Firstsite Art Gallery, Colchester

3,800m² building provides a home for Firstsite, an established visual arts group, and includes galleries for international exhibitions and works from the University of Essex’s collection of Latin American art.

There are also learning spaces, a restaurant and a 190-seat auditorium.

The distinctive curved form is shaped by a 400-tonne steel portal frame that sits on a ring beam at the raft perimeter, spreading the load thin across the site. This is clad entirely in standing-seam strips of TECU Gold.

The entrance features a huge front door with a glazed screen that fronts the airy reception. From there visitors follow a route that peels off deeper into the plan and gives access to the galleries and the auditorium.

The auditorium is clad with diamond-patterned, suede-like acoustic fabric and overlapping European cherry timber shells.

The route continues past sloping, curving walls, set under a double-pitched roof with clerestories, until you reach the restaurant. To exit, you must double back.

The centre of the single-storey crescent form aligns with the entrance to the Grade-I listed East Hill House on the High Street to the north.