Haverstock seeks a sense of peace and tranquility in an important community facility
The desire for an “overall feeling of peace and tranquility” guided architect Haverstock’s design of the Lea Fields crematorium in Lincolnshire, along with ancillary facilities on the parkland site. The main building includes a foyer space, chapel and cremator, while in the wider site a new memorial facility known as the Remembrance Court incorporates the Book of Remembrance and Flowers Room. “The masterplan for the parkland includes both formal and informal landscape gardens”, explains the architect. “The overall design is underpinned by extensive consultation and rigorous control of materiality and detail”.
One of the key objectives of the £6m project is that different groups of mourners do not mix with each other, and this – along with the topography of the site – directed the massing, layout and use of the main building. “The procession of the congregation, both from the main cortège route and the car park, allows the building to welcome and hold mourners”, says the architect.
The Chapel needed to be flexible but to provide an appropriate atmosphere, and its folded suspended soffit “gives a sense of occasion and celebration without dictating a specific religious bias”, suggests the architect. An “earthy” palette of brick, timber and bronze was selected to create “calming and contemplative” spaces. Large bronze-framed window panels offer views of the landscape – and away from the coffin, should that be preferred.
“The principal organising feature of the landscape design is an axis which runs across the front of the crematorium building and continues out to connect the various site features for example the memorial gardens, the car parks and the building entrances”, explains the architect. “The main axis climbs eight metres to a new Chapel of Remembrance placed specifically at the site’s highest point. Common complications of the crematorium brief occur as services begin and end. In order to reduce the risk of crossover, roads and pedestrian routes have been carefully considered across the site and sensitively set within the landscape”.
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