Ballymacarret Friendship Centre is a community centre on the Lower Newtownards Road in inner east Belfast. The organisation currently operates out of a former Salvation Army hall and ‘port–a–cabins’ that no longer cater for the numbers of users and the various activities and events they take part in. We were commissioned to design a new purpose built centre to accommodate the thriving organisation and its users, while offering a more visible presence within the area.
A series of vacant areas between the existing centre and the main street were available. This was once where several terraced streets led from the Belfast docks through to the industrial hinterland of the Lower Newtownards Road. A recent artwork in the park adjacent to the site commemorates the dock workers and their daily flow through these streets to and from the thriving industry of the shipyards and ropeworks, which were the sustenance of this neighbourhood for over a century. Our work started on an urban level, by proposing that the new building acts as a ‘focal point’ as part of a renewed route to the re–emerging activity and industry of the docks and the ‘Titanic Quarter’.
To achieve this, we chose a ‘pivot point’ siting at the point where the Newtownards road frontage once turned onto ‘Pitt Street’, a now demolished terraced street that led toward the docks. We proposed that this route is re–created as a pedestrian and cycle street that coalesces with a planned extension to the ‘Comber Greenway’, with the new community building acting as signifier and providing active frontage along part of the journey. In turn, the increased footfall past the building might sustain a greater awareness and usage of the centre.
The building itself is conceived of as a confident civic presence along the expressive Newtownards Road frontage. Many of the Victorian era buildings along the street proclaimed their significance (whether civic or enterprise) through dynamically articulated front facades and pedimented parapets and eave–lines. As our building turns also toward the docks, we wanted it to simultaneously evoke the industrial architecture of warehouses, factories and cranes beyond. By introducing a saw–tooth roof of north lights (daylighting major and minor halls below) and twisting it off the street axis to maximise North–lit aspect, the building gains a dynamic profile from all angles, one that introduces a distinctive form that resonates with the architectural and urban memory of this part of Belfast.
Key internal activity spaces have views to the famous gantries of the Belfast docks or along the straight length of the Newtownards Road and are connected to a sheltered courtyard, a proposed community garden and the existing ‘Pitt Park’. By addressing the project on an urban level, the new building enhances the public space, civic amenity and connectedness of this often neglected inner city neighbourhood.
Ballymacarret Friendship Centre is a community centre on the Lower Newtownards Road in inner east Belfast. The organisation currently operates out of a former Salvation Army hall and ‘port–a–cabins’ that no longer cater for the numbers of users and the various activities and events they take part in. We were commissioned to design a new purpose built centre to accommodate the thriving organisation and its users, while offering a more visible presence within the area.
A series of vacant areas between the existing centre and the main street were available. This was once where several terraced streets led from the Belfast docks through to the industrial hinterland of the Lower Newtownards Road. A recent artwork in the park adjacent to the site commemorates the dock workers and their daily flow through these streets to and from the thriving industry of the shipyards and ropeworks, which were the sustenance of this neighbourhood for over a century. Our work started on an urban level, by proposing that the new building acts as a ‘focal point’ as part of a renewed route to the re–emerging activity and industry of the docks and the ‘Titanic Quarter’.
To achieve this, we chose a ‘pivot point’ siting at the point where the Newtownards road frontage once turned onto ‘Pitt Street’, a now demolished terraced street that led toward the docks. We proposed that this route is re–created as a pedestrian and cycle street that coalesces with a planned extension to the ‘Comber Greenway’, with the new community building acting as signifier and providing active frontage along part of the journey. In turn, the increased footfall past the building might sustain a greater awareness and usage of the centre.
The building itself is conceived of as a confident civic presence along the expressive Newtownards Road frontage. Many of the Victorian era buildings along the street proclaimed their significance (whether civic or enterprise) through dynamically articulated front facades and pedimented parapets and eave–lines. As our building turns also toward the docks, we wanted it to simultaneously evoke the industrial architecture of warehouses, factories and cranes beyond. By introducing a saw–tooth roof of north lights (daylighting major and minor halls below) and twisting it off the street axis to maximise North–lit aspect, the building gains a dynamic profile from all angles, one that introduces a distinctive form that resonates with the architectural and urban memory of this part of Belfast.
Key internal activity spaces have views to the famous gantries of the Belfast docks or along the straight length of the Newtownards Road and are connected to a sheltered courtyard, a proposed community garden and the existing ‘Pitt Park’. By addressing the project on an urban level, the new building enhances the public space, civic amenity and connectedness of this often neglected inner city neighbourhood.
