The project involved the replacement of an existing admin building, maintenance depot building and the remodelling of an existing toilet block, with the new build works adjoining on to the existing toilet block, uniting all the disparate uses across the site into one, new, single, L-shaped building. This is part of a wider and long-term strategy to green more of the site, providing new burial plots, consolidating the individual buildings in to one central hub.

The new building forms two sides of an enclosed courtyard, which contains a walled garden creating a positive space for visitors and staff of the cemetery. The building also includes the addition of space for visitor consultations and a cemetery archive. A key aspect of the design was ensuring that the building was welcoming and sensitive to visitors looking to use the cemetery's services. 

Externally, a textured handmade brick was used for both the façade and the soffit, resonating with the existing brick gabled chapel on site.  A lime mortar was then carefully selected to complement the textured nature of the brick, with a flush joint, brushed to bring out the aggregate.  The use of lime also mitigated the requirement for movement joints breaking up the façade and facilitating future re-use of the bricks should the building ever be demolished. 

Aluminium coping over the steeply pitched gables is used to protect against potential lime run off staining the façade. 

The rear elevation facing the car park conceals the grounds staff mess room with a requirement to avoid windows on this façade so visitors couldn’t see in when they arrived at the car park.  To avoid the wall feeling overly austere, a corbeled brick detail was introduced, pulling out a series of bricks to form a band that shares the same proportions as the new brick columns on the main elevation and subsequently breaking up the elevation. 

As visitors leave the car park and head towards the office entrance, the wall adjacent to the pavement begins to angle inwards, widening the pavement and subtly directing visitors towards the entrance door, avoiding heavy reliance on signage.  This approach further facilitated the client’s requirement for an external waiting area, in which the fascia continues in a straight line as opposed to following the angled wall, forming a deep soffit to shelter visitors waiting outside.  Continuing the brick underneath to form the soffit was used to give the impression of carving out negative space from a monolithic mass, binding the building together as opposed to creating a more tectonic envelope.  A concealed gutter was detailed to further emphasis this approach, mitigating the need to face fix any guttering to the external elevations. 

Overall, the focus on subtle detailing has helped create a building that dissolves naturally into the wider site whilst aiming serving to enhance the overall experience for visitors and staff.