Hackett Architects has transformed Caledon’s 19th-century Woolstore building into a childcare facility that embraces the municipal splendour found elsewhere in the rural village. Fearghal Murray visits. Photography by Mark Hackett
17 July 2022 · By Fearghal Murray
Caledon is a distinctive mill village in rural County Tyrone, its predominantly stone streetscape characterised by late Georgian terraces, Neoclassical set pieces and refined industrial buildings, which were grafted into an established agricultural settlement during the 19th century. Despite its noble character, it is a small settlement that, like many other rural communities, suffers from a lack of services that are taken for granted in larger towns and cities.
Addressing this issue, Caledon Regeneration Partnership, with support from the Architectural Heritage Fund, developed the idea of adapting the village’s 19th-century listed Woolstore building to provide a childcare facility. It appointed Hackett Architects to deliver 36 childcare and 16 after-school places via the Village Catalyst devolved-government initiative, which focuses on heritage buildings as the basis for renewal. This was accompanied by a Lottery Heritage Fund grant along with local funding.
Practice founder Mark Hackett was a founding partner of Belfast practice Hackett Hall McKnight (now Hall McKnight) before leaving in 2011 and is now also a director of City Reparo, a multidisciplinary consultancy aimed at implementing city improvement and transformation. A recurring quality of his designs, both built and unbuilt, has been the concurrent exploration of architecture at both human scale and the more abstract or urban scale. This is most notable at the MAC arts centre in Belfast, designed with Alastair Hall. Its carved central ‘street’, lit by shafts of shifting daylight, is inhabited at cascading lower levels via crafted hardwood booths.
Caledon is a small rural village, yet is characterised by moments of civic grandiosity and early 1800s Neoclassical urban gestures more associated with bigger places. No surprise then to find that the architect became fascinated by the juxtaposition of scales and perspectives he observed in and around the village and its surrounding estate. One example is the at-once grand, yet diminutive doric-columned portico to a tiny former schoolhouse for girls just within the walls of the nearby estate – a gesture no doubt intended to ennoble the educational experience of its young pupils but adapted, with no small hint of wit, to their stature and the scale of their cottage classroom behind.
An elegant concrete portico to the new nursery steps down the hill with a rhythm that syncs with a listed terrace beyond
On approach to the Woolstore on Mill Street, we are greeted by the architect’s interpretation of this: an elegant concrete portico to the new nursery that steps down the hill with a rhythm that syncs with a listed terrace beyond. Hackett speaks about an initial intention to use single pieces of stone as columns to support his portico, though costs proved prohibitive. Instead, more affordable shot-blasted concrete columns are softened by a sheltered hardwood window bench running behind and a third façade layer in the same dark wood that encloses staff spaces with windows opening to the street. On passing through the portico, a second row of internal concrete columns supports the first floor of the extension and opens up the hallway between old and new.
Three classrooms are stacked in the three storeys of the old building, accessed by an oak stair that passes in and out through the old walls of the Woolstore, with daylight from original window openings leading you up.
At first floor level, the new extension connects to the existing raised gardens, with a fourth classroom pivoting to orientate toward the village via four oversized timber sash windows. These windows open at child eye level to the gardens and at high level to provide ventilation to the room. Arriving into this space lifts the spirit, with a gently sloping ceiling opening toward the elevated west-facing garden and to the ad-hoc rear elevation of the main village street beyond.
Hackett shares concerns about overheating as a pay-off to this uplifting light and aspect, but the depth of the concrete-finned façade should mitigate the worst overheating during the hours the kids will be present, while the huge sash top and bottom openings will generate cooling fresh air movement when required.
A rhythmic concrete fin façade has references to post-war education architecture of larger institutions, here given a more humane demeanour
This rhythmic concrete fin façade of the upper-storey extension has references to post-war education architecture of larger institutions. However, as with the entrance portico, they are given a more humane and contextual demeanour via secondary material and details, with cut limestone below painted hardwood sash windows with brass fittings. Elsewhere, the same stone slabs cap parapets and external balustrades, mark all thresholds and extend across the ground-floor hallway to the rear garden. This external palette of rubble stone, shot-blasted concrete, cut limestone and hardwood feels timeless, sensitive and robust.
A streetside roof terrace opens from this first-floor classroom, with the portico at the street entrance extending up to form a parapet balustrade. It’s a clever move that allows the portico to have a proportion beyond the spaces behind (à la the old schoolhouse) while giving the ‘play’ terrace a secure, private and solid feel.
The childcare space created in the existing mill’s top-floor ‘loft’ is left open to the original massive timber king trusses and hoist beams, while the floor level is carefully set so the original window openings are at perfect height for the small people to sit in, draw on or jump off. Painted timber linings and sills mark this datum and give a softer surface than the exposed stone at child level while providing a sacrificial surface to repaint after a few years of toddler wear and tear.
