John Pounds Community Centre
A Partnership in Urban Regeneration
The John Pounds Centre in Portsea, is a new community centre in the heart of the city of Portsmouth. It is one of the oldest communities that surrounded the old walled city of Portsmouth Dockyard and maintains the name sake of the broader community of Portsea Island.
The new building is a success of many years hard work to regenerate a socially and economically deprived urban city community. It is a result of a vibrant sense of community and place led by the Portsea Action Group and the Community Association in partnership with the City Council.
It is a community resource that boasts sports facilities, a theatre, library, café, arts and craft workshops, a Housing office, police and community warden office, conference rooms,rentable office spaces and a dedicated youth club wing.
It shares a courtyard with the new Medical Centre and was built with the over-arching theme of ‘Healthy Living’. It was designed in detail with community consultation and engagement by the architects; Capita Symonds Ltd and built by Fitzpatrick Ltd.
The modern building is in stark contrast to the old red brick Centre. It sits opposite a venture playground on one side and on the other; pastiche Victorian apartment flats and large contemporary buildings of the new University. The old ‘JPC’ will soon be replaced with a new housing development. In 2006, as part of stage two of the development, the courtyard will open out under an archway onto the main road - Queen Street.
Integrated Artworks, Community Identity
The public art project was developed by the City Council to work in co-operation with the architects and contractors. The community was clear that artwork should play a strong part in the new building and inspiration had been taken from similar community projects across the UK.
Integrated artworks and furnishing have since become essential elements in defining the identity and purpose of the building as a ‘community’ centre. The commission was to look at all external furniture and engage with the architects and community on the detailing, fixture and fittings of the building and landscape. The results are a range of bespoke elements inspired by local themes and the namesake of the building’ John Pounds’.
There were seven main elements to the artist’s work:
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7 x Tree grilles;
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41 x Bollards;
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11 x Architectural panels;
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3x Gates & railings;
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Pathway;
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28x Seats;
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Reception area.
St James's Street
The seven tree grilles along St James’s Street are inspired by water patterns or puddles that sit beneath the trees. The unique large individual galvanized steel shapes are inlaid into the paving and the design inlaid with resin bounded glass and aggregate.
Craft Heritage in a Modern Environment
Thirteen carved hardwood bollards depict a regeneration narrative of seeds being sown from large hands, at either end, in-between the cycle of growth, flowering and seeds line the main façade of the building punctuating the anti- personnel paving that keeps the general public away from the windows and door ways. I choose to use hand-carved, tactile wooden bollards to contrast with the manufactured modern quality of the architecture and emphasis the trade skills and craft heritage of the community.
Inspired by heritage
The St James' Street gates are made from wrought iron and granite cobbles. They are inspired as my much by my research into by ploughed soil and farming of the land (much of Portsea Island was agricultural) as the wooden
shoreline structures of groins and piers that trap pebbles in their shakes and crevices.
Creating identity
Eleven colour panels are inlaid into the building façade. Each is a different bespoke shifting colour that sparkles and alters tone in passing day light. The two tone effect is a unique iridescent gel coat that reflects different colours from different viewing points. As you walk past the effect changes.
This colourful ‘motif’ on the building was developed as a request from the community for their building to stand out from the opposing clinically modern style of the new University (Architecture Dept) Building.
The panels were designed to sit inside existing recess details in the façade. They were inspired by research into colour charts, colour therapy and chakra colours as part of the ‘Healthy Living’ ethos for the new community centre.The product used was first used on an architectural scale by the artist on another project but was developed specifically to achieve the spectrum required. The colourful result has made a significant difference to the buildings perception by the local community.
Aylward Street
The car park entrance along Aylward Street has seven carved bollards inspired by wildlife from the Portsmouth Harbour that remains a few minutes walk from the building and was the main source of employment and leisure for the community for hundreds of years.
The next set of three carved bollards, protecting the library window from car park traffic, represent the heart, mind and soul as symbols of ‘Healthy Living’ and the ethos of the community centre.
A set of pedestrian railings echo the design of the main gates alongside the disabled access ramp and entrance to the youth wing.
The Courtyard
The main gates are made from laser profiled steel and designed to be formal security gates yet have a contemporary and welcoming feel to the community centre. They curve inwards emphasizing the profile shapes and providing an asymmetrical gateway into the courtyard. The smaller gate allows daily pedestrian access with the large gate having occasional use for delivery vehicles and ambulance access top the Medical Centre.
A main feature of the courtyard area is the large glacial boulders used in the planting areas. These large smooth stones from Wales are used to help soften and accentuate the shapes in hard flat landscape of the courtyard. They provide a very natural and tactile, comforting quality to the modern austerity of the surrounding architecture. Crossing the courtyard and linking the Medical Centre and the new Community Centre is the link path artwork. The need to link the two buildings was a community desire to reconnect the two buildings that originally were to be part of the same development but got separated in funding streams. The design is inspired by foot prints and fish, both pertinent to the location and developed in a community workshop. The 250 footprints are all from local people who took part by open invitation and artist consultation events.
Inside the courtyard eight bollards celebrate food as part of ‘Healthy Living’ and the dockyard as one of the main gateways for fruit (particularly bananas) into the UK. The bollards show pairs of whole and bitten fruit.
Under the canopy of the Centre nine bollards protect a seating area and line the route to the main entrance. These abstract figurative carvings were chosen to represent the human condition. They were selected by community members from a selection of clay maquettes investigating the possibilities. They are simple naïve pieces and are not arranged in a specific order or hierarchy. The courtyard seats are inspired by the shape of a cobblers foot last (John Pounds).
