The Hothouse Environment

Hot House Life

Squeezed between the main line out of
Liverpool Street and London Fields, the
Hothouse is a new center for public art
on a narrow brownfield site and adjacent railway arches in Hackney.  

It provides new headquarters for Free
Form Arts Trust, offices and flexible studio
spaces, facilities for training, archive
spaces and  live work studios
for artists; and the roof of the building also provides a large terrace for displays and events.

Although due to cut of the funds, no more charity based - public activities are being held there.

Image of Hot House activities courtesy of Freeform

 


Click here to watch Hot House Life Video courtesy of AshSakula Architects

The Interior halls are designed open plan, no division walls are made to separate the working spaces and desks. This causes a unique working environment that allows a lot of companies collaborate together and share their ideas.

Client Earth, The law firm who specialize in Environmental Law




Hot House History

"The site had a large finking the remaining houses on Richmond Road and its most recent use was a scaffolding yard. Big oil tanks remained under the yard from when it was used as a taxi filling station. The site included strips of land to either side of the twin viaducts and the clients bought some of the site leased the rest from railway. Free Form Arts worked with light and paint to take back the gloomy spaces from the burnt out cars and dead pigeons."  Statement of how the space was previously inhabited by Ash Sakula Architects.

Image of the site history courtesy of Ash Sakula Architects

 

 

 
The abandoned arches and those wasted spaces under the train tracks are now transformed to work spaces and studios and are being used by little businesses



Image of transformed arches and the housed current businesses













 The whole ethos of the Hot House is a friendly approach to the environment, all the companies housed there are very green and are involved in environmental friendly activities in a sense. From Jerry Tate Architects who recently were on Grand Designs for designing 'Hoo House' a low energy home in Suffolk, to Eluna, a firm housed in one of the arches, who design building material made of 100% recycled glass.

Image of the companies in Hot House - Centre for regeneration thought  arts and creative industries, 
developed  by Free Form Arts Trust
  

The Hothouse has also attracted the work of the Artist Maggie Ellenby who, inspired by the architects winning idea of viewing the site from the train set up phrases such as 'Breathe out...' and 'Had a nice day?' on the rooftop of the Hothouse for the hundreds of commuters who travel in or out of Liverpool Street Station.

Commuters boarding the Train and how the installation would have been seen 
Courtesy of AshSakula Architects 


Surroundings

  
The Building is long and narrow and wraps like a boomerang along the park boundary. On the park side a continuous glass window is sandwiched by two brick walls which are covered by green plant layers to keep the building invisible from a viewer's eye in the park.

Involving the local community with planting courtesy of Ash Sakula Architects

On the other side - Rail way side staggered brick panels with tall slot windows protect the building from noise and vibration.The Building has a different jagged form on the railway side which reflects the industrial character of its surrounding, compare to the soft curve form on the park side which is quite coherent with its organic and natural environmental context.

Roof Plan - jagged rail way side vs. soft curved park side

Light

 Image of the Hothouse when empty courtesy of Ash Sakula Architects

The natural light flows into the interior spaces especially from the park side. The light and shadows caused by the round windows create some playful shapes and patterns inside.

Image of artificial light and lighting just after completing construction courtesy of Ash Sakula Architects


The lighting on the ceilings are designed in lines that round inside. And the building shines when day light turns dark, the interior lighting flows out through the window, creating the effect of a warm, inviting space, a theme which continues throughout the building.

Material, structure and Concstruction of our super HOThouse

From doing the research into the different topics (listed above) we found that they overlapped so often, it would make more sense to talk about the materiality, construction and structure, of each of the components of the Hackney Hothouse altogether, so the relation between all three aspects and how they influence each other becomes more apparent, for example how a certain material dictates the structural capability and so forth.

 "Bricky Brick Brick..."

... as described by a child in the playground there are a lot of bricks! The facade of the building is consists of a brick called 'Ibstock Olde English Buff Brick'. The bricks are joined using lime sand mortar. The cement is Portland cement which is one of the most common used worldwide. The mortar was mixed on site. The architects wanted it to seem like one whole rather than seeing the obvious individual bricks the architects aimed to create a 'monolithic' affect, by using flush pointing. This juxtaposes against the feel they were creating with the soft shapes. Though all the materials are 'hard' their forms have been manipulated to create gentle curves. The vines which were purposely planted are called Victoria Creepers, this helps to create a bridge between the hard materials of the Hothouse against the original natural structures- the trees.

Here a rubber seal has been used instead of pointing, which continues all along the building. Although visually it is aesthetically pleasing, there is a structural purpose, it prevents the bricks cracking when the begin to expand and contract, which will inevitably happen after time. The gap behind the seal, allows movement. Below are drawings showing the different structural techniques used to create the brick facade.

Amoeba Windows

The windows at hothouse are created from galvanized steel these allow a range of forms to be create in a vast scale. we can also see that they allow forms to take the sweeping curve into an organic interests. they allow an open relationship with the forms in the park and help the building relax into its park environment. 

These forms were cast at a local forge in hackney called Old Southern Forge. this was  part of the planning application, and partly  due to tight budgeting and schedules.  Each window was individually designed , they consist of two slight variations of the amoeba shape, and then simply rotated along the wall. They were individually formed by hand to mm  however  the designer has allowed there to discrepancy but filling in the remaining caps with a plastic filler. 

Steel was used to allow the original form to be extruded and then applying large amounts of heat bend around the forms which were pre-fabricated. They took approximately 4 weeks to finish. 

Process of making and installing the windows courtesy of AshSakula Architects.

The materials sits well outside and inside of the buildings with very aesthetically pleasing. It allows privacy and security on the lower floor where grids have been applied to the ground level windows due to the relationship of the building with the child's play park. 

