The Gridshell Takes Shape - After the Big Dig, the Great Bend...

Most people think of buildings as being made of piles of things - bricks, stones, blocks, earth or concrete. Traditional carpenters made buildings out of prefabricated two-dimensional frames - flat frames forming rectangular buildings. But the Gridshell is based on an entirely different principle: a grid of slender timbers formed flat then bent into a complex double-curved shape to form a rigid shell.

In January all that could be seen was a great cube of scaffolding, looking like an aircraft carrier marooned in the South Downs. 

Eight weeks later the team of carpenters had laid the grid of oak laths on top of the scaffold - each lath 120ft (36m) long, but just 50 x 35mm in section, spaced at one metre centres, the grid connected at the intersections by over a thousand specially designed and (patent-applied-for) bolted steel plate assemblies. The weather remained wet, keeping the moisture content, and therefore the flexibility, of the oak high. Then the bending operation started on 2nd March. Diana Zeuner performed the ceremony of lowering the first jacking point by a few centimetres. The flat grid obediently deformed, without so much as a creak, and the carpenters scattered over the scaffold platform to lower all the other jacks by precisely pre-determined amounts. Every day this was repeated. The engineers entered the dimensions into their spreadsheets to check progress, and the carpenters anxiously watched for cracks and splits in the laths. When the jacks reached the bottom of their 'throw' the operation was interrupted while the carpenters turned into scaffolders and removed another layer of scaffold to make room for the grid to be bent further. Each day a photo and video clip were taken from a fixed camera position on top of the special tower, and the resulting time-lapse sequence was posted on the scaffolding company's website (www.peri.de) and the video was eventually shown on BBC's Tomorrows World.

On 19 April, after seven weeks of bending, the edges of the grid at last touched down on the perimeter of the timber deck which forms the ceiling of the basement store - the eagle had landed! Three months of worried frowns gave way to delighted smiles, and the team of carpenters, led by Stephen Corbett for the Green Oak Carpentry Company, celebrated in the traditional manner, down at the pub.

After final adjustments to the shape the carpenters had again been transformed, this time into sculptors - the next operation was to apply the additional laths that triangulate the grid and give it its stiffness. At the lower level these run horizontally (at 180 feet long they are probably the longest pieces of oak ever produced) and will be used to fix the vertical boards which form the cladding, while at the top of the gridshell they run 'vertically' - over the top of the shell.

The gridshell was finally 'signed off' by the engineers on 1 June, and the carpenters then started to build the roof. Universally known as the 'ribbon roof', this is formed of sheets of plywood bent to follow the undulations of the gridshell. At the time of writing, in early September, the roof covering has been applied (an extraordinary - and little known - material called Roofkrete), and the carpenters and main contractors (E A Chiverton Ltd) are beginning to apply the cladding boards and building the clerestory glazing strips.

Steve Corbett (right), who leads the Green Oak Carpentry Company team, checks the position of one of the many jacks used to lower the grid of oak laths into place.

A carpenter from the Green Oak Carpentry Company scales the Gridshell to adjust the intersections where the 120ft (36m) long laths meet.

Until now the gridshell has been fully exposed on the outside, but shortly it will be covered with its cladding so will only be fully visible by going inside. But the guided tours will continue, and will be the way that the great majority of our visitors will see and experience the building.

Once the cladding is complete the contract moves into the final stages of joinery, internal fittings and services. The latest estimate for practical completion is 5 March 2002, and then at last we will be able to put into operation our plans for moving in and bringing the building into use.

The Gridshell has been a complex and innovative project, and it is greatly to the credit of those involved that the structure has been successfully completed. Congratulations to the Green Oak Carpentry Company team for this achievement and to Mike Wigmore of main contractor E A Chiverton Ltd, for supporting them through the long construction process. Richard Harris of Buro Happold Engineers, poured time, energy and computing power into planning the structure, and Steve Johnson, of Edward Cullinan Architects, brought architectural distinction and the disciplines of sustainability to the building. Howard Ball of Peri was on site almost permanently overseeing the use of the specialist scaffolding, and Paul Comins of Boxall Sayer has acted as quantity surveyor and project manager, and steadying nerves and controlling the costs. All involved would agree that the spirit of adventure and co-operative teamwork has made this in every sense, a project to remember.

