Great Fen Visitor Centre
Cultural in Cambridge at Competition Entry stage in 2013
The concept for this competition entry was as ‘floating’ circular building providing views across the surrounding landscape and views to the centre from the surrounding area as a means of orientation.
The brief was to provide 800 sq.m of visitors’ centre and recreational facilities set in the heart of the Fens in Cambridgeshire, in a highly sustainable and environmentally sensitive manner.
It is conceived as a phased project which gradually reinstates the landscape from agriculture back to natural wetland, encouraging wildlife to flourish and enabling the future arrival by boat to the centre from the wider river network across East Anglia and the Cathedral Cities.
The project was designed in collaboration with landscape architects, Hyland Edgar Driver, to be a rich ecological and biodiverse habitat incorporating renewable technologies, reed beds and a sculpted three dimensional landform around the car parking.