The Story, Durham

Brief

The Story is a unique new visitor attraction in County Durham, with accessibility, sustainability and the user experience at the heart of its design.

We led a large team made up of built environment professionals acting on behalf of Kier Construction to deliver planning permission and Discharge of Conditions for the complex redevelopment of a Listed Building.

Challenges

The development team’s focus was understanding the Listed Building and how it could be adapted/changed. During the option phase, they brought together an Internal Development Team (affected services, Design and Conservation, Landscape Design, etc.) to steer Design Development. They led the procurement and appointment of Conservation specialists (Simpson and Brown) to prepare a Conservation Statement on the building and then to appoint an appropriately qualified architect-led Design Team (Ryder Architecture). Retaining the significance and importance of the Manor House was crucial and the design needed to ensure that visually the new build was sub-servient to the listed building, despite it being significantly larger. The end result is an excellent example of how an architect-led approach ensured this.

Approach

To deliver the project efficiently, Kier’s teams were split into a new build construction team and a refurbishment team, who worked collaboratively together. Hedley Planning, working with DCC Planning Officers, facilitated the implementation of a phased approach to the works. With two vastly different building requirements, one construction team worked closely with the Heritage Officer to protect and preserve as much of the original building as possible, while the other worked closely with the Building Standards Inspector to deliver the specific fire, temperature and humidity installations needed for the historic archive collections. As the scheme evolved through the construction works, managing the Listed Building Consents and approvals became an iterative process as the project continued to bring new challenges at every stage.

Outcomes

The Story is a unique project that sympathetically unites a mix of old and new to create a superb new visitor attraction in County Durham. The distinctive building provides access to over 800 years of County Durhams history. The project showcases everything good about the construction industry. The teamwork, collaboration, adaptability and pride from the client and project team has produced a fantastic new facility and brought a once unused building back into public use.

Our positive relationship between the design team and local planning authority ensured we resolved any matters that emerged during construction in a timely and effective manner.