The new Cultural Centre for Southend-on-Sea stands approximately 2 kilometres out to sea at the end of one of the longest surviving pleasure piers in the world. The building brings new flexible amenity space, café and artist studios to the UK seaside resort and kick-starts Southend Borough Council’s seafront regeneration scheme.
Located in such an exposed space, the building is heavily insulated to reduce heat loss to provide a comfortable and inviting environment, while reducing the building’s energy requirements.
Orientation and large overhangs provide shading to the extensive glazed façade reducing solar gains while allowing maximum day lighting into the space.
The building management system controls the airflow cleverly integrated into the raised podium plinth to deliver conditioned air to the space via displacement ventilation.
The lighting scheme incorporates PIR control and daylight dimming to reduce electricity costs and more importantly carbon emissions.
