We are incredibly pleased to announce that the Hereford Museum and Art Gallery project has received planning and listed building consent approval in July.  This marks an important milestone for the project and the culmination of a significant amount of investigation, consultation and design development, especially given that it also involves the Passivhaus EnerPHit informed retrofit of a Grade 2 listed heritage asset.

The Hereford Museum and Art Gallery redevelopment is a flagship project for Herefordshire Council, supported by the Stronger Towns Fund, National Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council Funding, alongside direct funding from the council. 

The host building will be the former Hereford Library and Museum, given a new lease of life as a dedicated museum and art gallery, showcasing Herefordshire’s culture and heritage, including providing a home for a Viking Hoard, found in the county in 2015.  The Viking Hoard has its own dramatic story as the two detectorists who discovered it attempted to hide and sell the find privately, which led to a long police investigation and prison sentences for both, and to this day it is expected that only a small part of the hoard has been recovered (https://www.herefordshirehoard.co.uk).

Hereford Viking Hoard / Broad Street Elevation / Woodhope Room

(Image credit: National Heritage Memorial Fund / Architype)

Located in the heart of Hereford city centre, the Grade 2 listed building presents a highly skilled example of Venetian Gothic Architecture and is located alongside Hereford Cathedral, which in addition to its own impressive architecture is home to the Hereford Mappa Mundi and unique Chained Library.  Constructed in 1874, the building was funded by James Rankin, the President of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club to provide a free library for Hereford and showcase the clubs pioneering research.  The club will continue to be based in the Woolhope Room, and due to its heritage significance will be largely untouched within the re-developed building.

The Redevelopment

The existing building has undergone various phases of redevelopment, starting with a major expansion in 1912 to the rear to provide an expanded library and dedicated art gallery.  In the 1960s and 1970s, mezzanine floors were inserted in the ground floor library spaces to further increase the size of the library. Windows were blocked up and original features were lost to facilitate the alterations which changed the character of the spaces considerably.

1912 Extension – Section / 1912 Extended Lending Library / 1963 Mezzanine floor addition

(Image Credit: Hereford Archives / www.herefordhistory.co.uk / Architype)

While the library remained well-used, the existing museum does not meet current building regulations or the requirements of a contemporary museum. Visitor numbers had needed to be tightly restricted due to the lack of separate fire escape routes and the space for museum exhibitions is comparatively small.

Architype have been working with Herefordshire Council since 2019, progressing and refining feasibility studies for how an exemplar modern museum and art gallery could be developed, funded and operated.  The conclusions of this work resulted in a plan to utilise the full building as a dedicated museum and art gallery, with upward expansion to accommodate a new café and education and events space. The city library is to be re-located to another underutilised council owned heritage asset in need of re-imagining to allow both buildings to secure their futures.

The design process that evolved from that feasibility included extensive input from the council’s planning department, historic buildings officers and Historic England to establish the possibilities and assess impact alongside the assessment of public benefit.  The council’s museum team, gallery designers and wider stakeholders, as well as numerous community groups and interested parties including the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, Hereford Civic Society and Victorian Society have been heavily involved in the development of a brief and design that considers the needs and aspirations of all involved.

The New Museum and Art Gallery

The museum’s arrival and circulation strategies have also been the subject of an overhaul to improve access and visitor experience.  The cellular rooms forming the ground floor primary street frontage will open into a full-width entrance and arrival space with a retail offering and orientation gallery to begin the visitor journey.

The entrance then opens to the historic stair hall with empire staircase. This area had many of its original features obscured including carpeting over the parquet flooring, carpeting over the stone stair treads, boxing in of the rivetted iron staircase structure and infilling of a lancet window to the north elevation.  Unsympathetic alterations also introduced a suspended ceiling grid to cover the previously exposed original roof trusses, corbel details and a wooden ceiling frame with inset translucent panels to allow light to enter the stair hall from a rooflight above and modern pendant light.  These elements are reversible and provide an incredible opportunity in the proposed design to restore this space and reveal the beautiful original details not seen for a generation.

Rivetted iron stair structure / Original ceiling above modern intervention / Current stair hall / Sketch of proposed stair hall

(Image Credit: Architype / Barnsley Marshall / Architype)

The proposed design sets out to improve the quantity of exhibition space and the quality, while the mezzanine floor additions in the 60s and 70s served a purpose, their removal provides the opportunity to return the spaces to their intended scale, more fitting to a museum environment. 

