Northampton Museum & Art Gallery: Its design has won a regional building excellence award for architects GSSArchitecture
The expansion and redevelopment project at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery has won lavish praise since it opened in July. Now the scheme, designed by Northamptonshire architects GSSArchitecture, has been announced as the regional winner of the Local Authority Building Control Building Excellence Award for the ‘best non-residential extension’ category.
The project has also been shortlisted for the National Building Excellence Awards which will take place in January.
The museum has undergone a £7 million refurbishment, which has doubled the space available, creating a dedicated shoe gallery, new exhibition spaces, a central hall, a new shop, café and outside terrace.
The museum is the latest in the extensive GSS portfolio of award-winning galleries and museums, with the practice’s links to arts and culture in the county dating back to the founder of the practice, John Alfred Gotch, who designed the Alfred East Art Gallery in Kettering in 1913. This Grade II Listed gallery is currently undergoing work as part of GSSArchitecture’s major redevelopment of the Kettering Gallery, Library and Museum. The Kettering GLaM project is set to unify all three sites, creating more flexible space and increasing accessibility to open the historic buildings up to be used by as many people as possible.
The success of GSSArchitecture’s recent projects has presented a number of opportunities for the practice to take part in some exciting initiatives, as part of its commitment to the training and mentoring of the next generation of construction professionals. These initiatives have included several presentations to University of Northampton design students, led by partners and associates at GSS, which focused on key considerations when working with historic buildings, including museums and galleries.
Partners at GSSArchitecture also took part in the Shoebox Town event, hosted by the Northamptonshire Society of Architects, which looked at encouraging younger children to think about their town and how it could look in the future, by developing physical models using shoe boxes.
Tom Jagger, partner and lead architect at GSSArchitecture, said: “The new and improved spaces at the Northampton Museum & Art Gallery are proving to be a huge success following the museum’s reopening to the public earlier this year and we are thrilled to receive this award which further recognises the great work carried out by the project team.
“As a practice, we place great emphasis on encouraging the next generation of architects and industry professionals so we are delighted to have been involved in recent local events, sharing knowledge and experience gained from our recent projects with the younger generations.”
n For further information on GSSArchitecture’s range of experience, or to speak to their team about any upcoming projects that could benefit from their expertise, visit www.gssarchitecture.com