Coming of age

With a string of major projects nearing completion, Ken Powell sees a bright future for Pringle Richards Sharratt

So far for Pringle Richards Sharratt, 2001 has been a highly significant year one in which projects have steadily turned into completed buildings. In February, the music school at Shrewsbury was opened by the Prince of Wales - "it lifts the spirits", the Prince opined. And the first phase of a major cultural complex in Oldham will be completed in the autumn – a commission won on the strength of the practice's most important project to date, the Millennium Galleries and Winter Garden in Sheffield, the first phase of which opened last week (see Building Study).

Pringle Richards Sharratt was formed in 1996 when John Pringle and Ian Sharratt quit the Michael Hopkins office where both had been partners since 1981. The third director, Penny Richards - Pringle's wife - has particular expertise in museums and galleries. There are currently three associates - Douglas Oyugi, Simon Hart and Malcolm McGregor - and 16 other staff.

"Our niche market at the moment seems to be art galleries in the north of England," says Pringle. The practice won the Sheffield job (with engineers Buro Happold soon after its formation five years ago. The opening of the Millennium Galleries is a tremendous boost for a city too often associated - to the dismay of its inhabitants - with the grisly cheerfulness of The Full Monty and its ethos of industrial decline and urban decay.

The galleries form a major component in the Heart of the City project, masterplanned by Koetter Kim, which is seen as key to the revival of a central area blighted by wartime bombing and poor quality post-war redevelopment. For Pringle Richards Sharratt, however, the second phase Winter Garden (scheduled for completion in summer 2 002) is even more important – an inspirational space in itself and the key connector that plugs the galleries into a reconfigured urban fabric. Galleries and Winter Garden together will turn the idea of a "cultural quarter" (including the Crucible and Lyceum theatres and Graves Art Gallery) into a reality. Pringle Richards Sharratt has also produced a masterplan for the development of Sheffield's other municipal gallery, the Mappin, and is in the running for the job of developing it in detail.

The high expectations generated by the Millennium Galleries were doubtless an important consideration in Pringle Richards Sharratt's appointment to develop a new cultural quarter in Oldham. The town is anxious to rebrand itself (from rundown adjunct of Manchester to distinctive Pennine settlement and the project has been funded by a mix of EU grants and local authority land sales, and without any contribution from the lottery. This is very much a fast-track project: the practice was appointed only in 1999.

In contrast to the urban integration of' Sheffield, Oldham has produced a "destination" development, with the existing (listed) public library as a key element. A public garden will be expanded and improved. The top-lit gallery spaces will be located at top floor level, with fine views out to the moors beyond the town.

Penny Richards has been involved with the Victoria & Albert Museum for some years - "we're always doing some-thing there", she says. The Glass Gallery , which opened in 1994, is the most conspicuous example of her work at the V&A, but there has been much else - a good deal of it not in the public domain, like the improved facilities for the museum's custodians.

The major revamp of the main Cromwell Road entrance, due for completion by the end of the year, will however, be highly conspicuous. The existing - very steep - flight of steps will be encased in a newly constructed combination of steps and ramp which completely transforms the setting of the entrance. The project - seen as a vital response to the issue of accessibility could have been contentious, but English Heritage, Richards says, was "marvellous – highly supportive".

The Shrewsbury music school meanwhile, is the kind of scheme that might have been done 30 years ago by a practice like Howell Killick Partridge Amis and, like HKPA in its heyday, Pringle Richards Sharratt has demonstrated an ability for marrying modernity with concern for context. At £1.3 million (£1,000 per sq m), this is not an extravagant building - but it has style and presence.

The site for the music school is wonderful, on the edge of the "village green" at the heart of Shrewsbury's suburban campus, amid a mature green landscape. The idea of economy pervades not only the structure - the lightweight roof of laminated timber, for example - but equally the services strategy. By burying the undercroft of the building in the sloping site and using it as a cooling reservoir, and modelling the roof to create a natural stack for the removal of stale air, the architect has produced a recipe for energy efficiency. The elliptical plan of the building, with teaching and rehearsal rooms splaying from the central, 2oo-seat auditorium, is designed, to achieve good acoustic conditions. But there is a sense of delight in the building that justifies the architect's statement that it was "a labour of love".

Pringle Richards Sharratt's architecture is rooted in a strong interest in environmentally friendly servicing, in structural matters, and in the innovative use of materials – the practice's sure sense of appropriateness in the use of materials suggests comparisons with Stanton Williams, David Chipperfield and, indeed, Michael Hopkins & Partners. The partners are keen, however, to stress broader urban concerns.

Pringle Richards Sharratt lost out to MBM of Barcelona in the competition for a masterplan for Newham's Stratford-Thames side regeneration zone, but was subsequently asked to carry out a masterplanning study for the Canning Town sector. Canning Town has long been a deprived backwater but the advent of the Jubilee Line extension with Canary Wharf minutes away presages big changes. The major blight on the centre of Canning Town is the dominant presence of the A13 with its immense volume of traffic. The road cannot be removed, but Pringle Richards Sharratt believes that its impact can be softened by encasing the elevated flyover in a metallic "cocoon".

Housing, open space and recycling projects are also included within a community-based strategy for upgrading the area. The study is "being taken seriously" say the architects, and there is a hope that some of its recommendations may soon be implemented.

Further evidence of the breadth of the practice's interest is provided by its work on a number of sensitive London sites for Scottish Life. A £6.5 million development project in Floral Street/Bow Street, Covent Garden, across the road from the Royal Opera House, involves a mix of new build and conversion on a very tight site with two listed buildings to complicate proceedings. Unpicking this 3D jigsaw puzzle" and discovering its commercial potential was a challenge to be relished.

A rather different challenge was posed by the site (formerly occupied by British Army barracks) at Charlottenburg in Berlin, which is the scene of Pringle Richards Sharratt's European debut. The client for the DM12.6 million (£4 million) scheme is an anglophile developer who wanted to create a new version of the classic London terrace. What the architect has done is to rethink the idea of the terrace, creating a mix of houses and maisonettes designed with the flexibility to respond to a number of scenarios and to accommodate space for teenage children, elderly dependents and for home offices and hobbies.

Pringle Richards Sharratt says that its core interests are "energy, materials, and making sense of difficult contexts". It is a pragmatic, but potentially visionary programme, strongly realized in the Sheffield project, which gives this still youthful practice an agenda for the productive years to come.

© Building Design 2001