Thurrock Youth Zone

Thurrock Youth Zone

Thurrock Youth Zone

Essex, UK

2022 – Ongoing

Anchor Fields is a park close to the centre of Tilbury. Occupying the south-western corner, the new Youth Zone is part of a masterplan to improve the park’s landscaping and range of activities. Carefully designed for its green setting, the building and landscape design are closely integrated, bringing a range new planting to the site. Set back from the road, the building sits diagonally across the corner, forming a new public space at its entrance.

The building’s taller spaces – the sports hall and climbing wall – are located adjacent to the entrance, creating a taller volume. Clad in warm, yellow-coloured boards and gently curving at the corners, this part of the building is visible in long-views across the park, establishing a landmark for young people to identify with. Other parts of the building are reduced in height, using brickwork and shiplapped horizontal panels to address the scale of the surrounding houses and park.

The Youth Zone offers a range of arts, music, sports, performance, and enterprise facilities to young people of the area, arranged around a central social space. Environmental concerns have been a key part of the design, with a BREEAM target of Outstanding. The building envelope has been designed to high levels of insulation and airtightness, while roof-mounted PVs and windcatchers add to the energy strategy. A new pond helps with water attenuation, while meadow grass and new trees add to the park’s biodiversity.

Clad in warm, yellow-coloured boards and gently curving at the corners, the taller part of the building is visible in long-views across the park, establishing a landmark for young people to identify with.

Model photography by Tian Khee Siong