Client
Friends' School, Lisburn
Year
2024
Services
PlacemakingThe Concept
We were invited by Friends’ School Lisburn to mark their 250th anniversary with the design of an outdoor performance space and classroom, to sit within its wooded grounds. Invested in a co-design approach with the school and its pupils, we conducted workshops with music and arts pupils to draw from their ideas and preferences, and held a competition for technology students to design an element of the perforations that appear in the structure.
Our design is based on an extrapolation of the 8-pointed Quaker star, deconstructed into its constituent parts and tessellated to form an undulating roof form, made from Cor-ten steel that gives a distinctive, weatherproof, low-maintenance, rusted metal finish. From size base points that touch the concrete base rise multiple iroko-clad piers that lean and fold together in community, supporting the roof structure. Inspired by the pupils’ ideas, these six base points are a reference to the six quaker values that form the foundation of the religion: integrity, equality, simplicity, community, stewardship of the Earth, and peace.
The project was delivered on-site to a tight deadline, in creative collaboration with contractor and metalworkers, Fabrite, and structural engineers, Eamson, without whose expertise the execution of this ambitious, sculptural design would not have been possible.
