NI SCOUT CENTRE

The Northern Ireland Scout Council’s Training and Day Centre building is located at the Scout Centre, Crawfordsburn, Co Down, within the domain of the Crawfordsburn Country Park.

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The brief called for a new building to replace the existing Main Cabin which had commanded its position on the campsite for approximately 60 years and which was deemed to be beyond economic repair.

The Training and Day Centre accommodates three multipurpose-use rooms, each with self-catering and storage facilities offering flexibility to a broad range of user groups including the Scouting organisation along with community youth groups, school groups and the not so young.  An educational resource in the broadest sense, considering its landscape setting, location and accessibility to greater Belfast.

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The development incorporates within one of the multipurpose spaces a commercial kitchen facility for on-site catering for large events and a shop is incorporated for campsite user groups and visitors to the complex.

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The new building occupies part of the site footprint of the former structure, but its orientation has been altered by a few degrees to enable the new complex to visually relate to the main camping field and in so doing to maximize its southerly aspect, to which the sheltered veranda faces.

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From the outset the building was designed and detailed as a timber-framed structure, with laminated primary roof beams, timber windows and doors, a lightweight roof membrane, with the full building facade clad with cedar vertical and horizontal boarding, to blend in with the natural park landscape.  The lightweight superstructure is set onto a mass concrete floor which houses the under-floor heating system which is fueled by the ground-source heat pump and pipe coils embedded within the camping field, and ventilation of the building is provided by an automated passive-stack system.