Waterfront Project – Good design gone BAD?

Dec 2011 – Have you ever seen an ugly building in an area of beauty, and thought: “How did they allow that?”. This could be the reaction of thousands of visitors to Colwyn Bay promenade in the coming years – unless there is a reappraisal of the current construction plans.

The problem, which I illustrate below, is fundamental design change to the Watersports Hotspot building. Changes from the original winning design have altered the appearance and character of the building – to ill effect. (And despite the good intentions of the planners).

There seems to be a lack of awareness of these design changes – not just among members of the public, but also among some of the people promoting the design. This has been compounded by “public consultations” which have mixed up images of the original and altered designs (more on this below).

Detail is important

With buildings of this type, architectural detail is crucial – it can make all the difference between institutional-looking design (blocky, featureless) and attractive architecture. The original proposals show how the architects addressed this challenge – with curved walls, projecting roof section, glass surfaces, interesting features, attractive human-scale detail, etc.

Most of these features are absent in the changed version (ie the version that’s to be built). The underlying concept remains, but we’re left with two crudely intersecting ramps, ugly “internal” corners (which were pleasing curves in the original). The light, airy character of the original design has been replaced by featureless, heavy slab-like expanses.

Reasons for the changes

The Waterfront Team held some public sessions between 8-10 December (mainly, I think, to invite suggestions for naming the facility). I went along and asked one of the representatives about the design changes. At first she denied all knowledge of changes to the design, but after I returned with prints of the original proposals from the council website, she commented that “building regulations” and “cost” prevented the original proposals from being followed.

That’s all well and good – architectural designs are nearly always constrained by such mundane considerations. But I’d like to think these important constraints were considered before the winning design was chosen – at least to some extent (if not in detail). Otherwise, what realistic basis is there for choosing a given design?

A building like this depends on ambitious features and detailing to prevent it having a heavy, slab-like institutional appearance. If those features were never really feasible from the outset (due to the constraints of cost and building regulations, etc), then the whole concept is undermined. An unattractive building is sometimes worse than no building.

Such things are subjective, of course – and I hope I’m proved wrong. Or maybe there will be some design enhancements, so that we don’t end up with the heavy, featureless slab-like appearance shown in the most recent computer simulations.

Public approval

The representative I spoke to assured me there is public approval for the design. Well, there was certainly public support for the original, attractive design. The story gets murkier when it comes to the altered design. For one thing, few people seem aware that the design has been altered. In the public sessions I went to (on 9 & 10 December), there seemed to be resistance (from the representatives) to the very notion that the design had substantially changed. (Nobody can be in any doubt of the changes from the images shown).

At the Dec 9 session, the leaflets given out showed the original design (not the design to be built, although there were pictures of the latter on display). At the Dec 10 session, a large poster-size image displayed prominently (outside the entrance) showed the original design (images of the design to be built were shown inside).

Given this rather confused (and uninformed) situation, claims of “public approval” for the altered design seem premature. While there are many images available of the original winning design (from all angles, including interior views), most people I’ve spoken to have seen the changed design from only a few perspectives (the main ones on display being this and this). What does the road-facing elevation look like, for example? (We know what it looks like in the original design).

Update: The above is being debated here.
Update #2: Planning permission – Applic. number 0/38151
Update #3: Material mentioned (in 1st photo) is reportedly zinc cladding.