Uplands Conference Centre

Uplands Conference Centre

Conference centre built between 1982 and 1986 by Edward Cullinan Architects, with landscaping by Georgina Livingston. The complex incorporates the front range of a country house of 1858-1859 attributed to EB Lamb.

The 1859 house is constructed of yellow brick with sparing stone dressings and grey brick diaper-work in the outer bays. Cullinan's additions employ squared Portland stone rubble with a superstructure of dark-stained timber and glass, complemented by red brick bands and dressings. The parapet was rebuilt in red brick by Cullinan to match these additions. A distinctive feature throughout is the use of powder-coated brilliant blue door and window frames.

The surviving front range of the 1859 house is a two-storeyed E-plan building in plain Tudor-Gothic style, seven bays arranged 1:2:1:2:1, with gabled and bay-windowed outer wings flanking a narrower central section. The centrepiece carries a decorative ironwork balcony supported on three massive stone corbels. Windows are large rectangular sashes with Gothic joinery details set in recessed pointed surrounds. Cullinan removed the front porch, rebuilt the crenellations in red brick, and inserted large circular windows in the backs of the wings.

Cullinan's design combines Palladian villa traditions with echoes of a traditional university college. The original reception rooms form the central 'pivot' for an expansively symmetrical composition with matching pavilion wings to either side, connected by open corridors which return at both ends to form three-sided cloister quadrangles. The corridors converge centrally on a double-height foyer and circulation space, with a dining hall and lecture room behind, attached to the back of the house. Most visitors approach from the north car park via a hedge maze and flight of steps aligned with the principal corridor, establishing a new axis perpendicular to the house itself. The outer wings and intermediate blocks contain study-bedrooms accessed from open, Oxbridge-style staircases, while only the tall end pavilions are fully enclosed. The left-hand wing has basement-level garages, while the right-hand wing contains sports facilities and a common room. A training centre block was added in 1986 at the end of the left-hand wing, aligned with it.

Cullinan's additions balance historicism with explicitly modern forms and materials. Each block is divided horizontally between a solid masonry base of limestone panels framed by red brick bands and a lighter superstructure of dark-stained timber with infill panels of vertical boarding and plate glass. Many features suggest Far Eastern influences, including complex notched sections, lattice-like exposed timber frames, deep oversailing roofs and hanging rain chains. The two outer pavilions rise to four storeys, taller than the house itself, where the middle portion breaks through the main gable to terminate in a smaller gable recalling the double-pedimented façades of Palladio's Venetian churches and villa designs by 18th-century English architects such as Robert Taylor and James Paine. The lower two-storey blocks behind feature split-pitched roofs with clerestory windows to the upper bedrooms. The rear block containing the foyer, dining hall and lecture room is a large barn-like structure with galleries along the sides and a broad louvred gable-end set above two opposed flights of stone steps.

The ground-floor rooms in the 1859 house have been substantially remodelled but retain original fireplaces, decorative plaster cornices, skirtings, doors and window shutters. The library, to the right of the entrance, is wood-panelled with built-in shelving.

The principal interior of the Cullinan phase is the foyer, a multi-purpose area designed for conversation and impromptu working as well as reception and circulation. This double-height hall features an open timber roof glazed at the ridge and is dominated by two broad curving flights of steps designed to be sat upon as well as climbed, wrapping around a pair of tall capsule-shaped pods containing reception and cloakrooms with toilets above. The foyer is spanned from back to front by a dramatic raking steel bridge connecting the first-floor lecture room at the rear to the offices and seminar rooms in the first floor of the old house. The bridge and linked galleries have curving steel balustrades inset with slatted timber benches and lecterns. The lecture room is another top-lit space with an open-truss roof, capable of being divided down the middle to form two smaller rooms.

External corridors and stairs are floored in plain red quarry tiles contrasting with white-plastered walls and ceilings. The bedrooms are enlivened by split-level roofs and complex fenestration, all en-suite. Ground-floor rooms have French doors opening directly into the gardens, while first-floor rooms in the pavilions and left-hand wing have balconies.

The former coach house and stable block to the north-east of the main building and the remaining portion of the walled garden to the east are excluded from the listing.