Post - Moderism. Ar. Reid and Peck. Presented by :- idk

1. STORM WATER PUMPING
STATION, ISLE OF DOGS,
LONDON (1986-1988)
• ARCHITECT JOHN OUTRAM ( Born in 21 June 1934) Taiping, Malaysia.
• John Outram is a British architect. He established a practice in London
in 1974 and produced a series of buildings in which polychrome and
Classical allusions were well to the fore.
• His works are the temple-like Storm Water Pumping Station,
Isle of Dogs, London (1985–8), the New House at
Wadhurst Park, Sussex (1978–86),
the Judge Institute of Management Studies in
Cambridge (1995)
• When people see an Outram Building, their immediate
response is to wave and cheer
• John Outram can be said to be a Modernist who has put
decoration at the cutting edge of architecture.

2. • The Isle of Dogs Storm Water Pumping Station was built between 1986
and 1988 in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets.
• County: London , District: Tower Hamlets.
• It was designed by Outram for the London Docklands Development
Corporation and Thames Water to deal with the water run-off from the
new streets being created in the redevelopment of an 8.5-square-mile
stretch of the area.
• Public access is denied, the building is visited only once a week for
maintenance.
• River is located at back side of the water pumping station.

3. • AREA: 906 Sq.m.
• The building has a rectangular footprint, orientated east-west, and a shallow
pitched roof with deeply overhanging eaves.
• It stands within an enclosed yard which is divided into two sections, east and
west. The eastern part of the yard (by the river) is raised so the building
appears lower on the exterior.
• The main entrance is from Stewart Street to the west, and in the south-west
corner of the site is the transformer station.

4. • The building’s interior resembles an aisled hall, with the central full-
height pump hall running the length of the building.
• The south ‘aisle’ is occupied by the surge tank; brickwork columns rise
from the top of the tank to form an arcade.
• The north ‘aisle’ is largely enclosed by brickwork and contains a double-
height screen room (to remove large debris from the water) and an
electrical control room with staff rooms above.
• Engaged piers rise from the ground, becoming an open arcade above
the staff rooms.
• The building is integrated with the machinery spatially.

5. • The building’s character is that of an ancient trabeated temple: the pitched roof
forms a shallow broken pediment at either end, supported by a pair of giant red
brick semi-circular columns flanking a central entrance.
• The columns have precast concrete fins, two metres high, which form huge
stylised Corinthian capitals, their colours ranging from black to yellow, red, green
and blue.
• At both ends of the building a large circular fan (to avoid a build-up of methane
in the building) breaks through the base of the pediment.
• Between the giant central columns the wall face has blue, yellow and red brick
banding.

6. • On the Stewart Street elevation the central entrance door is slightly recessed, set
within a splayed opening and surrounded by a wide, flat, white concrete
architrave, interrupted by bands of red brickwork.
• The opposing door, facing towards the river, has a simpler variation of this
arrangement, the door appearing to have risen up above a sinking architrave.
• In each bay is a large, green, circular louvered vent with a red brick surround.
Each of the long sides has a single set of loading bay doors

7. • The steel-tube gate into the fortified compound of the Station is given a form
of a giant eye, whose vacant ball can be got to line-up with the ‘solar cave’-
between-two-mountains. The two wings of the gate-eye then lie over the two
(aetos) ‘eagles-wings’ of the split pediment…
• on the north side are two personnel
doors, one at the lower courtyard level
giving access to the electrical control
room, and one at the higher courtyard
level giving access, up a short external
flight of steel steps, to the staff rooms.

8. POSTMODERNISM
• Outram’s work is associated with the Post-Modern idiom. Post-Modernism,
a movement and a style prevalent in architecture between about 1975 and
1990, is defined in terms of its relationship with Modernism.
• Post-Modernist architecture is characterised by its plurality, engagement
with urban context and setting, reference to older architectural traditions
and use of metaphor and symbolism.
• Post-Modernism accepts the technology of industrialised society but
expresses it in more diverse ways than the machine imagery of the
contemporary High-Tech style.
• MATERIAL: He building has a structural steel frame above massive
concrete foundations. The steel columns are encased in
concrete for fire protection and clad in brickwork connected
by steel ties. The external walls are formed of bands of
contrasting Staffordshire blue engineering bricks, Butterley
Rochford red facing bricks and Redland Otterham stock
bricks, with cast concrete dressings. The roof is covered with
green glazed Roman tiles and faced internally with diagonal
tongue-and-groove boarding nailed to timber joists.