In 1972 the southwest regional board of the former Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) decided to consolidate some 1200 staff, scattered across 14 separate offices, into a regional headquarters. The brief for the new building included offices, laboratories, workshops, telecommunications, computer facilities and a canteen with recreational facilities. A 7.3 ha 'green field' site was found two and a half miles south west of Bristol with access from the A38. In order to sharpen the brief the CEGB commissioned a series of papers from the architect Barry Poyner of the Tavistock Institute which established the three main principles for the design: the building's visual impact on the surrounding landscape should be minimal; the building should humanise the working environment and give a sense of personal and workgroup identity within the framework of an overall community and lastly, the building should be the major modifier of the external climate through its structure, form and external enclosure, to ensure a good internal climate with the minimum use of purchased energy. To achieve this, Arup Associates were commissioned to design the building, with Nicholas Hare and Don Ferguson as the main job architects. They worked closely together with CEGBs own in-house designers and the landscape consultant Peter Swann, who in 1973 had only just established his landscape practice. Swann had worked as a landscape consultant for the CEGB on a number of their power stations and overhead power line schemes. Throughout his career, during which he worked on many hospital sites for the Wessex Regional Health Authority, Swann continued to work with Arup Associates, for example at Legal and General House, Kingswood, Surrey, which won an RIBA Regional Award in 1992. The landscape work at the new CEGB regional HQ included the creation of an 'invisible' car park, the introduction of a continuous perimeter plant box to soften the connection between the building and its landscape, extensive ground-modelling and top-soiling, elm replacement along the north east boundary, external soft landscaping, and an extensive planting scheme both outside and inside the building. A landscape management plan was finalised on completion to budget future maintenance.
Arup Associates was founded in 1963 by the Danish engineer Ove Arup (1895-1988) who was specialised in concrete construction. Arup wished to fully integrate engineering and architecture, and as a result his became one of the first practices to employ both engineers and architects. Arup Associates also specialised in the integration of structure and services and under the influence of the American architect Louis Kahn they developed the so-called tartan-grid, as used in the CEGB building. The latter’s design resulted in a large but low profile building with overhanging eaves, in a style reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. It consisted of seven interlocking pavilions each with a central courtyard, its style later termed by Lionel Esher (‘The Broken Wave’, 1981) as ‘romantic pragmatism’. Heating, cooling and ventilation were provided through an advanced, passive environmental strategy, devised by building engineer Tony Marriot, which harnessed the effect of internal and external sources of energy and the structure itself on temperature cycles. The building was specified and detailed for a long life, with high quality materials, including hardwood Iroko for the window frames, Spanish slate for the roofs and concrete blocks containing pulverised fuel ash from the CEGB’s own power stations.
The surrounding landscape had a profound influence on the design concept. At the time, the Government placed a clear responsibility on the CEGB to respect and enhance the existing natural landscapes in view of the large scale power stations being built. The CEGB took this duty very seriously and were one of the first large organisations to employ their own landscape architects to achieve this. In the case of the new regional headquarters in Bedminster, the particular prominence of the chosen site was identified early and the CEGB’s own landscaping techniques developed for their power station sites were used. The site, located on a high ridge overlooking Bristol, could be viewed from four prominent locations: from Clifton, Brunel’s suspension bridge, Ashton Court and the village of Long Ashton. Detailed impact and landscape studies were carried out which confirmed the need for a sympathetic, low profile building that not only follows the contours of the existing landscape, but aimed for a complete fusion between building and landscape. A continuous double wall, set away from the perimeter glazing of the new building provided a foreground to the building and created a visual ‘dead ground’ concealing the car park from within the building. The concealing technique used by the CEGB at their power stations, involving the creation of extensive earth-works and embankments from excavated spoil on site, was used at the CEGB site in Bedminster in order to screen the building and the car park to its south-east and south-west. A comprehensive planting scheme drawn up by Peter Swann was used for the hedgerows, the embankments surrounding the car park, and the staff recreation areas the north-west and south-east of the building, and a semi-automatic trickle irrigation system was installed. Within the building, planted courtyards and built-in plant boxes were to be an integral part of the interior design to further strengthen the link with the surrounding landscape. It consisted of ‘internal hedges’ with single species planting, and planted features around the main circulation and reception area. In total c1300 indigenous plants were grown hydro-culturally indoors, in lightweight porous clay aggregate. All planting was supplied by Row Farm Nursery Ltd.
Outline planning permission for the CEGB building and its landscaping was granted in 1973 with full approval following in June 1975. Works were completed in August 1978, and the building and its landscape were widely discussed in the architectural press at the time. In 1980 it received a Civic Trust Award and a Financial Times Commendation.