Former Cabinet Makers Factory

Former Cabinet Makers Factory

A single-storey factory built between August 1966 and July 1967 on the north side of Lower Bristol Road, Bath, to designs by Brian Henderson, a partner in the architectural firm Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardall. The building was constructed for Bath Cabinet Makers, specialist manufacturers of office furniture, and measures 250 feet by 430 feet, providing 57,000 square feet of open-plan space for assembly, polishing, storage and dispatch operations.

The building is a pioneering example of Mero space frame technology in Britain—the first building in the country to employ this innovative structural system, which had been invented in Germany in the 1940s and was among the first widely commercially available space grid systems. The structure comprises a steel Mero space frame combined with glass, aluminium, asbestos and engineering bricks. The roof is a space frame with a structural bay of 48 feet square and 4 feet deep, composed of steel tubes set at 45 degrees to the horizontal and joined by spherical connectors. An external steel frame of 10-inch by 10-inch sections supports the building; the exposed structural steel columns are shot-blasted and zinc-treated.

The factory is clad in natural grey asbestos sheets with black neoprene joints—an early application of neoprene in external cladding—with a band of clerestory patent glazing fitted with silver-anodised aluminium frames. The building rests on a plinth of engineering bricks.

The interior features the fully exposed Mero space frame, with two rows of slender internal columns constructed from pre-cast polished concrete. The ground slab is thick reinforced concrete with a power-float finished surface. Grey, white and black colours were used consistently throughout the building as part of the original design scheme, though some of this paintwork has since been covered over. The flexible, open-plan layout reflects post-war ideals of improved working standards, moving away from the traditional separation of workers' areas and managers' offices.

The landscaping, undertaken by Dando and Dark, includes a parking area for approximately 100 cars and a staff picnic area on the bank of the River Avon, planted with birch trees.

Bath Cabinet Makers had previously manufactured the Formation Furniture range, designed by Brian Henderson, from 1959 onwards. Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardall had extensive experience in commercial and industrial architecture, having designed projects including Gatwick Airport in 1955 and the Boots D90 building in Nottingham, for which Bath Cabinet Makers had supplied the furniture. The innovative and functionally efficient design, informed by contemporary American industrial architecture and the architectural idiom of Mies van der Rohe, was widely recognised and awarded. The building received the Financial Times Industrial Architecture Award in 1968 and a Civic Trust Commendation in 1969.

In the 1970s, Bath Cabinet Makers became Herman Miller, who built a second factory building opposite on the other side of the River Avon in 1975, designed by Farrell and Grimshaw.