Assignment 3 - research

Boathouse 6 - Portsmouth Historic dockyard

Boathouse 6  houses a high tech, interactive tourist attraction called Action Stations.

When I researched the building I discovered that, not surprisingly perhaps given it’s location in the Historic Dockyard, it was a scheduled ancient monument ( Grade II listed ).

P925: F14 @ 1/30  18mm  ISO100

Action Stations is a real leap from its original purpose and design – it was built  in 1846 for the building, repair and storage of the Navy’s small ships’ small boats pulled up one of the three slipways outside the front of the building. Amazingly,the Boathouse remained in use until the Portsmouth Blitz in March 1941, when a bomb destroyed much of the rear of the building. A temporary repair to make the building operational followed and then it was converted into Action Stations in the late 1990s.

This conversion presented the  challenge of changing the building into a state of the art exhibition space fulfilling complex exhibition requirements within the constraints of the original building while respecting and complimenting its original construction and fabric. Research told me that the conversion by  M.J.P. Architects retained  the open character of the interior of the building allowing uninterrupted views of its unique frame of long span cast iron beams with wrought iron ties. 

The building then had a further major refurbishment in the winter of 2005/6 so I was intrigued to see whether this followed the philosophy of the original conversion.