A harbour arch at Ramsgate, fitted with plywood interventions for re-use as a Scandinavian lifestyle store and community space.InsidePlayTimberUK
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Archive is a design-led lifestyle store, café and community space in Ramsgate with a strong Scandinavian influence. With a family connection to the owner, we were closely involved with its evolution, from business concept to design realisation.
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The store is based in a double-storey Victorian arch overlooking Ramsgate’s historic Royal Harbour, a busy yacht marina.
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The arch, which had been used for light industry related to the harbour, was in a poor condition as found, but offered great potential.
With a wide range of community activities – exhibitions, classes and supper clubs – planned alongside shopping and café uses, our brief was to create a flexible, efficient and beautiful space with clear zoning.
Our main move was to contain the back-of-house spaces – storage, bathrooms and kitchen – in domestically-scaled plywood volumes inserted into the back of the arch.
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These interventions draw on the seaside location in their form, with bathing-hut pitched roofs, and Scandinavian influences with the choice of a single natural material throughout: birch plywood.
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With all of the insertions located at the back, the front of the space is opened up to take full advantage of the single-aspect views – through a series of arched openings in the front wall – across the yacht marina.
The material and geometry of the timber forms contrasts with the rough brick fabric of the original structure, clearly telling the story of its re-use.
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The primary ground-floor volume forms a backdrop and has spaces carved out for children’s books and toys, alongside a discreet door to the bathroom lobby. On the first floor, the angular ply volume is juxtaposed with the upper part of the arch.
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In the main space a copper grid is used to suspend lighting. Upstairs, simple pendant lamps can be moved around to suit a range of social gatherings, from intimate super clubs to larger parties.
With the arch dug into a porous chalk cliff, we created an inventive drainage system above the timber structures to channel any water ingress down into the basement and out into the harbour.
The joinery – flooring, wall panelling, timber volumes, display units and counters – are all bespoke, detailed in collaboration with a local carpenter – Phil Neal of Creativ Carpentry – and built by him, by hand.
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Careful testing was needed to achieve certain details – for example, the complex junctions in the lobby space where timber planes inclined at different angles meet.
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The simplicity – and character – of the materials chosen allow the space to speak for itself: a beautiful, historic volume with great views and good light.
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Archive customers instinctively feel at home in the space, and several have been inspired to craft their own plywood structures using similar techniques.
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Our strategy of minimal, meaningful interventions also translates to larger commercial contexts. At W3 at King’s Cross, for example, we have used timber again to bring together varying functions including a creche, gym and café.
![](https://hapticarchitects.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Hapticarch_Archive_Homestore_Coffee-board-menu-scaled-930x698.jpg)