African Design Magazine ADM #38 March 2018 | Page 37

BOATHOUSE 4
• Creating a welcoming and open
visitor centre that celebrated
boatbuilding activity, a skill and trade
so important to local people and
the history of Portsmouth, without
getting in the way of its practice in
the main workshop space, was the
main design challenge.
The vision was for this impressive
space to become a ‘cathedral’ to
boatbuilding that retained the
building’s drama and sheer scale.
Around the internal perimeter, Walters
& Cohen designed a building-within-
a-building to accommodate spaces
for learning and a museum that tells
the fascinating history of the small
boats collection owned by the Trust.
The visitor journey around the
first-floor mezzanine has the added
benefit of providing an intimate
birds-eye view of boatbuilding and
boat repair in the workshop below,
finishing at a new restaurant that
enjoys great views across the Harbour
experienced for the first time in the
historic dockyard.
• This was a sensitive restoration project.
Located at the heart of a historic
conservation area and above a Grade
I listed waterway, this building is the
only boathouse known to have been
constructed in a home dockyard during
the rapid rearmament period of the
1930s. In the context of its location
within H.M. Naval Base in Portsmouth
Historic Dockyard, it demonstrates the
evolution of dockyard buildings since
the 17th century.
A small section of glazing has been
introduced to allow glimpses into the
boatbuilding activity of the workshop. The
structure of this much-loved building was
retained, and a new insertion was painted
in a different colour to differentiate and
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