An exceptional collaboration between Bauman Lyons, the client and stakeholders has won this creative museum building both Regional Client and, for Guy Smith, Project Architect of the Year Awards
RIBA East Midlands Regional Award winner
Project Architect of the Year: Guy Smith, Bauman Lyons Architects
Client of the Year
Museum of Making, Derby Silk Mill, Derby
Bauman Lyons Architects for Derby Museums Trust
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 4,076m2
In the heart of the city of Derby is a building that represents the heritage of creative manufacture in the region, from the mills of the industrial revolution to the city's industry of planes, trains, and automobiles. To attempt to interpret all of this in a museum required a new way of thinking. The museum is located on the site of what is believed to have been the world’s first mechanised factory – a former silk mill, rebuilt in the late 19th century.
Once the client, Derby Museums Trust, had engaged the architect, Bauman Lyons, they and other stakeholders – staff, volunteers, and members of the wider community – began a journey of discovery and invention befitting of the city’s own creative manufacturing heritage. The outcome of these workshops, consultations, and discussions is a co-production, and no ordinary museum. Everything is on display and accessible, with no dusty off-limits archive. All shelving and furniture has been made on site by the local community and records are kept so damaged pieces can be replaced.
Project Architect of the Year: Guy Smith, Bauman Lyons Architects
The spirit of co-production extends beyond the collection and interpretation, io the building and construction itself. The grade II-listed former mill, in the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, lies between a river that floods and an electricity substation screened by a large blast wall, leading the client and design team to enter into an innovative integrated project insurance construction contract that enshrined a collaborative working environment. The historic building has been sensitively restored, with a low-tech, fabric-first approach to repairs and upgrades. It deserves recognition as a highly ambitious conservation architecture response.
Between the mill and the substation was an unloved yard over the former course of the mill race (the water channel that drove the mill’s machinery), restricted from development by easements related to the adjacent substation. As with the rest of the project, creative discussion led to this space being able to be developed, and it now forms the main entrance to the museum through a full-height glazed screen into the ‘civic hall’, fully three storeys high. The brick mill wall dominates one side, while the opposite wall is left deliberately blank to allow projections that bring life to the space. At one end is a deconstructed car from a local manufacturer, while at the other an aircraft’s jet engine is suspended.
The museum’s ground floor can be subdivided to host private functions while maintaining public access. Upper floors reveal themselves with not just the collection, but the structure of the museum on full display. Intertwined between all this are incidental moments carefully orchestrated to reveal views of the car or aircraft engine, or over the city – this through a new glazed gable window from the top-floor mezzanine breakout and circulation space, an especially successful modern intervention. The choice of materials and detailing of services is designed to enable quick recovery should any flooding occur.
Design and construction of the Museum of Making has been in the spirit of co-production from inception to completion and continuing in its day-to-day use. A ‘DIY’ museum, participation and collaboration are integral to its very being. For the client to be so creative and bold in creating a truly civic institution, and for it to bring the architect along on that journey, means both are thoroughly deserving of the Regional Client and Architect of the Year awards.
Contractor: Speller Metcalfe
Structural engineer: GCA Consulting Civil and Structural Engineers
Exhibition and Interpretation Design: The Creative Core
Integrated projects insurance provider/ soft landings & post occupancy consultant: IP Initiatives
Environmental / M&E engineers: Preston Barber, Derry Building Services
Sustainability: Ridge and Partners
See the rest of the RIBA East Midlands winners here. And all the RIBA Regional Awards here.
To find out more about the whole RIBA Awards process visit architecture.com
RIBA Regional Awards 2023 sponsored by Gaggenau, EH Smith and Autodesk