Alnwick Gardens, Visitor Centre

Northumberland, UK

The Visitor Centre and Pavilion provide a theatrical entry point to the gardens which front the world famous ‘Harry Potter’ castle. The buildings, designed by Hopkins Architects London, reflect an original 19th century pavilion glass house though now with a modern barrel-vaulted gridshell design utilising the latest environmentally advanced materials.More than 340 multi layer pneumatic cushions measuring 2.8 by 2.8 m, made from ETFE, PTFE and flexible thermal insulation cover the two roofs as a homogeneous structure. The cushions were designed with different combination of layers to meet the performance requirements of each zone within the buildings. The project is one of the first to be completed world-wide to incorporate multi-layer cushions comprising of differing material types.