Data
- Time: Design (Oct 2007)
- Place: Birnbeck Island, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, UK
- Area: 9,000 m² (eleven storeys)
- Typology: Pier
Birnbeck Island
Beach Road, Weston‑Super‑Mare,
Masterplan for Birnbeck Island, developed for the RIBA–Urban Splash competition on the regeneration of the Grade II* historic pier. The design features a curved plinth connecting the island’s various architectures and a series of towers with large windows at their tops
Text
Antonino Cardillo
The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries.
— Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670)
Like a naval vessel, a curved basement embraces the diverse elements of Birnbeck Island. Constructed five metres beneath the main pier, the basement is accessible from a ramp near the gate of the island. Its sequence of spaces links all the buildings on the island from below.
The vessel design counterpoints the new tall buildings, in plan oriented following the orthogonal reference system created through existing signs. The method of occupying the void synthesises diverse schemes: tower, linear, cantilever and gate.
In each of their narrow frontages, at the top, a big window marks the seascape creating a panorama like multitude of lighthouses.
worldarchitecturenews.com, London, 22 Jan. 2008.
Eugenius Birch, Hans Price, Birnbeck Pier, Weston‑Super‑Mare, 1866. Photography: Anonymous, 1890
Images
Antonino Cardillo
Testimonial
2007
The client
Linda Roberts
Your design was one of those identified in the first round of judging as having good potential and thus deserving of further consideration. The judges thought it was a very good and quite unique response, one of those schemes that people either really liked or did not like, which is sometimes the case with schemes featuring a strong characteristic. However, it did ignore the headland, and I would say that this was a factor that worked against it.
[email], RIBA, London, 20 December 2007. (en, it)
Exhibitions
2008 – 2007
Architectural Dialog 04
Popov Central Museum of Communications, St-Petersburg, – .
Curators Nikolai Fedotov and Sergei Kovaliov exhibited three boards on the projects Canto sospeso, Let There Be More Light, Ellipse 1501 House and Birnbeck Island, part of the Artindex Architectural Dialogue 04 exhibition at the Central Museum of Communications Popov of St. Petersburg.
Birnbeck Island Competition
The Winter Gardens, Weston-super-Mare, – .
Curator Linda Roberts exhibited the presentation boards of Cardillo’s Birnbeck Island project, submitted for the RIBA–Urban Splash competition, as part of the projects exhibition held at The Winter Gardens in Weston-super-Mare.
Publications
2012 – 2008
- Stephen Hodge, ‘Bring life back to Birnbeck Island and Piers’, The Masterplan, Sternberg Press, London, Sept. 2012, fig. 13.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Taking a position’, build Das Architekten-Magazin, no. 4/10, ed. Ralf Ferdinand Broekman, Olaf Winkler, Wuppertal, Aug. 2010, pp. 41.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Birnbeck Island’, New Concept Architecture, vol. II, ed. Xing Rihan, Rihan, Hong Kong, June 2010, pp. 230‑233.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘定格于时间之中——Birnbeck岛建筑群’, Landscape Design, no. 33, ed. LD, Dalian, May 2009, pp. 96‑99.
- World Architecture Community, ‘بوابة للعمارة’, El Beit, Cairo, May 2008, p. 13.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Stratificazione di significati’, L’Arca, no. 235, dir. Cesare Maria Casati, Milan, April 2008, p. 99.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Birnbeck Island’, Architectural Dialog 08 [exhibition], Artindex, St-Petersburg, March – Nov. 2008.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Island living in Somerset’, worldarchitecturenews.com, London, 22 Jan. 2008.
Credits
- Architecture: Antonino Cardillo
- Client: Royal Institute of British Architects / Urban Splash
- Translation: Charles Searson
- The competition judges: George Ferguson, Jeremy Gould, Neil Cossons, Ian Knight, Charles McCann, Elfan Ap Rees, David Turner, Jonathan Falkingham, Jason Collard