Swansea Castle Lane

A number of sites in the historic centre of Swansea are undergoing redevelopment to bring life and activity back to the High Street. One of the most prominent sites is located immediately opposite the grade I listed ruins of Swansea’s medieval castle, on a site that has been derelict and vacant for the last 20 years.

Project Details +

Project Details

LOCATION: Swansea, Wales, UK
CLIENT: Coastal Housing Group
DATE: 2009 - 2013
STATUS: Detailed Design
SIZE: Total area 4,100 m², including 25 affordable housing units, restaurant, offices and retail.

Credits +

Credits

ACME: Kelvin Chu, Isabel de la Mora, Sebastian Drewes, Michael Haller, Stephen Harker, Daewon Kwak, Friedrich Ludewig, Natasha Viveiras

Up until the 20th century, Swansea Castle had been the dominant structure in Swansea, surrounded my smaller merchants houses, and the redevelopment of Castle Lane attempts to preserve this hierarchy of build form by creating several new buildings, divided by courtyards. The height and roofscape of the buildings are carefully modulated to create a small-scale sequence of gables as a backdrop to the large horizontal edge of the castle.

Massing division with courtyards

Roof gable geometry

Program distribution

Swansea was the capital of world copper production in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the inventor of the welsh copper smelting process lived on this site in Castle Lane. While copper production has since ceased in Swansea, the cladding of the project in golden copper alloy and metallic terracotta retains a link to this important period in Swansea’s industrial history.

Elevational bay study

Cladding detail

Cladding mock - up

Related Projects

Swansea Arena

Copr Bay Bridge

Wassail Place

Castle Square