Creekside Onside

The Deptford Creekside Visitor’s Centre, a local environmental educational centre, is up-scaling after 15 years. The centre has outgrown it’s existing building. To provide a solution for the next 15+ years Baca and Structurhaus Engineers have developed plans to build right over the existing centre. A portal frame will support 5 repurposed shipping containers to expand the exiting classroom facilities and a new 1^st floor deck will provide external teaching space. This will provide a playful teaching experience and creating a unique vantage point for visitor’s to view the wildlife habitats found across the site and the Creek. The ingenious solution allows the centre to continue during construction and minimizes the time on site by using prefabricated building solutions.

The new centre has won the support of the local community, the local MP and has now been submitted for planning consent after extensive pre-application consultation. A positive decision is expected early in 2016.

Successful Creekside Public Consultation

Two public consultations were held this month in order to convey the latest proposals for the expansion of the Creekside Educational Trust’s Discovery Centre building. The afternoon and evening sessions provided a great opportunity for the team to present the evolved design that had been progressed from the previous consultation.

The vision for the upscaling of the Creekside Discovery Centre is to create a stimulating environment for children with ecology at its heart. The design hinges on a structural portal frame, designed to be flexible enough to receive shipping containers in different arrangements. It will also future-proof the building for alternative arrangements in the future.

Members of the local community, supporters of the Trust, adjacent developers, the EA and representatives from the local planning authority and the design team all took part. Both events were well attended and the feedback on the revised design was positive. The display boards from the presentation are now on permanent display at Creekside.