Bath-based building design experts, led by architectural practices Mark Wray Architects and Grant Associates, have teamed up to design an innovative new visitor shelter for a living memorial site dedicated to the fallen of the First World War.
Langley Vale Wood in Epsom, Surrey, is the largest of The Woodland Trust’s four First World War centenary woods.
The 259-hectare site, which was used for training during the war, has been transformed in the past decade into a nature haven and a living memorial for those who sacrificed so much.
The site also includes a network of trails, footpaths and bridleways and a number of evocative stone and wooden sculptures dotted around it.
Mark Wray Architects originally won an open competition staged by RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) to design a visitor’s centre on the site in 2016.
Following a revision to the brief, the practice went on to win a limited competition for the project in 2022.
Now it has submitted plans for the project, leading a core design team that includes landscape architects Grant Associates.
The proposed design for the new visitor shelter is for a large wooden structure inspired by the leafy canopy of ancient beech trees.
Seven double arch, glulam (glued laminated) timber bays will create a 24m-long shelter, providing a welcoming entry space to the site, basic protection from the elements and an accessible area for temporary exhibitions.
The structure will be sympathetic to the landscape and built from sustainable natural materials. Enhancing local biodiversity is central to the landscape strategy, including the use of local provenance seed stock harvested from the site to extend the species-rich chalk grassland.
The core design team also includes Bath-based structural engineers Fold Consulting Engineers, quantity surveyors/principal designers Western Building Consultants, and timber specialists Woodenhouse, based in Wells.
The wider team of consultants includes Navigate Planning (planning consultant), Nimbus Environmental Consulting (environmental consultants), Peter Radmall Associates (LIVA consultant), Southern Ecology Solutions (ecological consultant), Surrey County Archaeological Unit (archaeology consultant) and SJA Trees (arboricultural consultant).
Mark Wray Architects was established in 2013 to specialise in the re-imagining of historic buildings and sensitive contemporary new design.
Its projects range from private houses through to public buildings and include the award-winning conversion of the Grade II listed former Friends Meeting House in York Street, Bath, into a bookshop for Topping and Company, and the refurbishment and extension to a Grade I listed townhouse on Bath’s Henrietta Street.
Grant Associates is globally recognised for its environmentally driven work such as the iconic Supertrees and Gardens by the Bay in Singapore – where it also has an office – and, more recently, the Tower of London Superbloom project, part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations 2022.
