the merits and challenges of small building projects at the launch of the 2015 Small Projects Award. The award seeks to recognise the best architecture built for less than £250,000. This year’s event was chaired by Rory Olcayto, acting editor of the AJ and was held at the Building Centre in London.