Walk the Plank
Architect - Architectural Emporium
Client - Walk the Plank
Awards - RIBA North West Award 2018, RIBA Client of the Year 2018 - Sponsored by Tobermore and RIBA North West Emerging Practice of the Year 2018 - Sponsored by Taylor Maxwell
![WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE6jpg](https://riba-prd-assets.azureedge.net/-/media/GatherContent/News-Nine-buildings-shortlisted-for-the-2018-RIBA-North-West-Awards/Image-One/WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE6jpg.jpg?rev=397ead559e0d4b66934fa1a952462b5d&h=467&w=700&la=en&hash=393D325565E228FE05A7C32CC910CACA)
Walk the Plank is a theatre and production company with a wide and diverse range of work, including devising and making large-scale public theatrical and pyrotechnic productions, mentoring and training and working with disadvantaged groups to create theatre.
Their work requires a lot of space and a range of workshop conditions to straddle this range of industrial production and working intimately with people.
Working on a shoestring budget, they found a site in an industrial area – a rather hostile environment of waste plants and heavy lorries. The client commissioned an emerging architect practice to create a range of working spaces, and this has produced a successful collaboration.
The site strategy is bold and inventive, placing the new office building at the far end of the site on the busy crossroads, reached by a path running alongside the road. This gives the visitor an introductory promenade tour of the yards and workshops and creates a safe ‘street’ for all users.
Generously planted, this route contributes to softening and activating the harsh public realm whilst also providing safeguarding.
Situating the office building at the crossroads gives a clear statement of presence and activity in this forbidding lowly populated territory, with the pointed ‘witches hat’ roof acting as a sign of life visible even from the railway.
The architecture is economical and inventive. A beautiful sheltered courtyard is created by removing the roof of one of the existing buildings – a bold move for an organisation on a shoestring budget.
This courtyard forms a sheltered hub around which the other functions are loosely assembled – giving a delightful range and connectivity of working spaces.
A quirky interior refers to the company’s history on a boat and produces a finer scale of privacy. The client is busy with the task of ameliorating the harshest of environments; with planting, artworks and their every own exuberant presence.
Location Salford
Internal Area 1,062m²
Contractor Skyline Property Solutions Limited
Project Management Through and Around
Quantity Surveyor Modero
Structural Engineer Elliot Bond Ltd
Environmental/M&E Engineer Waterman Group
Landscape Architect Serena Finzel
![WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE5jpg](https://riba-prd-assets.azureedge.net/-/media/GatherContent/News-Nine-buildings-shortlisted-for-the-2018-RIBA-North-West-Awards/Image-Three/WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE5jpg.jpg?rev=0339b23eb1e9464ab59365e38d4b6241&h=467&w=700&la=en&hash=8EFAD41657F563804026F6CB42642BC3)
![WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE9jpg](https://riba-prd-assets.azureedge.net/-/media/GatherContent/News-Nine-buildings-shortlisted-for-the-2018-RIBA-North-West-Awards/Image-Four/WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE9jpg.jpg?rev=6e0189118c5f4cf38ce7e9de994fb9af&h=467&w=700&la=en&hash=0CAB0165DCA2538E5D1D90AB3AC774EF)
![WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE4jpg](https://riba-prd-assets.azureedge.net/-/media/GatherContent/Walk-the-plank/Image-Five/WalkthePlank2248SimonBuckleyWEBIMAGE4jpg.jpg?rev=dd2b230779424eb591b51b15c3f69b68&h=467&w=700&la=en&hash=C0989D5C008753B93DC337C04749EF07)