A new lift and staircase to either end of the building provide suitable accessibility to all levels as well as an appropriate fire escape provision ensuring the building can be used to its full potential and beyond. 

The ‘beyond’ is where the changes start to become more dramatic, the feasibility study set out a requirement for a café and education provision, as well as a significant draw in visitor numbers, and while the floor area has increased because of the library relocation, additional space was still required. 

As a result, the proposals seek to remove the existing roof structure and introduction of an additional floor on top of the majority of the building, at a level that ties in with the top level of the Broad Street frontage. This introduces a dramatic space for a new education and events space and a top floor café with external seating area overlooking Hereford Cathedral. 

The design also incorporates a viewing beacon situated in an elevated position allowing 360 degree views of the historic city skyline and beyond to the Herefordshire countryside, providing a direct connection to the context of the museums cultural and heritage stories and artefacts.

Sketch of new top floor and roof terraces

Roof terrace views (Image Credit: Fira Landscape Architects)

EnerPHit Informed Approach to Retrofit

EnerPHit, the Passivhaus standard for retrofit was chosen as the approach for this project because of its ‘fabric first’ methodology - which means that the design prioritises focusing on improving the building fabric first by upgrading elements such as insulation, windows and doors, which allows for a simplified services design and achieves an optimal internal environment in a lower-tech and more cost-effective way.

Those who know Architype will be aware of the practice’s reputation which borderlines on the obsessive for Passivhaus.  The reality is that it is the calculation methodology, rigour of design and the process required to achieve the Passivhaus standard that has really helped our designs evolve from an approach based on theory and good intentions (that resulted in generally well performing buildings) to an evidence based, targeted approach that guarantees extremely low energy buildings.  This has also helped us achieve much more consistent and better-quality internal environments.

While this is great for homes, schools and offices, when we take a building typology like a museum that demands a very close range of internal environments for the preservation of artefacts, artwork and other exhibits this takes the benefits to the next level.  The industry standard for buildings of this nature are to counteract poor performance by adding in large amounts of equipment, at significant cost, which takes up space, is expensive to run and is often so complex that the building operator fails to maintain it. This often leads to periods of downtime where the mechanical and ventilation systems are inefficient or out of action leading to an uncomfortable and unstable internal environment.

Taking a Passivhaus/EnerPHit approach provides combined confidence of an already tempered internal environment and extremely low energy use to really drive down the amount of equipment needed to service the building. This will result in lower equipment costs, more space and will leave building owners with a simpler services design with reduced future risk and significantly reduced running operational costs.

The approach taken to this project has required a variety of solutions to suit different scenarios, typically thermal performance is improved with internal wall insulation, although that varies from insulating diathonite plaster to wood fibre insulated boards, critically of course any material used in a heritage setting must be breathable to allow solid masonry walls to dry out from season to season.  The approach to windows again depends on the heritage significance so the project includes new triple glazed replacement windows, secondary glazing and in some cases ultra-thin replacement glazed units and replaced window seals.  Where heritage details such as cornicing or exposed decorative corbels exist, the internal wall insulation has been carefully detailed to minimise impact, while maintaining thermal performance and managing condensation risk.

Example Internal Wall Insulation around decorative cornice & pilaster detail

Next Steps

Securing planning and listed building consent is a significant milestone in the development of this project, but throughout the technical design and construction stages there will surely be further challenges.  Gaining the support of the local authority conservation team, Historic England and with the National Heritage Lottery funding making a significant link to the aspirational approach to building performance improvements, this project can be an exemplar for the decarbonisation of heritage building stock throughout the country.

Client

Herefordshire Council

Design Team

Architect & EnerPHit Designer: Architype

Heritage Consultant: Ferrey & Mennim

Structural Engineer: Barnsley Marshall

M&E Engineer: Spoormaker

Gallery Designer: Mather & Co

Roof Terrace Design: Fira Landscape Architects

Cost Consultant and Project Management: Mace

Key Funders: National Lottery Heritage Fund, Stronger Towns Fund, Arts Council & Herefordshire Council

Key Project Data

Existing Floor area: 2000m2

Proposed Floor area: 2220m2

Project Value: £19.1m