Hewitt Studios have repurposed a collection of ageing post-war buildings as a sustainable new visitor Experience Centre for the Morgan Motor Company in Malvern, England with timber as the perfect solution.
Hewitt Studios were invited by the Morgan Motor Company to reimagine their ageing cafe, museum and showroom spaces as an exciting new £1.8million visitor Experience Centre. The Morgan Motor Company has been making cars on the same site in Malvern England since 1914, employing generations of local craftsman to construct their cars from three reusable and recyclable core elements: ash timber, aluminium and leather.
Consistent with a brand that prides itself on ethical sourcing, natural materials, local craftsmanship and a long-lived legacy, the solution had a strong focus on sustainability – a series of low-carbon buildings designed to improve building thermal performance, increase natural daylight, reduce energy consumption, reduce surface water run-off and provide for end-oflife recycling of materials. The three new buildings all utilise prefabricated, modular timber structures which relate to the historic ash construction of the Morgan body frame. Moreover, they actually all utilise the same inexpensive, off-the-shelf industrial product (Metsä Wood Kerto LVL), which has been manipulated in a number of different ways to achieve a variety of different outcomes. The building is also partly constructed using local materials, including cedar from local forests.
This strategy of using a single conventional product in a number of unconventional ways delivers terrific value for Morgan, creating the impression of an expensive bespoke outcome using readily available ‘stock’ timber sections. It also creates an important legacy for the site, employing sustainably-sourced timber detailed to enable easy dismantling for re-use and/or recycling at the end of the structure’s life.
