THE HANGAR MUST FIND A NEW RAISON D'ETRE

摘要

'Life wouldn't be worth living if we didn't take our buildings seriously,' says Julian Harrap. That attitude is in evidence in Farnborough, where Julian Harrap Architects has sensitively restored a portable airship hangar, which was inaugurated this month as the unlikely centrepiece of a public square at the heart of Farnborough Business Park, a 52ha former Royal Aircraft Establishment site owned by property developer Slough Estates. Originally built to shelter inflatable airships, which were used for reconnaissance in the First World War, the resurrected hangar is part of a historic core of buildings at the northern end of the site that seeks to convey a sense of the site's aviation heritage. Two nearby listed buildings, also refurbished by Harrap, house five wind tunnels — three of which are still in working order and looking for tenants — which have been used to test aircraft ranging from the Spitfire to the Concorde.