Stable Ground (Mix Interiors)
Studio West Architects turns a near-derelict stable into a thriving community centre – The Gardeners’ House in Penzance – employing clever design to promote wellbeing, sustainability and community cohesion.
Architect Neil Wall describes it as ‘the highlight of my career,’ director Miki Ashton calls the nine years from conception as ‘a joy’ and, within months of opening, it is filled with laughing children, volunteers who love being there, foraged gifts from the head gardener, and more than the occasional dog. Given that the words ‘community centre’ all too often evoke peeling paintwork, drafty buildings and plastic stacking chairs, what sets The Gardeners' House in Penzance, Cornwall, apart?
Converted from a near-derelict former stable in Penzance’s Morrab Gardens, it’s a building that few people even noticed—apart from, that is, founder of the Hypatia Trust, Melissa Hardie. She saw past the fact the crumbling former home of the head gardener was largely held together with ivy—and Grade II listed—and hatched a plan to renovate it, for the garden’s volunteers and as an environmental education centre and archive for the Hypatia Trust. As the brief evolved, it became even more: a hub for creativity, wellbeing and nature connection; as recognised by a recent ‘highly commended’ in the Civic Trust Awards. “The key principles [of the award] focus on a better built environment that is sustainable, accessible and community focused,” says Wall, of Studio West Architects. “The Gardeners’ House achieves all of these in abundance.”
And it achieves these things for a few reasons, not least because of the team Hardie recruited. Both Ashton and Wall have been on board from day one and, despite the project taking almost a decade, both look back on it fondly. “We spent a lot of time giggling," smiles Ashton. “Of course there were exhausting moments, but there were more highs than lows. We wouldn’t have got here without the dedication of the entire team, who stuck with us all the way through.”
Another reason is, of course, investment. The initial funding application to the Heritage Lottery Fund failed because it didn’t contain enough provision for self-sufficiency. Going back to the drawing board, extending the building to create more space for revenue-generating activities and obtaining amended planning and listed building consents, not only secured funding, but diversified the communities they serve. “Now I love watching different people using it, seeing how they use the spaces differently, and how comfortable they all are,” says Ashton. But it was more than just financial investment. Throughout funding ebbs and flows, and part-time, full-time, and above-and-beyond work, there has been an investment of care.
“We did it all on quite a reasonable budget,” says Ashton. “It cost more in the time it takes to really think things through.” She’s talking about tiny details, such as coat hooks and display pegs that look as good when they’re in use as when they’re not, a fire escape with bright yellow rubber flooring (“highly functional and also joyful,” she smiles) and and a ‘lab’ with an entire wall of sinks, each with a wooden ‘lid’ turning it into useable counter space because “you can never have enough sinks.”
It all speaks of a deep understanding of, and dedication to, the people who now fill these spaces; spaces that comprise a sensory garden with self-contained ‘workshop,’ a reception and shop, a large flexible ‘lab’ for school groups, workshops and classes, a generous multipurpose mezzanine, a ‘living archive,’ and the studio—used for everything from film screenings to baby yoga—as well as a staff room and a full-sized kitchen, in addition to the micro-kitchens and floor-to-ceiling storage cupboards that are tucked into every available corner.
It works because it evolved out of a series of design decisions that put sustainability, accessibility and community at their heart. Hot water and underfloor heating are provided by solar tiles and six underground bore holes. And, despite the stone walls having to remain exposed both internally and externally due to the listing status, the team achieved an EPC A Rating. A platform lift brings wheelchair users right to the centre of the building, the toilets are accessible, generous and well designed, and the whole building was redesigned to make space for a fully accessible sensory garden. It is also aesthetically beautiful—an ambitious heritage renovation that somehow feels like it has always been here; warm, light-filled spaces populated with tactile, natural materials; large windows with views of the Morrab Garden’s tropical planting and the sea beyond, and the ‘nature window’—the gable end of the building, glazed to evoke the angularity of branches. As for evidence of its success? That comes not just from Civic Trust Award, but from laughing children, happy volunteers, foraged gifts, and more than the occasional dog.
All copy is reproduced here as it was supplied by Katie Treggiden to the client or publication.
Katie Treggiden is a craft, design and sustainability writer, a nature facilitator and the author of Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023).
