Way To The Pier
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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has awarded the 2017 RIBA Stirling Prize, sponsored by Almacantar, to Hastings Pier by dRMM Architects. The RIBA Stirling Prize, now in its twenty second year, is awarded annually to the UK’s best new building. Hastings Pier, on the East Sussex coast and overlooking the English Channel, can chart its history from 1872. For many years it was a popular pleasure pier famous for musical acts, but its recent past has been much more precarious. Neglected for years, it closed in 2008 following storm damage, and in 2010 faced destruction when a fire ravaged the entire structure. Residents and supporters were determined to use the fire as an opportunity to reimagine the pier. Buoyed by the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, a RIBA design competition attracted entries from around the world. London-based architects dRMM won the competition and immediately set about close consultation with locals and stakeholders, quickly reaching the conclusion that the pier must serve a wide variety of scenarios to be sustainable. Additional fundraising from a local action group found 3,000 shareholders to buy a stake in the project at £100 a share – this is the people’s pier.
The new-look Hastings Pier has been repaired and rebuilt, then creatively reimagined. The 19th century structural iron work, hidden below deck, has been painstakingly restored and strengthened following years of neglect, storm and fire damage. The surviving Victorian Pavilion, one of two buildings on the Pier, has been transformed into an open plan, glazed cafe-bar. The vast pier deck has been set aside as an uninterrupted flexible expanse for large-scale concerts, markets and public gatherings. The new timber-clad visitors centre building in the center of the pier, has a viewing deck on its roof providing a dramatic space for visitors to experience epic views along the coast and across the English Channel. The architects have used timber throughout the project, much of it reclaimed from the original pier: the visitors’ center makes a feature of its scorched wood cladding. The reclaimed timber has also been used to create the pier’s striking new furniture, manufactured locally as part of a local employment initiative.
RIBA
