Magna

Location

Rotherham, UK & Europe

Status

Completed

Year

2001

Experience

Cultural

Re Use

Awards

RIBA Stirling Prize 2001

Design Week Awards Leisure Environments Winner 2002

Civic Trust Exterior Lighting Award 2002

RIBA White Rose Award 2001

FX / Blueprint Architecture Awards, Best Public Building - Refurbishment 2001

WilkinsonEyre won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2001 for this transformation of a redundant steelworks to create the UK's first Science Adventure Centre. A series of interactive pavilions explain physical forces and their employment by science, organised by the Aristotelian elements of earth, air, fire and water – all essential to the steelmaking process.

Our design concept placed the four pavilions – one for eachelement – within the 400m long, 35m high main shed, connected by steel bridges and walkways. A fifth installation, the Big Melt, demonstrates to visitors the process of steel production for which the works were built and which was so important to the regional economy.

Each pavilion is designed to relate to its theme in a symbolic way: the Earth Pavilionis located in the basement below the ground slab, while the air pavilion is designed as a huge airship which seemingly floats in the space The Fire Pavilion is a matt black box containing a tornado of flame and the Water pavilion is enclosed by a coolly-lit wave formed from steel.

Gateshead Millennium Bridge

Winner of the 2002 RIBA Stirling Prize, this unique crossing for pedestrians and cyclists was the world's first tilting bridge.

Science Museum

WilkinsonEyre’s long association with the UK’S Science Museum began with the Challenge of Materials Gallery in 1997, dedicated to the diversity of materials and their uses.