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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.

TOP AWARD FOR CHAPEL AT CIVIC TRUST AWARDS

APRIL 2014

Top Award for Chapel at Civic Trust Awards

Niall McLaughlin Architects were delighted to receive the National Panel Special Award for the Bishop Edward King Chapel at this year’s Civic Trust Awards Ceremony, held in Blackpool earlier this month.  The award is one of eight Special Awards that are presented in addition to the Civic Trust Awards, to celebrate projects that are deemed to be outstanding in a specific area. The National Panel Award is given to the scheme that the National Panel members select as their favourite from among the Award winning projects. David Pritchard, chair of the Civic Trust Awards National Panel, described the Chapel as ‘an uplifting building’ and said that their decision to give the Chapel this top award had been unanimous.