The floors of the childcare rooms are lined in natural linoleum over a suspended timber build-up that allows some give under the rough and tumble of children, while lending the spaces a softer, domestic quality than would have been achieved with screed. This also provided a useful service zone in an exposed stone historic building.
Internally, oak floors, bronze door handles and carefully selected light fittings bring a domestic rather than institutional quality. The colour palette imparts calmness and subtle warmth to the spaces, with variants of off-white and earthy greys chosen to complement limewashed rubble stone walls, while allowing the children to bring their own colour and expression.
Hackett moved on from the Hackett Hall McKnight years to focus on not-for-profit activist urbanism via Forum for Alternative Belfast, while also working tirelessly to develop and lobby (successfully we hope) for alternatives to another deeply damaging urban motorway project in his home city. In the interim, we’ve been limited to glimpses of projects on paper, so it is to the benefit of architecture here, and in this instance the village life and built heritage of Caledon, to see him return again to making richly layered and spatially powerful buildings, alongside his influential work at the scale of the city. Fearghal Murray is co-founder of MMAS Architecture, based in Belfast
The entrance and ancillary functions replace an original side retaining wall and shed. Excavated material was reused locally on site. This base, set into the sloped site, allows the upper floors to access the garden via a roof terrace. The aim was to restrict the use of concrete to this base. A stabilising frame allowed deep engineered timber joists to form walls, floors and roofs, filled to achieve high insulation values. We also decided to avoid concrete screeds, in part because the use of timber floors offers a warmer resilient surface for children.
An air-source heat pump supplies the underfloor heating. Hot water systems were simplified into localised heaters since demand is relatively low. A low-speed attenuated extractor draws air from the toilet areas to create trickle ventilation. The mechanical and electrical systems have been kept simple to operate and renew, carefully planned to avoid suspended ceilings. Most rooms have good natural lighting and a softer, less institutional, lighting environment.
The timber linings allow a practical zone for children, and insulate the stone walls and reveals with sheep’s wool. Mineral wool was generally used in most elements. The stone walls were cleaned, repointed and limewashed; the relatively small area of exposed wall being offset by high U-values elsewhere. Linoleum and timber floors are used throughout with a local Irish limestone in the entrance threshold. Mark Hackett, director, Hackett Architects
The Regeneration Partnership has saved a number of local heritage buildings, including a beam engine opposite the Woolstore at the site of the former mill. The Woolstore had been stabilised a decade ago. The Village Catalyst programme is an innovative grant partnership to save buildings for social use. It included the Architectural Heritage Fund and local funders.
A feasibility study identified the need for a childcare facility to reduce travel and to support two local primary schools. There are a number of small housing projects to sustain the village.
The childcare facility brief was developed around Health Trust requirements. The lands at the rear were not part of the Woolstore and this restricted the site. Caledon Regeneration Partnership
The use of concrete for the retaining wall and foundations was extended up as a partial frame to stabilise the wider use of timber engineered joists in the superstructure.
The terrace also employs exposed blast finished concrete as a robust fire-rated base for this flat roof used as an exit. This new concrete structure is held 2m back from the Woolstore gable and its foundations, and bridged in timber floor joists and roofs directly to the existing wall. The use of concrete is exposed throughout the rooms and portico as a robust low-cost finish and acts as an armature to support the wider adjacent use of simple timber structures.
The sheltered front wall is insulated and clad in timber integrated into the window screen and long seat. The detail integrates linear light into the soffit to give a soft wash to the entrance in the winter season. The portico also acts as a solid handrail, disguising the upper private terrace.
Raised timber floors are used in lieu of screeds generally. In this section they are ventilated and allow drainage services above and within the tanked concrete structure to emerge making use of the sloped site for connection in the street.
The timber superstructure elements are deep engineered joists allowing depth of mineral insulation and are clad in zinc on both the walls and roof. Mark Hackett, director, Hackett Architects
Start on site December 2020 Completion May 2022 Gross internal floor area 388m2 Construction cost £535,000 (including landscape) Construction cost per m2 £1,380 (including landscape) Architect Hackett Architects Client Caledon Regeneration Partnership Structural engineer MWL Consulting Engineers M&E consultant Light and Design Conservation McCollum Conservation Quantity surveyor John A Tynan + Co Main contractor O’Hanlon Bros Construction CAD software used AutoCAD
Tags Caledon County Tyrone Mark Hackett Northern Ireland Primary care
A childcare facility that manages to look ‘grown up’, rather than something dreamed up during a sugar rush. Well done.
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