THE PAVILION - DARTFORD CRICKET CLUB This video presents the new £1 million double storey cricket pavilion constructed by Sports Clubhouses for Dartford Cricket Club working with Dartford Borough Council. The pavilion was constructed using an innovative, and ground breaking in the UK, prefabricated closed panel build method with exposed glulam beams sweeping across the first floor ceiling. The building will be used by Dartford Cricket Club throughout the year and will also be available for weddings, conferences and similar functions. The pavilion was officially opened by Alec Stewart in the summer of 2015. ABOUT THE PROJECT Dartford Cricket Club were desperately in need of a new pavilion as their existing facility was riddled with asbestos and not fit for modern day requirements. They subsequently approached Dartford Borough Council, the owners of the land on which the existing pavilion sat on, to investigate whether they would be interested in helping deliver a replacement facility. Dartford Borough Council have a rich heritage of investing in sporting facilities, led by their enigmatic leader Jeremy Kite, with the outstanding successes at Princes Park and the Judo Centre perfect examples. They agreed to invest in the concept of a new cricket pavilion project that would house the cricket club but also act as a community facility for other local users throughout the year. The clear aim was to promote youth and adult sport in the park and, also, provide a world class facility for conferencing, weddings and other similar commercial activities in the borough. Just as importantly, the Council have been determined that these buildings must be architecturally striking and elegantly constructed using innovative and renewable technologies. The brief, therefore, was to create a similar ‘iconic’ design that would reinforce the overwhelming successes of these projects. The Council spent some considerable time reviewing various proposals from different contractors that, in essence, met the brief but were simply unaffordable. As a result, Sports Clubhouses were approached by the Council, following a recommendation from Dartford CC Chairman Jim Lowrie, and invited to provide a solution. Sports Clubhouses put forward a proposal that met not only the design and brief requirements but also the budget of £1 million. A design and manage contract (where all of the elemental packages were locally tendered) was approved with Sports Clubhouses providing the architectural design services and then, on site, the construction management of the project including coordination of the groundworks, the demolition of the existing building, the fit out of the pavilion and, finally, the car parking and landscaping works. The building covers 670 square metres over two storeys and, when complete, will be one of, if not the, best non-professional sporting pavilion in the country. DESIGN The building is constructed over two storeys using a prefabricated closed panel solution that relies structurally on the vast glulam timber beams that arch from one side of the pavilion to the other. The walls are a mixture of larch cladding, to the top, and acrylic render, to the bottom. The windows and doors are triple glazed aluminium which, alongside the substantial walls, provide incredible insulation and heat retention qualities. The large picture windows and doors to the playing side are constructed floor to ceiling height and spread across the clubroom spaces on both floors to provide excellent natural light and views over Hesketh Park. External shutters will provide additional security and mirror the existing pavilion. On the first floor, there will be a generous balcony that will provide excellent viewing of the cricket. Music Tracks - 'Going Home', 'Quizitive' & 'Late Night Tales' by Lee Rosevere Used under Creative Commons License freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/

• published: 05 Nov 2015
• views: 277