Luca Poian Forms’ competition-winning proposal for a new mosque near Preston looks set to be approved by the local council next week
The emerging London-based studio, set up in 2012 by Italian-born 44-year-old Luca Poian, saw off nearly 200 other entrants to win the RIBA-backed competition in September.
The proposal for the mosque, on the large, undeveloped plot in D’Urton Lane, Broughton, on the northern fringes of the city close to the junction of the M55 and M6, made headlines before the contest was even concluded.
In July, Preston City Council’s planning officers recommended refusal for an outline planning application for a place of worship on the brownfield site by local practice Cassidy + Ashton – an application made in an attempt to pave the way for the eventual competition winner.
Officers had concerns about the potential impact on traffic, car parking, the capacity of the mosque and the lack of detail about its appearance.
However, the committee instead agreed to defer a decision to allow for a site visit and to give more time for the applicant to supply more detailed designs.
The same committee will now consider Luca Poian’s proposed Brick Veil design, unanimously chosen as the winner by the competition judges, at a meeting next Thursday (3 February).
The £5 million scheme features an oval-shaped, three-storey building with a flat roof and a 30m-tall minaret formed from curved precast concrete panels clad in brickwork.
According to the design team, the minaret ‘makes reference to Lancashire’s well-recognised cotton mill chimneys, celebrating the local history whilst announcing the mosque’s presence in the skyline of Preston’.
The 1,685m² proposal includes a prayer hall able to accommodate 248 prayer mats, an ablution room, and a 150-space car park with four electric vehicle charging points and 12 mobility spaces.
There are also plans for a multi-purpose hall on the first floor, adult Quran classroom, Mihrab, female ablution room, a kitchen and a crèche.
On the second floor the scheme includes a relaxation room, meeting room, Islamic library and gallery.
Luca Poian previously worked for SOM and Foster + Partners before setting up his own studio.
His firm was chosen from a five-strong shortlist in the global contest, which featured two New York firms, Mcheileh Studio and Tabe Shouri, Lebanese-based BLANKPAGE Architects, and a joint bid by Cambridge’s Borough Architects with buchhandler-nelli and elca.
A future timescale is not yet known.
The structural principles are simple and honest. Precast concrete wall panels around the perimeter of the building will provide both vertical support to the roof and floors, and lateral stiffness to resist the wind loads on the building. Internal floors will be in-situ concrete slabs with exposed soffits that will act as heat sinks and stores, to modulate any fluctuations of the internal temperature and environment.
The internal dividing walls between the rooms will be used to support the floors in conjunction with a few slender exposed concrete columns. The oval roof has a simple, lightweight construction of deep glulam timber beams radiating out from the central spine wall to the perimeter, where they are supported on timber fins that sit on top of the perimeter wall.
A steel ring beam runs around the top of the precast panels tying them all together and supporting the timber fins. The structure will be on show in the completed mosque, which will not only save on the need for costly and time consuming finishing trades, but more importantly will infuse this sacred building with an inherent honesty and clarity.
The structural principles are simple and honest
The precast façade panels will be fabricated off site and delivered and craned into position on a just-in-time basis. This has the benefits of higher quality control, improved safety on site, less materials on site and rapid construction. Panels are completely repetitive in form around the perimeter, meaning that a single mould can be used to cast all the panels, maximising the cost benefits of precasting.
The panels are shaped to be wider in cross section at their base and tapering towards the top, echoing the traditional masonry construction of castles, cathedrals and mills. This buttressing of the walls removes the need for internal floors to stabilise the walls, enabling a full-height space to maximise the impact of the Male Prayer Hall.
To achieve the wider base without excessive use of material, the panels will have two reinforced concrete leafs – a straight inner leaf and a curved outer leaf.
These leaves will be fabricated and delivered to site separately and connected together on site. In between the leaves will be the insulation and membranes, but this interstitial space will also be used to route the air supply up and down the building.
Foundations could be low-strength (and therefore low embodied carbon) mass concrete strips and pad footings if the superficial ground material is of reasonable strength. If not then small diameter reinforced concrete piles and shallow reinforced concrete ground beams will be used to support the walls and columns.
The slender minaret will also be formed from curved precast concrete panels clad in brickwork fabricated off site. These panels will be either half or a quarter of a circle on plan, and in maximum lengths for delivery and cranage.
On site they will be craned into position and connected together with grouted reinforcement across the joints. This construction will stabilise the tall and slender tower, while also enabling large openings in the walls near their base for the lift.
The design has developed to maximise passive solutions to maintaining a comfortable internal environment by using the building form and construction thereby minimising running cost and reducing CO2 emissions.
The design has developed to maximise passive solutions
Uniform glazing to the perimeter façade and north light will enable a even distribution of daylight and the ability to control the artificial lighting in combination with external day light to optimise the lighting provision. Our experience at the mosque in Cambridge highlighted the need for detailed daylight modelling to achieve this as well as to study the daylight impact throughout the day and refine the design of the window openings.
With intermittent periods of increased occupancy we have developed a hybrid ventilation strategy using the floor void formed by the natural topology of the site. Air is drawn though a rock store to benefit from the thermal mass provided thereby tempering the air in summer and warming it in winter.
The innovative structural solution to the façade will incorporate a means of distributing this tempered air to the space. During periods of high occupancy the air supply will be mechanically driven however for the majority of the time the process will be natural.
To avoid bulky plant at roof level an attenuated natural exhaust path has been developed to avoid the need for a fan. The future of gas for heating is potentially uncertain, given the government's carbon reduction objectives, and we would look at how heat pumps could be integrated into the scheme in a financially viable way to enable flexibility in future.
An external energy plant room has been included to house a potential electrical substation and heating source. A range of heat pump solutions will be investigated depending on budget and potential funding streams with the base case considering a horizontal-array ground source heat pump solution to meet the base load and a traditional gas boiler installation to deal with the peak. This is a more cost-efficient solution and provides a back up heat source to the building. PV panels will be incorporated on the roof, for electrical power generation, where the profile provides optimal orientation for the solar collection.
Location Preston Local authority Preston City Council Type of project Community building Client Local charitable trust Architect Luca Poian Forms Landscape architect TBC Planning consultant Cassidy & Ashton Structural engineer Price & Myers M&E consultant Skelly & Couch Quantity surveyor Bristow Principal designer TBC Lighting consultant TBC Main contractor TBC Funding Funded by the community Tender date TBC Start on site date TBC Completion TBC Contract duration TBC Gross internal floor area 1,685m² Form of contract TBC Annual CO2 emissions N/A at this stage Total cost £5 million
Tags Luca Poian Forms mosque Preston RIBA
This is a beauty, I am sure that the LPA will support it
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