Click Here to follow the past and future progress of the construction of the Gridshell

Chris Zeuner Memorial Appeal

One of the many tragic aspects of Chris’s death was that he did not live to see his great project, the Downland Gridshell, completed, so it was a natural and obvious idea to create this appeal, which will cover the final funding gap in the Gridshell project, in memory of him.

The response to the appeal has been remarkable. There have been nearly 500 individual donations, and the total raised so far is just over £60,000. We are now making applications to trusts and foundations for help in meeting the remaining £40,000. The Museum is deeply grateful to all those who have contributed.

Richard Harris appointed as new Museum Director

Museum wins another Sandford Award for its 'outstanding' education service.

A full Sandford Award is given when, in the opinion of the judges, an outstanding contribution to heritage education is being made. The Museum, England’s leading museum of historic buildings and rural life, has received a number of education awards in its 34-year history, including previous Sandford Awards and Intepret Britain Awards.

This year the judges commended the Museum for its "extensive range of experiential and hands-on activities." In the Museum’s re-erected historic buildings children meet costumed guides and use original and replica artefacts to carry out tasks which would have been familiar to the original inhabitants. There are also workshop activities and an "impressive" interactive centre. "The best qualities of heritage education are on show at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum," said the judges. "Balancing the needs of conservation and interpretation, the Museum has succeeded in putting children in touch with a unique and vanishing heritage – and bringing it to life."

The Museum’s education service caters for some 30,000 schoolchildren each year with an expansive programme of activities. Most of these are designed specifically to fit teachers’ needs for all the key stages of the National Curriculum. Key stage 2 pupils (the biggest school audience) can take advantage of programmes relating to the Tudors, Victorians and local history, with science requirements met through work related to building materials and technology through exposing children to the way in which problems were solved in the past.

"Whilst meeting curriculum needs, the Museum has a healthy appreciation of its unique integrity and recognises that its educational role is primarily to stimulate minds," added the judges.

Special needs children to benefit from new initiative with Barclays Bank

The Museum will be able to extend its current educational provision to these children following a £17,800 grant from the Barclays Special Educational Needs Programme. We plan to extend the number of visits of SEN children from 400 to 1,000 in the first year of the new project.

The children, from the Museum’s region of Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and Surrey as well as London and the Home Counties, will enjoy five special event days exploring medieval and Victorian life through role-play, storytelling, music making and rural crafts. Specially trained and experienced educational staff led by the Museum’s head of education, Diane Walker, will work with the children, whose visits are subsidised to help reduce the costs of the high children-to-adult staff ratio. Part of the funding will include travel bursaries to enable schools from further afield to take advantage of the project.

The Museum’s site and exhibits offer a rich mixture of opportunities for learning through experience, with the sights, sounds and smells of rural life engaging children’s imagination and turning the acquisition of knowledge into an adventure of discovery. "Children with special educational needs respond particularly well to activities at the Museum," says Diane Walker. "As well as learning, they gain confidence and social skills that transfer into their everyday lives, benefiting parents and teachers as well as the children themselves."

A key feature of the project is the involvement of Barclays staff in working alongside Museum staff and education volunteers during the children’s visit. The special event days will be similar to the Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Day run in July this year. Over 40 children followed a pilgrimage route around the Museum spending time with different educational interpreters, doing a drama workshop with students from South Downs College with a final performance of the Wife of Bath’s Tale and a finale by college students of the Miller’s Tale performed outside Lurgashall Mill.

Designation Challenge Fund projects continue

We are now in the third year of projects financed by the DCF, and the benefits are beginning to be visible. The three-year programme, with a budget of over a quarter of a million pounds (80% funded by DCF, 20% by the Museum), has been in two parallel streams, the collections review on the one hand, and research and re-interpretation of exhibits on the other.

For the whole period Mike Wall has been employed as collections manager to lead the review of our collections prior to their being moved into the new store in Gridshell. Mike is currently assisted by Jon Roberts, Guy Viney, Alison Bunning, and a newly formed team of conservation volunteers. The review has made excellent progress, and Mike will remain at the Museum until the move into Gridshell is finished next year.

The research and re-interpretation projects have been different in each of the three years. The first project was to commission research into the background of some of our major exhibit buildings. Last year we undertook the changes to Pendean farmhouse and furnished its interior, and in this financial year we will be moving Winkhurst to its new site near Bayleaf, scheduled to start in late October.

