DCSF Offices

Darlington

A five-storey office building for the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Designed by Faulkner Browns Architects.

We support the principle of re-locating the DCSF offices within the town centre. It is encouraging that a semi-public use will be at the heart of the regeneration proposals for this part of the town. Furthermore, the site is within a convenient and therefore sustainable location, close to the railway station and a range of services and facilities. We regret to say, however, that we have a number of fundamental concerns with the site planning; the development responds poorly to its surroundings and as a result we are concerned that the development will not realise its full potential in helping to regenerate this area of the town. A governmental building should set a high precedent for design quality but we think the current proposal falls short of the required standard. We urge the local authority to work with the design team to address the following points before a decision is made on the planning application.

Proposed layout

We appreciate that the design has had to accommodate the awkward geometries of the site, particularly the northern edge, as well as respond to a local context that is likely to change in the future. Nevertheless, we think the building in its current form responds poorly to its surroundings. While the future of the land to the north and west of the site is more uncertain than to the east and south, the design responds more closely to the north and west edges and in effect turns its back on the entrance into the town centre. The south-east corner of the building does not create an appropriate marker for the southern edge of the town centre. This is due for the most part to the positioning of the servicing and car parking at this end of the site; this creates an inactive and hostile environment at ground floor level. We appreciate that flood levels pose a constraint to this part of the site and that uses such as shops and restaurants have been excluded from the ground floor level for security reasons. Nevertheless, rethinking the location of ground floor uses in combination with a more creative use of the levels across the site, could help overcome the constraints mentioned and activate the edges of the development.

As well as reconsidering the distribution of the uses across the site, the overall plan needs further work. In the current design, emphasis has been given to the northern edge of the development which is effectively within an urban block and therefore contributes very little to the townscape. Emphasis should be given to the western, southern and eastern edges; comments about these have been raised above. We understand that it is inevitable that the land to the west of the site will be redeveloped as a public space. While it seems logical to position the front entrance of the building off this space, we think the western edge of the development would make a poor quality frontage to any public space. The plant area and cycle storage, for example, create a long, inactive edge that would detract from the public realm and reduce its civic status.

In rethinking the site plan and the diagram of the building, it could be that the massing strategy changes so that the development responds more closely to the different contexts on each side of the site. The architectural approach and the palette of materials proposed suggest that if the fundamental concerns for site layout could be addressed, the development could be a good quality proposal.

Conclusion

We regret to say that we do not think the development in its current form should be given planning permission. We recommend that the urban design analysis of the area is revisited to help develop a design concept that makes a more appropriate response to its surroundings.