Port Royal

Competition: Port Royal and Eastern Town Architectural Competition

Location: Sidmouth, United Kingdom

Team: Prisca Arosio

Organizer: RBM Architects

Program: redevelopment of water promenade and space area whitch include community center, sailing club, boat storage, tourist info center, restroom and existing swimming pool and fish shop.

2016

 The redevelopment and redefinition of Port Royal and Easter Town needs to listen to its citizen’s willing and advises. For this reason, before starting with the design process, we have drawn few guidelines according to the survey results. The guidelines are: to create common space for community gatherings, to give more value to the sailing club itself, to bring back the the fishing tradition and its connection to village’s long lost characteristic with the sea front. Furthermore, the idea of the project is to implement a niche tourism that have been existed for a long time ,local adult’s tourism. 

The project proposes to connect all the most relevant elements of Sidmouth.  A walking path will connect the park, The Byes, The Ham, the Alma Bridge and the Esplanade. The path aims to bring back the relation between the village and the water (river and sea). 

The sea front building façades (along the Esplanade) are divided into schematic blocks and each of them has a different architectural characteristics depending on the building’s functionality. Thus, all the existing buildings on the Eastside of the Esplanade (except the Sailing Club) have pitched roofs that recall the fishing house typology. The design proposes to implement these features and create a new zone that has a very distinct fishing village characteristics. All the new constructions will have pitched roof and the new functions will be related to water, tourism and local shops.  

The design of a viewpoint platform would allow inhabitants and tourists to look out at the sea and to observe the sea front façade. The platform, in combination with the Ham area, will be a public space that could guest different sort of markets, festival, events. The platform is designed to even go below water (during storms) and keep the sea away from the East side of the “Esplanade” and “the Ham”. 

In conclusion, the project wants to create a walking path that bring tourists and citizens to the Eastern Town side of Sidmouth. This area will have a strong architectural statement and functional features related to water (Sea and River) and it will be turned into the most used public and community space in town.