Martin Pearce applauds the respectful additions to the University of Kent’s Templeman Library by Penoyre & Prasad

Buildings.

Words
Martin Pearce

Photos
Quintin Lake, Tim Crocker

William Holford’s 1960s vision for the new University of Kent took the form of a sinuous trunk from which stemmed clusters of colleges. High on the hillside overlooking historic Canterbury, the university retains much of this structure today as a now verdant landscape interweaves the campus buildings. The clusters – likely inspired by Louis Kahn’s Erdman Hall at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania – feature an octagonal central hall surrounded by service facilities, setting a strong geometric order against the irregularities of the natural world. While later additions have somewhat detracted from Holford’s concept, the campus retains at its heart the library where the architect’s brutalist manner – seen later in the National Army Museum in Chelsea – is clearly apparent.

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Drawing on Canterbury’s cathedral, the library features repetitive bays of brick buttresses. These serve not only a structural function but also act as lightwells, bringing gentle clerestorey illumination down into the reading rooms, while the deep reveals shade the openings from direct sunlight. As with the gothic cathedral, set amongst tight medieval streets, the effect of this rhythm is best observed from an oblique angle – Holford’s building seems rather austere when seen in distant elevation, and the original central entrance overly diminutive in comparison with the heroic scale of the towering piers.

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Penoyre & Prasad won the competition to transform the library from its first incarnation as a repository of printed books and journals to the now familiar idea of a library as social learning space. Where most of the other competitors sought to distract from Holford’s brutalist mass with formal flourishes, Penoyre & Prasad deferred to the original, respecting its robust character, opening the central entrance and adding a new reading room and lecture spaces that extrude the existing volume with concrete fins restating Holford’s rhythm. Central to the strategy was the creation of a broad dais along the south front, establishing a promontory looking out across a formal lawn to the city and cathedral below.

The original building featured exposed U-shaped precast concrete floor planks, and much of the character of the existing spaces is defined by the linearity of the low coffered ceilings. Opening up the point of arrival to the new podium through the judicious removal of floor plates above the entrance results in a series of tiered decks that slice across the plan. The resulting dramatic juxtaposition of the new vertical space set against strong low horizontals gives a refined compositional balance.

A research project on the use of the existing library, led by Penoyre & Prasad partner Suzi Winstanley, included anthropological observations and time-lapse photography to reveal the ways in which students occupy space. This led to the design and prototyping of ‘ThinkSpaces’ – flexible workstations that can respond to these changing patterns of behaviour.

The interior of the new addition owes much to the enigmatic and serene spaces of Louis Kahn. On the upper floor the eye is drawn upwards to a checkerboard of rooflights, set at an angle to align with true north. The resulting lozenge pattern is applied elsewhere in the service cores, which are again slightly skewed in plan and faced with fretted panels in which the motif is reiterated. Security concerns required a single point of egress, which results in some lengthy circulation patterns, and the first-floor collection of newspaper cartoons links to the basement vaults by a staircase that has to be enclosed by a glass wall separating the public thoroughfare from the secure areas. Here the dilemma of making the library an open and accessible space while preserving security remains problematic.

A major consideration with libraries today is ventilation, as students and computers generate considerable heat. Penoyre & Prasad’s strategy at the Templeman is elegantly straightforward, with opening windows shielded by chain-link screens, stack effect in the double-height volume and cross-ventilation to cool the inner spaces. Both the metal grillage and monumental external fins serve to shade what is otherwise a glazed wall. The fins are hung and step inwards as they descend, restating the pattern of Holford’s buttresses but cleverly inverting the form, giving a sense of openness at ground level.

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University buildings must stand up to intense use, but too often a robust yet unglamorous palette of materials is employed. Here, however, the sparing use of luxurious surfaces brings a sense of quality and refinement. Pair-matched walnut doors are set against the concrete interior, for example, evoking the feel of the Barbican Centre. And John Madin’s fine and sadly now lost Birmingham Central Library, with its tiered interior set around a great central atrium, seems to live on here in spirit.

This is a fine and fitting addition to both the university library and the wider campus. Along with Penoyre & Prasad’s nearby Sibson Building for Kent Business School – with its expressionist curves and anodised fins glowing of autumn gold – it augurs well for the continuity of Holford’s exquisite vision of a verdant campus in the Garden of England.

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Credits

Architect, interior designer
Penoyre & Prasad
Structural engineer
Price & Myers
M&E, BREEAM, acoustic consultant
Max Fordham
Landscape
Fabrik
Project manager
Rider Levett Bucknall
Quantity surveyor
Betteridge & Milsom
Fire engineer
Circulation Design Consultancy
Building inspector
MLM
Signage
Art in Site, Studio CW
Main contractor
Kier

Precast concrete
Decomo
GRP void formers
AD Bly
Mobile shelving
Bruynzeel
Doors, screens
EZYJamb, Taskmaster, Leaderflush
Curtain wall, cladding
Kawneer, Leay
Balustrades
Medway Fabrication
Eternit board
MJC Carpentry
Glazed partitions
Planet Partitioning
Insulation
Roofline
Acoustic panels
West Drylining, Decoustics
Interior linings
British Gypsum
Lecture theatre seating
CPS
Flooring
Kingspan Access Flooring, Flowcrete, Forbo
Ironmongery
Laidlaw