At present the future of DCF is unclear. Resource (the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries) has indicated that the DCF is likely to continue for two more years, but what form it will take and what projects will be eligible is as yet unknown. We feel that the fund has been a great success, well administered and targeted, and we very much hope to continue to obtain benefit from it.

Our consultant for interior furnishing was Victor Chinnery, who helped the Museum with the Bayleaf project and more recently has been involved in changes to Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford-on-Avon. He produced an inventory of furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, treen, leatherwork, cooperage and basketwork needed for the house – a daunting list of some 200 items. We eventually produced a slightly shorter list, but still very challenging for Roger Champion, who made all the oak furniture, and Ian Pearce, who agreed to do research to refine the specification and to find people to produce and supply all the other items. With the help of Jon Roberts, Ian has achieved what we believe to be an extremely accurate interpretation of the interior of an early 17^th century yeoman’s farmhouse.

One of the most rewarding moments of the project was the discovery of an article in Sussex Archaeological Collections about the site of the Graffham Pottery, a thriving and productive pottery working within a short distance of Pendean in the 17^th century. After Pendean was dismantled the site was dug by archaeologists: unfortunately no report of the dig has survived, but the Museum does have the "finds", and many of the sherds have been identified as having come from the Graffham pottery. In consultation with John Hudson, an expert in the replication of historic ceramics, the plates, bowls and pots that once graced the table in Pendean have been recreated and placed in their rightful positions.

The treen was commissioned from Robin Wood who has produced wonderful bowls, spoons and platters. The basketware was woven by P H Coate & Son of Taunton and includes backpacks, apple baskets, egg baskets and even an eel trap.

The ironwork has been recreated by Tom Harrison, a local blacksmith, who approached the project with great enthusiasm and skill. Roger Champion created beautiful furniture (and some very comfortable fireside chairs) as well as the coopered ware which gives such a good sense of the house being lived and worked in. The soft furnishings – linen sheets, bed hangings, pillows, mattresses and cushions – have been hand-sewn by a stalwart group of volunteers.

Two final parts of the project will take place this winter. The oven in the kitchen inglenook will be re-built to make it usable and authentic, and a timber-framed pigsty with a hen loft and adjoining privy will be built at the back of the house. Pendean will then by fully equipped as an early 17^th century farmhouse.

The project took place with a great deal of help from many people, and with finance from the Designation Challenge Fund via Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. We are keen to have feedback from visitors, so please let us know whether you think that it helps you to understand the house.

Richard Harris

How the Museum coped with Foot and Mouth Disease

After a week or two the scale of the disaster gradually became clear. A quick calculation indicated the possible scale of our losses: 2-3000 visitors a week, £30,000 by the end of March, £100,000 if we had to stay closed after Easter. Crisis was not too strong a word, and the scale of the epidemic rose to frightening proportions.

Foot and Mouth Disease precautions in place at the Museum entrance in February

Friends and neighbours saw our difficulties and generously stepped in to help. The Goodwood Estate kindly agreed to rebate our rents for three months, and many individuals sent donations and very welcome letters of support. Chichester District Council was unable to help with the FMD losses but gave a very generous donation to help with the Downland Gridshell project.

The first signs that we might be able to rescue the situation came when MAFF introduced local movement schemes for livestock, and eventually we managed to get licences to move our pigs, cattle and sheep off site. By this time the government had backtracked on its disastrous initial attempt to close down the entire countryside, and public opinion was ready to support attempts to get things moving again. Eventually we decided to re-open on 1 April, and the season got off to a marvellous, if belated, start.

The Fine Food Fair at Easter was cancelled at the participants’ request, but was re-scheduled for 29-30 September. The Rare Breeds Show also had to be cancelled, but will return with new vigour next year. The net result is that our visitor numbers up to early September were about 8000 down on last year, entirely due to FMD closure, but we hope to narrow this to 5-6000 by the end of the year.

So what of the future? The farm livestock is an integral and much-loved part of the Museum’s work, and we intend to bring them back as soon as it is safe to do so, which seems to be at the end of a quarantine period of three months after the end of the epidemic. This may possibly be in March or April next year, but nothing will be certain until the epidemic is officially and finally over.