Western Morning News

The Western Morning News building is an integrated newspaper facility combining printing and office functions, designed by Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners and built between 1991 and 1993. This grade II* listed building represents a significant work of late 20th-century British architecture.

Building Form and Site

The building has a distinctive 'boat-shaped' plan, positioned with its prow pointing north-east on a steeply sloping site. It comprises three levels set into the slope, with a dramatic 22-metre-high cantilevered 'bridge' housing the boardroom and observation gallery rising above the main structure. Access is via a footbridge at first-floor level leading to a triangular central atrium that rises through the full height of the building. The accommodation is functionally divided: printing presses were located in the 'stern', with open-plan and private offices and meeting rooms arranged in the 'prow'.

Materials and Construction

The building employs a steel and concrete frame. The principal facades feature point-fixed Pilkington's Planar glass, whilst the rear wall is clad in ribbed steel. A single concrete column carries the bridge structure through the building. The gently curving roof is clad in aluminium. Traditional Devon hedges constructed from slate and earth define the approach to the building and car parking areas.

External Appearance

The most striking feature of the building is the principal facades, formed of external steel columns known as 'tusks' for their unique shape. Each tusk is formed from two curving steel tubes joined by a steel plate welded to each side. As they rise, the tusks taper and curve gently outwards to accommodate the increasing floor plate of the upper storeys, resulting in tapered columns with a flattened oval section.

These tusks support suspension arms for approximately 700 tapered panels of Pilkington's Planar glass, designed as a series of faceted curves that become increasingly rhomboid in shape towards the 'prow'. Each panel is 12 millimetres thick and weighs some 120 kilograms. The panels in the press hall follow a regular square grid, whilst those in the two rows forming the 'prow' are specially shaped. The panels taper from 2 metres at the top of the highest panel to 1.911 metres at the bottom in the office area, creating a curved profile designed to reduce solar gain and allow views into the building without reflections from the sky.

The glass panels are fixed using bespoke castings with spheroidal graphite arms linked to stainless steel glazing bosses which hold the panels where four corners meet. The panels are joined with silicone mastic. Belzona, a liquid metal, has been injected into the ball joints to fuse glass and metal into a single, more rigid structure.

The rear south-western facade is clad in ribbed steel with porthole windows and loading doors at ground level. This more minimal treatment was deliberately chosen to allow for future extension.

The tusks also support the bowed steel roof beams, which are pin-jointed back to the concrete frame at a point approximately 1 metre beneath their tops, allowing both the steel and concrete frames to flex in unison.

The boardroom, located on the northern side of the building, is housed in a cantilevered flat-roofed box on a tall concrete column containing a lift and secondary staircase rising through the building. The boardroom has a continuous glazed window to the south providing extensive views of the city of Plymouth and Plymouth Sound beyond.

Interior Arrangements

The building is entered at first-floor level via a footbridge. A small, low-ceilinged reception area with an office and reception desk to the right opens into the large triangular atrium which rises through the building to a glazed triangular toplight. Here, a free-standing staircase with symmetrical ramps and half-landings, curved balconies and light wood handrails provides access to each floor, with wide balconies overlooking the atrium and giving onto offices and meeting rooms.

The interior is divided into two distinct areas—offices and production spaces—with a series of movement joints marking the dividing line. Although both have concrete frames on slab and thickened pad foundations, the construction methods differ.

Office Areas

The front half, in the 'prow', provides 5,000 square metres of office space for editorial and administrative work. It comprises a three-storey structure of concrete columns and flat slabs built in situ, supported by a core at either side of the building set towards the rear. The north core rises to support the boardroom.

Private offices are positioned in an inner ring off the balcony, with large open-plan offices beyond enjoying the expansive views provided by the continuous external glass wall. Each floor is open to full height, with a complex and visually expressed ventilation system providing air circulation through intake vents, with outflow vents positioned angled downwards towards the glass wall. Some offices have built-in basins and cupboards, but no original furniture survives.

Staff Facilities

A staff restaurant is located in the northern part of the building at ground-floor level, with a fitness room and crèche to the south. The restaurant retains serving tables, tray drops, and small snack kiosks and can be accessed from both the office and production sites. The restaurant has views across the wooded valley to the north, and an external door allows access to an outside decked area. A fully fitted catering kitchen lies to the rear of the restaurant.

Boardroom

The boardroom is panelled to the rear in light wood, with service and storage areas hidden behind some panels; there is no other fitted furniture. To the south, a continuous window with a light wood ledge at waist-height gives extensive views of Plymouth towards Plymouth Sound beyond. The main entrance is through a secure door giving onto a small lift lobby with a steel-clad door with porthole window accessing the stair. A second door from the boardroom gives access to a small fully-fitted kitchen behind.

Production Areas

At the 'stern' of the building, separated from the office space by full-height, fair-faced blockwork, are the printing hall and paper store. This area is of ribslab construction to allow forklift trucks clear runs. Cast in glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) moulds, the deeply coffered rib slabs allow flexibility in this heavily serviced area whilst offering working loads of up to 15 kilonewtons per square metre to support the weight of the machinery needed on the first-floor newspaper handling area.

The interior is now largely empty. Printing presses were installed at ground-floor level with production areas in the publishing hall on the first floor. This allowed the slope of the site to be used to advantage, with paper arriving at the lower level and completed papers leaving the publishing hall on the first floor via doors with gangways across the 'moat' to the parking and loading areas at the front.

Given the noise generated by the printing process and the proximity of the building to a residential home and hospital, substantial insulation was devised in consultation with Applied Acoustic Design. When operational, plant was painted yellow and grey, with the rest of the interior being grey.

At first-floor level, immediately beyond the fair-faced blockwork wall separating office and production areas, additional partitions and false ceilings continuing to the external glass facade have been inserted to the north to provide additional office accommodation for a firm offering pre-media and pre-press services.

Setting and Approach

The approach to the main entrance and the car parking areas are defined by dwarf slate and earth walls constructed to a traditional pattern known as Devon hedges. To the north-east of the site, the building is accessed through an opening in wide retaining walls faced with slate in a similar manner. These slate and earth walls form part of the special interest of the building.

Note: Certain later additions and fixtures are specifically excluded from the special architectural or historic interest of the listing, including office partitions and glass dividing offices, built-in basins and cupboards in offices where no original furniture survives, restaurant fittings, catering and boardroom kitchen fittings, remaining fittings within the production area, plant (now removed), later partitions and false ceilings at first-floor level in the production area, and car park surfaces and fixtures beyond the Devon hedge walls.