BIQ's Bluecoat
Project: The Bluecoat
Location: School Lane, Liverpool, L1
Architect: BIQ Architecten
Bricks: Hanson - Queen's Blend
Designed by Dutch architectural practice biq, working with conservation specialists Donald Insall Associates and Austin-Smith:Lord as executive and landscape architects, the project plays a significant part in the regeneration of Liverpool city centre.
biq’s design has seen the Grade 1 Listed building (the oldest building in the city centre) carefully restored and a new 2250m² extension built – a new performing arts wing – housing a 200-seat performance space and art galleries. This new wing re-establishes the form of the original school. It restores the Queen Anne H-space layout, completed in 1717 but lost during heavy bombing of the city during World War II.
The central concept of the design is a reciprocal approach to conservation with old and new motifs closely entwined. biq brings English motifs like the bay window and the terrace house into the 21st Century – the new form repeats a brick terrace and the rhythm of the windows echo but do not imitate, the ones on the original Queen Anne style facade. In the same way that the new extension has resonance with the original building; elements of new architectural detail, such as modern aluminium frames, can be seen in the old building.
The building has been extended and changed continuously throughout its history and biq designed the new extension as a continuation of the buildings’ historic development that has seen a generation of bricks over the years. biq made a deliberate decision to use bricks but chose a modern rough brick, stacked in tile bond and only laid in one direction to form a grid pattern. The short facades only show the headers while the long facades only show the stretchers, emphasizing the form of the wing.
The building is defined by a limited range of materials and a restrained palette – richly coloured stack-bonded brickwork, oxide copper roofing, cast concrete polished floors and door frames, European oak panelled doors, and bronze fittings. The result is materially true to its construction, strongly reduced in architectural expression, perhaps even monastic in outlook, whilst referential to the tectonics of the original structure.
The exhibition spaces in the new wing are organised along the garden’s colonnade. This ‘secret garden’ has been enhanced and improved, whilst retaining its special quality as an urban oasis and place to relax in the heart of the city. The cobbled front courtyard has also been restored.
The re-organisation of existing spaces and creation of better disabled access throughout is complemented by new retail spaces, improved function and meeting rooms, cultural business offices and arts and crafts studios.
This project won the Best Private Housing Development Award at the 2008 Brick Awards. The Judges enjoyed the way in which this new building acknowledges its context by taking clues from the existing warehouses without slavishly copying them. Whilst there are a number of materials used externally, the brickwork provides a unifying theme that is fundamental to the success of the composition. The buildings create a number of external spaces that enhance the experience of living in these well designed apartments.