Crescent Wing, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
Norwich, UK, 1988-1991
Subsequent to the completion of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, the practice was asked to investigate ways to extend the accommodation. The solution lay in the natural topography of the site, with the ground to the east and south of the existing building falling away towards a lake. This slope allowed an extended basement to emerge naturally into the open, with its own glazed frontage on to the lake.
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The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia was completed in 1978. As well as housing Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury's collection of modern and ethnographic art, it combines two exhibition galleries, the Faculty of Fine Arts, a common room and a public restaurant beneath a large single-span roof, as well as providing storage and workshop facilities in the basement.
The opportunity to extend the building arose in 1988 with a major new gift from the Sainsburys to provide additional facilities. The brief included extended space for the display of the reserve collection, together with facilities for curatorial preparation and conservation and a gallery for exhibitions and conferences, giving the Centre far greater flexibility in its programming.
The original building was conceived as a modular, open-ended structure capable of future linear extension and the first expansion studies explored ways of extending the Centre itself. However, the Sainsburys saw the building as a finite object, perfect in itself, and they encouraged the practice to investigate alternative ways to provide the new accommodation.
The most logical course was to add space below ground at basement level. To the east and south of the existing building the ground falls away towards a lake. This slope allows the extended basement to emerge naturally into the open, with a glazed frontage onto the lake. The building was modified to accommodate study collections and work-shops in a rectangular continuation of the basement. Cellular offices fan out to the south-east in the form of a glazed crescent incised into the grassy bank. Behind the glass a naturally lit circulation zone gives access to offices.
The exterior gives little hint of what lies underneath. Approaching from the original building, a level grass lawn punctuated by rooflights and a narrow ramp disappearing beneath the turf provide a clue; but only from the lake is the full extent of the wing apparent in the great inclined sweep of fritted glass.
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Sainsbury CentreSainsbury Centre Website
Client:
University of East Anglia
Consultants:
YRM Anthony Hunt Associates, Henry Riley & Son, J Roger Preston & Partners, George Sexton Associates, Acoustic Design