Acle Bridge Visitor Centre

LSI’s entry into an international contest to design a visitor centre at Acle Bridge, Norfolk. The project aimed to transform a prominent site on the Norfolk Broads into a major new tourist destination featuring educational displays and views over the surrounding natural landscape.

A cluster of cafe and social spaces are arranged along an elevated accessible deck length, sheltered by an over-sailing thatched roof, with external circulation spaces threaded between accommodation blocks.

An observation tower provides a visual counterpoint to the low lying landscape, offering a memorable silhouette as another landmark within the Broads National Park.
Timber piles, driven through soft alluvial clays and peat, provide the building substructure and foundations in reference to the hundreds of oaks felled just south of Acle Bridge for timber to construct Elizabeth I’s war ships.

An oak sub-frame sits over the timber piles supporting a ‘floating’ timber deck above flood level. The exposed roof structure, formed by a series of scissor trusses bearing on reclaimed timber ‘telegraph’ poles, is completed with timber rafters forming the substrate for the reed thatch roof covering. Raking timber columns and shear walls provide lateral stability.

Water Conservation is inherent within the proposals including the use of low flow sanitary appliances.