Interior Halls

Looking at the Staircase

The ambiance of the staircase, is very soft and inviting, which encourages people to take the stairs rather than the lift. The soft carpeting and warmth of the wood supports this.

What was really interesting about the staircase, was the detail of the nosing, Ash Sakula, were aware of laws and legislations when it comes to public stairways, for example how there must be a clear definition where the step ends, and a good grip. Although a small detail, the architects wanted to express some playfulness in the design, as opposed to the boring conventional used in the majority of buildings.

Detailing of the 'random' design of the screws to hold down the nosing

Hothouse was originally constructed as just a ground floor with the mild steel hothouse sign extending upwards as it is today. It was built this way with means to continue building floors on top. It consists of gallery spaces, office spaces and a glass gallery and rooftop terrace space at the top. The gallery spaces allow for work spaces to be double the height creating a really nice open light work environment.

Courtesy of AshSakula Architects

The building is constructed using a brick suspension system with contrasting windows starting at the ground floor with the amoeba shaped windows moving up a floor to standard rectangular windows and then up again to the amoeba shaped windows then on the top the glass gallery. .

The materials came from various places, some local such as the iron for the windows sourced from local iron mongers and tiles from Reed Harris in London to places such as Germany for carpets.

The construction is very effective because the previously derelict site is tucked tightly between the park and railway. The building was constructed into a boomerang shape which allowed it to fit whilst still maintaining lots of space by building upwards. The old railway arches are also used for various businesses within the same site.  The boomerang shape also allows the building to naturally curve round the park and with the amoeba shaped windows, subtle bricks and trees allowing the construction to fit in its environment.

The images below show a section and three plans which highlight the different layers.

Hot Ride

The lift was designed to move very slowly to encourge people to use the stairs. Its unique design allows a sense of movement through the space where people can see the floors as they move up/down. The lift is a single moving platform without walls or a ceiling. Because the building was built in two stages the use of a non convential lift meant it was easy to construct it in stages corresponding to the method of construction instead of having to install a normal lift shaft. The lift allowed people with dissabilities to use the building over the x amount of years it took to construct.

Hot Roof

The roof terrace consists of a glass walkway, which has a roof made up of photovoltaics, which help to reduce the carbon footprint of the building. Asthetically they are also quite attractive, creating intersting shadows when the sun comes out.

On the roof on top of the outside glass gallery there are 12.3 kw Photovoltaic energy generating panels. These are solar panels made up of many cells made from photovoltaic material which converts the suns energy to electricity. Opposite the main entrance the amount of energy generated is displayed. This saves 4 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Windows are all double glazed using low E glass. This type of glass absorbs and emits heat energy in response to internal and external temperatures which therefore allows the building to retain heat in winter and stay cool in summer and is therefore is very energy efficient.

On a tour of the building, from Hazel, the charity worker.

The roof consists of sheltered and exposed area's. Below are signs of weathering on the decking.

The floors, roof and walls are all heavily insulated with Rockwool insulation. This type of insulation is also used to reduce noise.



Walk to the Hothouse

The Hothouse

Front view of the Hothouse, inside the gate.

'HOT' view of train track from the roof

On our first visit we were unable to go inside the building however this gave us a chance to focus on the location and gain an understanding of the site and public opinion. We were able to explore how the building can be experienced externally.

We arranged a meeting the following week with a worker from Free form,  the charity that did own Hothouse but has now gone into administration.  The building was originally developed in two stages with the arches and ground floor being built first then having the upper floors added later.

The building is situated between a railway line and London fields park in a boomerang shape 10 minutes walk from Hackney central station. Ashsakula architects won the competition to design it because they took the train to view the site unlike every other candidate. The architects wanted the building to hug the park area and fit in with the natural surroundings. They aimed to try to keep the design organic to blend into the

environment. The plan below highlights how the building (dark grey) fits into the site.

The image below shows the themes and relationships of the building in its environment.

Collage of our first impreeions of the site.

The studies below highlight the organic aspect of the building, which was integral to the design. From the amoeba shaped windows to the vines purposely planted to camouflage the building to suit the parkland environment. The boomerang curve follows the line of the trees which there long before. The autumn colours of the leaves blend into the brickwork, and the vines are trailing all over window frames so there are no 'hard' materials in sight. After speaking to the architects, we discovered their aim was to make the building as 'friendly' as possible, all curves and organic colours, so as not to startle the children who use the playground.

Interior view of the vines crawling up the windows.

Public opinion

We asked various passers by what they thought of the building and what they knew about what happened there etc. Generally most people liked the design in particular the different shaped windows which they found interesting. Most people asked were local so generally saw the building everyday but people didn't know much about the function and purpose of the building. They were not aware about the offices. Some knew about the community art projects that went on. The building is very much hidden from public view behind trees on the park side. The rest of the building is hidden from the public eye apart from commuters on the train which at the . The entrances are simple gates that are not particularly inviting . The park manager didn't like it very much saying it was a bit odd and didn't understand why it was so hidden. Why create something nice that cannot be appreciated by many people. Another person felt the gates made it appear like a prison. There was also a couple who thought it was alright but seemed to be concerned about the fact that people could look out the Windows onto the park and children playing.

Our thoughts

The Hothouse was not what we expected from our initial research because we could not see much of the building. There was only one side of the building that could be viewed and it was very hidden by trees. We liked what part of the design we could see but it was not until our second visit that we really got a feel for the place and explored it internally. Inside it is very light and spacious and a really nice working environment.

  We did feel that the building was very hidden and cut of from the public which was a shame because it was a very interesting design which most people cannot appreciate unless they work there. However the architects did tell us that it was there intention for the buildings to blend into its environment and not to draw attention which it does very well.