Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre

The visitor centre is buried in a fold of ground below the line of the coastal ridge, and the car park placed in a second fold at the level of the approach road, with a grass pathway to the ridge of the site rising between the two folds. This arrangement means that there is no visual impact on the causeway itself as the the visitor centre cannot be seen from the north or east.

The facades of the centre are constructed from local basalt columns through which the building is entered. The space inside, beneath the hillside, is a large room that is punctuated with linear rooflights cut out of the sloping roof. The floor is made of polished concrete with an exposed basalt aggregate suggestive of the basalt strata below.

The sequence of interior spaces runs from the entrance and ticket desk past the café, shop and exhibition, to the exit through a cleft in the hillside that opens on to the pathway down to the Causeway itself.