The Harley Gallery

The first gallery that visitors enter is 22m long and appears to be cut in half by a full length translucent rooflight, filling the space with diffuse light and creating the perfect environment to display oil portraits. The external barrel vault is clad in pre-weathered zinc jointed with traditional batten rolls, selected to suit the intended monumentality of the design. The inner pane of the rooflight is laminated with a white translucent interlayer to prevent direct sunlight falling on to paintings and to minimise visual distraction in the gallery. The panes of glass are 3.6m long and span between triangular structural beams, designed to appear very thin when viewed from below. 

The gallery has a steel frame with an outer skin of handmade Danish bricks, selected for their elegant horizontal proportion and subtly varied colour. The ceiling has a cycloidal geometry, which allows a gentle distribution of natural light to fall down onto the gallery walls. Fibrous plaster was specified to ensure a perfect finish.

The gallery’s rural location means there are no gas utility networks in the vicinity so electrically driven plant is required. Heating and cooling is derived entirely from high-efficiency air-sourced heat pumps. This means there are no pollutants emitted locally from the heating and cooling system on site, as there are no boiler flues. Compared to a conventional electric cooling and gas heating system, this arrangement is predicted to save more than 18,500kWh of energy and offset more than 4,850kg of CO2 per year.