The structure has an industrial aesthetic reflecting the ship building and industrial heritage of the area. The practical demand for a back and arm rest to some of the seats provided the inspiration for the heeled shoes, paired shoes and child size variations. There are twenty four Footlast seats in the courtyard.
The colourful organic forms of the fifteen bike racks are inspired by images of cell structures and growth researched as part of the ‘Healthy Living’ theme in the artist’s brief. These bespoke shapes are profiled from inch thick steel and brightly coloured to punctuate the courtyard with ‘fun’ and sculptural forms. Bike racks are all too often bland engineered solutions that litter the landscape and allow the clutter of bike shapes and colours to dominate the space when in use. This is a bike rack with its own presence.
The Community Garden
In the courtyard is a community garden made up of a central feature of three stone spheres, radial paving and four bespoke seats and three raised planters. The beautiful stone spheres are Indian rainbow stones, crafted and imported from India. Similar colourful stones, in a raw state are used in the wrought iron gate. The seats are inspired by the shoreline and groins of Portsea Island. The footprint like shape of the seat is supported by curved oak posts and the seat is inlaid with resin bound aggregate in a stainless steel tray.
The plants have been carefully specified by the landscape architect (Nigel Ford) to create a small, robust, oasis in the courtyard. The three central plants (Devils Walking Sticks) will grow into tall (25”) palm like trees that will in the long term create a central strong vertical structure to the garden.
The unique fence to the garden is also inspired by the old wooden groins and sea defenses of the local shoreline. The stones are suspended between the wooden posts and can be spun or moved by garden users. The gate, similar to the bin store gate on St James’s Street is also inspired by the agricultural use of the land and the proximity to the sea.
Queen Street Entrance
In 2006 the second stage of development will
replace the existing building with a purpose
built apartment block for Eastliegh Housing Association. The design will incorporate an archway that leads out onto Queen Street.This will form the main pedestrian only access to the courtyard and community centre.
This archway and footpath will incorporate some artistic detailing in sympathy with the new community centre. Work to be completed in late 2006.
The reception area
The reception area was designed by Capita Symonds Ltd and built by Simon Kohn Ltd of Bristol. I was asked as the artist to collaborate with the architect in the design and to advise on the planters either side of the reception unit. The original planters if planted would have been too deep to reach and maintain.
The solution was to provide a hard landscape/art feature within the existing shapes. The use of resin bound aggregate and stone boulders graded along two shelves to ground level was designed to compliment the sculptural form and texture of the reception desk and pick up on the shoreline themes of a slip way or Hard stand.
The largest boulders were to tumble out through the opening along the line of the screen to the base of the desk. Practical issues and a final realignment of the structure made this detail unachievable. The open top display has also now been adapted to incorporate a short protective railing screen, to prevent access, with a text artwork quoting from Recollections of John Pounds:
“Lets have no unkindness among us. No. Let’s have no jealousies; no ill feeling. Love one another; be kind to one another; delight to help one another and make one another happy. That’s the way to be happy yourselves.’ And we’s all good friends together…”
About John Pounds
John Pounds was an apprentice dockyard worker (1766-1839) in Portsmouth. After three years of work at the age of fifteen, he fell into a dry dock and was crippled for life. He opened a small shoe makers shop in St Mary’s Street. In the course of his work he took to clothing and feeding the children of the street whom he also began to teach how to read and write and give basic life skills. This accidental philanthropist, giving free education to the poor of Portsmouth sowed the seeds for what became to be known as the Ragged School Movement and is one of the forefathers of our modern education system. He is immortalized in a Memorial Church in Old Portsmouth, near to where his workshop was, and his name was given to the old primary school that was the original home of the Portsea Community Association.
Portsea, a history:
Portsea was home to a large Jewish and immigrant community as well as the home to the many dockyard workers and sailors families. Many of Portsmouth’s most famous were born or lived the part of the city we now know as Portsea, or the Hard: the engineering family Sir Marc Brunel and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel; George Meredith the famous Victorian author; Susanna Haswell Rowson, author; Charlotte Temple; Ian Mikardo the Labour Politician; Jonas Hanway the philanthropist and bringer of the umbrella to London. Portsea was also home to Jeremiah and Charles Chubb makers of Chubb locks, now the international security company and the simple device used by many of us to lock ourselves safely behind our doors, and Henry Ayres, Premier of Australia (Ayres Rock). Perhaps you know of some more?
There are of course many other famous people that were born on Portsea Island other wise known as Portsmouth. Charles Dickens was actually born within the old Portsea boundary - now called Landport - all of which is referred to in modern politics as the 'Charles Dickens Ward'.
Originally the Portsea community was built up on the outskirts of the walled dockyard town of Portsmouth with the working class living and working here, and the management and officers in the much grander ‘Southsea’. However the Portsea community boundaries have shrunk with time and are concentrated mainly around the dockyard and the Hard (hard standing or slipway), neighbouring Old Portsmouth, Southsea, Landport, Buckland and Stamshaw.
It is now overlooked by the Millennium Spinnaker Tower in Gunwharf Quays, a reclaimed naval training base that is now the commercial Mecca of Portsmouth’s leisure industry. Amongst the assortment of modern buildings, tall ship rigging and flag poles punctuate the skyline and ship anchors and cannons punctuate the main route towards the tourist destinations of HMS Victory and the Historic Dockyard.
Along side the older architectural residents is a growing University quarter and the local area is slowly regenerating into a commercially vibrant and desirable location within the city. Divided by Queens Street, Portsea is made up from a back streets of old Victorian Terraces and contrasting modern high rise buildings. The tall red brick wall of the dockyard leads you down to the Hard slip way, Gosport Ferry and the terminal train station of Portsmouth Harbour.