The Jersey Architecture Commission said that the building – which will dominate the Parade on the site currently occupied by Cyril Le Marquand House – needed to be momentous ‘to deliver civic aspiration’ but that the plans it was shown ‘did not deliver the exemplar…desired or cited’.
In comments published as part of the current planning application, the Commission acknowledged its involvement ‘may well be too late’, but added that the brief for the building could be adapted if the government can take on board a series of concerns which it expresses.
Commenting on the scheme for the new government building by Dandara, the Commission says that the site constitutes ‘an important civic space for St Helier’ which could ‘give town a new positive redevelopment for offices set into its civic space’. It welcomes the opportunity to replace Cyril Le Marquand House with a new building and to create a new civic space around the building.
However, it raises a number of specific concerns in relation to the scheme it was shown, describing provision of an atrium within the building as ‘fundamental’ and expressing reservations about aspects of the design, including the way that the window arrangement relates to the building’s location and what it says is its lack of local distinctiveness.
‘The Jersey character of the building needs to shine through,’ it says. ‘The approach is un-Jersey being deep plan [with] no delight being expressed in the workspace.
‘Looking at other major civic authorities in Ireland and Europe the driver is making buildings and places that are attractive to work [in] rather than just white-collar factories. There is a worry that the character has been squeezed out by the adoption of a very speculative and corporate floor plate design that it less focused on the quality of the interior space and wellbeing of occupants.’
The St Helier Roads Committee has also raised concerns over the new government headquarters in a three-page letter published last month, saying it ‘falls short’ of what was expected and should be rejected.
The Jersey Architecture Commission was created by former Environment Minister, the late Senator Freddie Cohen, to improve the standard of contemporary architectural design in the Island. It is available as a consultative body, particularly for larger developments which impact on the public realm, like plans for the new hospital at Overdale on which it has been consulted.
