Brockholes Wetland and Woodland Nature Reserve New Visitor Facilities

This new open design competition invites registered architects and architect-led multidisciplinary design teams to design new visitor facilities for the Brockholes Wetland and Woodland Nature Reserve near Preston in Lancashire. The competition is being promoted by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust in association with the Northwest Regional Development Agency and the Forestry Commission. The Project is also supported by the Tubney Charitable Trust.

It is hoped that Brockholes will become a nature conservation site of regional, national and international importance. The vision is to design a suite of visitor facilities for the Brockholes Nature Reserve that will inspire and encourage people to visit the site and engage with the natural world. In addition it is the intention that the facilities at Brockholes will signpost visitors to the range of landscape, recreation and biodiversity assets present in this part of England’s Northwest. The current estimated construction budget of the main visitor facilities is approx £4 million to include all interpretation, fitting out and equipment. The project is being funded as part of the region’s £59 million Newlands land regeneration scheme, Britain’s largest ever environmental programme.

The visitor facilities will include a café/restaurant, shop, gallery, education room, conference space and associated facilities, designed to meet the needs of the projected 250,000 visitors a year to the site. The suite also aspires to be a carbon neutral construction, drawing on local resources where possible.

http://www.architecture.com/competitions