Kielder Water, Northumbria Sculpture, Buildings, Design, Pavilion, Photos, Shelter

Kielder Forest Architecture / Art

Forest Park in Northumberland, north east England, UK

15 Jun 2006

Kielder Forest Park

The British excel at taking a beautiful structure and destroying it with a thoughtless structure. The Crannog at Loch Tay for example, spoilt by an insensitive annexe; many Castles, damaged by the tearooms and shops intended to promote them, but instead designed so feebly as to thwart them.

Kielder Water Sculpture

ufo has landed

Here are some photos of Softroom’s pavilion by the Kielder Water reservoir in Northumbria. The Press often show a building cropped of crude context and boosted by Photoshop, my site included. But here is some reality:

softroom pavilion

“When I was at the Kielder lake’s edge, home of a renowned architectural intervention by softroom architects, I have to say I was disappointed in more ways than I was thrilled, the frontage is interesting and the material contrast thought-provoking; however, walk around it, and you find an uneasy feeling develops.

bathroom pillion

The rest of the experience is dull, the interior even more so.

To top it all the Forestry people in their wisdom have erected four temporary toilets right beside the structure effectively ‘taking the piss out of it’.”

No larger image

shiny pillow

Belvedere images 1 + 4 by softroom architecture
Belvedere images 2 + 3 by frazer hay

Kielder Water Shelter – launched 2009

photo : Peter Sharpe

Location:Kielder Water & Forest Park, Northumberland, England

Kielder Forest Buildings

Kielder Observatory

picture from architect

The Kielder Belvedere is designed not as a piece of contemporary sculpture but as a shelter. It has a certain functional and typological similarity to An Turas by Sutherland Hussey & various artists