Chelsea FC stump up for arts facility in park
Mae has won planning for an arts and community centre in a former park lodge in west London.
The scheme, called Sands End Arts & Community Centre, is being funded by £2m from Thames Tideway and £1.6m from Chelsea FC as part of their community obligations for, respectively, the super sewer and Herzog & de Meuron’s new stadium in the borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.
It will open up a neglected corner of South Park in Fulham with a new entrance to the park via a sequence of open spaces and buildings including converting Clancarty Lodge, a 1902 former gardener’s facility. The site used to be leased to an eminent 19th-century horticulturalist. James Veitch cultivated orchids and monkey puzzle trees, and Mae’s design includes roofs that reference his greenhouses.
A modern pavilion extension to the lodge will be demolished to open up views through the site and into the park.
The scheme includes a hall and café which can be configured in three different ways for different uses plus a nursery.
The buildings will frame several different outside spaces, including what is dubbed an arts courtyard, paved with clay bricks with pockets of gravel, leading to an existing walnut grove.
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