The Savill Building is a visitor centre at the entrance to The Savill Garden

Savill Garden

The Savill Garden is an enclosed part of Windsor Great Park in England, created by Sir Eric Savill in the 1930s. It is managed by the Crown Estate and charges an entrance fee....

 in Windsor Great Park

Windsor Great Park

Windsor Great Park is a large deer park of , to the south of the town of Windsor on the border of Berkshire and Surrey in England. The park was, for many centuries, the private hunting ground of Windsor Castle and dates primarily from the mid-13th century...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, designed by Glen Howells Architects

Glenn Howells

Glenn Howells is a British born architect. His practice, Glenn Howells Architects, has offices in Birmingham and London. Howells founded his practice in London in 1990 but later moved the main office to Birmingham in 1992....

, Buro Happold

Buro Happold

Buro Happold is a professional services firm providing engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of buildings, infrastructure and the environment, with its head office in Bath, Somerset...

 and Engineers Haskins Robinson Waters. It was opened by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....

  on the 26 June 2006.

Building

The building is located on the space of a mature beech tree plantation which was severely damaged in the hurricane of 1986. All remaining mature trees were retained in the scheme. The Stirling Prize judges describe it as:

"This project is a good modern interpretation of that great British traditional form: the Pavilion in the Park."

Gridshell Roof

The roof is the dominant feature of the building:

"So what you have is effectively a great big weather-sealed canopy, perched on dynamically angled steel legs. It is the ultimate summerhouse, the granddaddy of gazebos."

Hugh Pearman

The building has a 'three-domed' sinusoidal shaped gridshell

Gridshell

A gridshell is a structure which derives its strength from its double curvature , but is constructed of a grid or lattice....

 roof of two layers of interlocking larch laths (50x80mm) on a one metre square grid, supported on steel quadropods and a steel tubular ring-beam. The exact form of the roof was designed by Buro Happold

Buro Happold

Buro Happold is a professional services firm providing engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of buildings, infrastructure and the environment, with its head office in Bath, Somerset...

 to be the most structurally efficient possible using specialist in-house software (Tensyl). The roof is clad in plywood panels, with aluminium weather proofing and an top cladding of oak. All timber was harvested from the nearby Crown Estate

Crown Estate

In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...

. The roof is over 90m in length and up to 25m wide, and because of its own separate structural system appears to hover over the brick and glass facade of the building.

The carpentry, which used over 400 larch trees and 20 skilled carpenters, was done by the Green Oak Carpentry Company.

Exterior

The roof structure remains exposed from the inside, and is the most eye-catching feature of the building. The entrance facade is covered by an extensive green roof, which is planted with Microbiota

Microbiota

Microbiota is a monotypic] genus of evergreen coniferous shrub in the cypress family Cupressaceae, containing only one species, Microbiota decussata...

 decussata and Juniperus squamata

Juniperus squamata

Juniperus squamata is a species of juniper native to the Himalaya and China, from northeastern Afghanistan east to western Yunnan in southwestern China, and with disjunct populations north to western Gansu and east to Fujian. It grows at 1,600-4,900 m altitude...

. The exterior cladding of the building is a full-height glass curtain walling system, providing spectacular views from inside and creating a stunning lighting effect in the dark.

Interior

The building, which is partially below ground level, contains a shop, seminar rooms, offices, planteria (small garden centre) and restaurant, with a raised terrace along one edge allowing panoramic views over the gardens from the centre’s interior spaces. Below the entrance there is a basement housing service spaces including the kitchen, storerooms and washrooms.

The large main internal space is subdivided by Corian

Corian

Corian is the brand name for a solid surface material created by DuPont. It is composed of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate. Corian can be thermoformed by heating it to 300°F , allowing unique shapes to be created...

 'pods' which are separate from the main building structure.

Awards

The building was shortlisted for the 2007 Stirling Prize

Stirling Prize

The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects...

.

The structural design won the IStructE Structural Awards

Structural Awards

The Institution of Structural Engineers' Structural Awards have been awarded for the structural design of buildings and infrastructure since 1968...

 Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence in 2007, in addition to the Award for Arts, Leisure or Entertainment Structures.

At the 2007 RIBA

Royal Institute of British Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

Awards it also won a RIBA Award and a RIBA National Award.

At the 2007 Wood Awards it won:

• Gold Award
• Commercial and Public Access Award
• Structural Award