Oculus - Gateway art building
Holland Park Avenue/Shepherdess Bush Roundabout, London UK.
Rob Olins and Chance De Silva Architects
Rob Olins and Chance De Silva Architects have applied for planning permission for a dramatic gateway art building that will signal, at the entry to RBKC, an attitude to art and a daring vision of the Borough supporting a high quality 21st century building to sit alongside its highly regarded historic stock.
The building will provide artists studios, gallery space, bookshop, café, shared desk space and meeting space.
Oculus is a timber-clad, curving and elegant turret – which is inspired by the world famous Torre Guinini in Lucca, Italy. A tower with trees on top.
An ‘oculus’ is a circular or eye-like opening in a building. In the Pantheon in Rome the oculus allows light in, but it also a glimpse of the sky and, by implicit intent, a “glimpse of the heavens “.
In the proposed building, Oculus, it represents a number of ideas:
• An eye onto the world – where art can be transmitted, and seen.
• The literal ‘oculus’ which is an oval window – an eye-shaped window – giving a glimpse down from the street into the exciting gallery/bookshop space
• The oculus is a lighthouse for art in Kensington and Chelsea
As a circular building it also takes its place among structures in the neighbourhood. These include the glass water tower on the roundabout opposite the site, the nearby hexagonal ventilation tower, and the corner turrets of the Royal Crescent.
For more information visit RBKC Planning Portal 186 Holland Park Avenue
Angus Buchanan Memorial Park Store and Landscape
Purpose of development.
The Angus Buchanan Trust is a charity (no. 301506) it is managed by a committee of volunteers who
live locally. The committee also host community and voluntary groups to take part in volunteering activities to help manage the recreation grounds.
The purpose of the development is to create an accessible area in which heritage craft and other workshops for small groups of up to 10 people can take place. A metal container would provide a secure storage facility for equipment and tools. The site would be accessed from the car park by a level path surfaced with Mot type 1 chippings laid on a porous membrane with 6mm / dust chippings on top to provide a suitable surface for wheelchairs. The container itself would be accessed by wheelchair users by a ramp.
Design massing and setting.
The container would be made of metal to provide secure fire proof storage for tools and equipment to minimise the risk of damage by fire as the site has open access to the public. The container will be painted green. To the north elevation the container will be screened by native hedge planting and to the south by a planting screen of fruit trees and bushes varying in height from 1-3 metres. Some of the fruit trees will be of heritage Gloucestershire / Monmouthshire varieties.
The Angus Buchanan Trust is a charity (no. 301506) it is managed by a committee of volunteers who
live locally. The committee also host community and voluntary groups to take part in volunteering activities to help manage the recreation grounds.
The purpose of the development is to create an accessible area in which heritage craft and other workshops for small groups of up to 10 people can take place. A metal container would provide a secure storage facility for equipment and tools. The site would be accessed from the car park by a level path surfaced with Mot type 1 chippings laid on a porous membrane with 6mm / dust chippings on top to provide a suitable surface for wheelchairs. The container itself would be accessed by wheelchair users by a ramp.
Design massing and setting.
The container would be made of metal to provide secure fire proof storage for tools and equipment to minimise the risk of damage by fire as the site has open access to the public. The container will be painted green. To the north elevation the container will be screened by native hedge planting and to the south by a planting screen of fruit trees and bushes varying in height from 1-3 metres. Some of the fruit trees will be of heritage Gloucestershire / Monmouthshire varieties.