The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the Swansea School of Architecture
Location Swansea • Courses BSc (Hons) Architecture • Head of school Paul Harries • Full-time tutors 3.5 • Part-time tutors 7 • Students 43 • Staff to student ratio 1:12
Undergraduate
James Aneurin
Source:Aneurin James
Aerial view
Course BSc (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief N/A
Project title Waterway Research and Education Centre
Project description Situated adjacent to the River Taff in Pontypridd, the primary function of this building is purifying river water for drinking. The purification process is showcased step-by-step by tanks suspended within a central atrium. Flanking the atrium are two blocks. The first is an educational block for public visits and university study, the second a work-based facility occupied by laboratories to test watercourse samples. Views both internally and externally are deliberately directed towards the river, constantly linking the building’s users with its function. The building’s material language embraces a ‘fabric first’ approach, being timber-framed and clad in hemp render and cedar cladding, with construction details tested on a full-scale model.
Tutor citation James’s proposal has clarity and spatial richness. It is both practical in terms of purifying river water and offering an educational experience and metaphorical in terms of intervening in the landscape with an industrial process that ‘purifies’, rather than desecrates. Paul Harries and Gavin Traylor
