WELCOME TO OCTAVIA PAVILION

INSPIRATIONA celebration of the life and legacy of Octavia Hill (1838 - 1912), Co-founder of the National Trust, a hundred years after her death.

OctaviaOctavia Hill was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire in 1838. Seen as the founder of modern social work, she was a woman ahead of her time. An artist and a radical, she was a pioneer. She fought to save the recreational open spaces that were being devoured by the expanding metropolis.

Octavia Pavilion prolongs the stay in the memo-ries of Dunham Massey’s visitors. It is designed around her words.

IT FRAMES ‘THE QUIET INFLUENCE OF NATURE’ AS SHE SAW IT: IT SHOWS THE ‘NEED OF AIR’ AND ‘OF THINGS GROWING’ SHE KNEW TO BE

SO IMPORTANT.

Her National Trust is now one of the country’s largest charities and landowners, one hundred years on, her ideas and ambitions must not be forgotten.

SITE CONTEXTSecretive and beautiful, the site manages to hide amongst the planting on the path to the orangery.

Measuring only 3.16m wide and 2.88m deep, the site could be seen as a small and unsuitable loca-tion for our pavilion design to be built, however there is a secret. The beautiful hidden view of the canal running behind.

We wanted to introduce a stunning piece of mini-mal architecture, used to create an intriguing in-troduction to an arresting experience. An unmiss-able event, to encourage the discovery of a sub-lime natural scene that may otherwise have been missed.

The site lies on the path leading to the orangery and therefore makes for a prominent location for our design.

‘MEMBERS WILL FIND SOME UNEXPECTED NEW TREASURES’

hrh prince of wales, president of the national trust.

WithWith low-lying bedding covering the immediate edges and larger bushes outlining the surround-ing areas, cause the view to the canal to be ob-scured. We aim to make a feature of what would otherwise be a forgotten location.

DESIGN PROCESSWe began by analysing the site and designing within the set meaurements, outlining three objec-tives:1// Lead visitors to the view of the canal behind the site.2// Span the pavilion over the exisiting pathway.3// Make historical links to the site.

From the inital sketches, it is possible to see we used the ‘focusing of the view’ as a starting point. Our design was a timber clad structure that zig-zagged towards a window which perfectly framed the view beyond.

We then simplified the design to a simple square shaped, open air canopy with an opening for the view. It was then clear that we needed to extend this further into the site to make best use of the site.

TheThe main structural point we wanted to replicate in the final idea was the ‘frame’ - we wanted to ensure that there was an opportunity to utilise the site’s location and focus on the views that are currently left hidden.