Bayside

Worthing? Or Barcelona?

The future of UK seaside towns has been an interesting topic over the last few years. Attempts to fend off serious decline have been partially countered by various government monies such as the Coastal Revival Fund, the Coastal Communities Fund and lottery projects. The south coast has benefited from Towner Eastbourne, De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, Hastings Contemporary and Pallant House in Chichester. But have these interventions attracted enough new visitors to these former resorts?

The last couple of years have helped, obviously, but not for the right reasons. And people have started heading abroad again: maybe not to the same extent, but the allure of the sun and a warm sea won’t go away. Sustainability is the over-used but vital key word. And sustainability means people ‘living’ in a place, spending money in local shops, bars and restaurants. A city like Brighton & Hove doesn’t have to work too hard – it’s always been popular for a weekend break, whether that’s for an event like Pride or the Brighton Marathon, a cultural experience at the Brighton Festival, or a full-on stag or hen-do…

Other coastal towns have to work a bit harder. And to put faith in to a town like Worthing is a brave move. Roffey Homes have been building on the south coast for over 50 years, and in 2015 proposed a 21-storey £40 million tower on their seafront site, next to WilkinsonEyre-designed Splashpoint Leisure Complex, at the eastern end of Worthing seafront. The council rejected these plans, so Roffey appointed new, internationally renowned architects Allies and Morrison, and the 141-home scheme with seafront square, cafe and commercial space was eventually approved by Worthing Borough Council in January 2017. The local MP, Peter Bottomley, tried to fight the approval, but the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, fortunately wasn’t interested in questioning the council’s decision.

The development sits comfortably adjacent to Splashpoint, and the two schemes are an exemplar of how to do ‘seaside’. The pool complex is a striking building – copper, timber, glass – way better than most buildings of this type: sport with a sea view, almost more like a piece of sculpture than a building. The seafront area between Splashpoint and the beach is like a little piece of Barcelona, with interesting paving, palm trees, and bespoke concrete benches. On a sunny day it’s a delight, and if you eat some seafood at the Bayside Social or CrabShack nearby you get the whole Mediterranean experience.

Bayside is a playful counterpoint to Splashpoint. The overused terms like ‘landmark’ and ‘gateway’ do actually apply in this case. It marks the start of Worthing from the east and according to Ben Cheal of Roffey Homes, ‘the design from Allies and Morrison incorporates features from historic buildings in Worthing’. It does to an extent, but it’s more than that. It’s a bold and clever design; the tower itself is square in plan, but the use of curved balconies that ripple around the building in an ice-cream swirl make it eye-catching from a distance and playful from up close. It doesn’t really ‘fit in’, but then why should it? Some of the best buildings don’t fit in to their local context; they celebrate their own identity. There is a development nearby that is a very accurate pastiche of south coast seafront Regency architecture, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re going to do it like that just do it well, but it doesn’t raise the game. If more seafront towns could encourage and embrace bold new architecture, whether it’s for people retiring from their large family houses, or for renting out a seaside property, then maybe there’s a chance that some of the rather tired seaside resorts of Sussex could be given a new lease of life.

Paul Appleton, Partner in charge of the project at Allies and Morrison, talks about how the idea for Bayside came about very easily, a tower there had to be a “very, very good piece of architecture” to justify its height. The architects spent a long time exploring the site from close up views, how it would be seen from the town centre and from the approach from the east, and even from up on the South Downs, in order to convince themselves that it was a comfortable height. The council suggested it might be taller, but after assessing the site in great detail the current height was felt to be enough to be ‘emphatic’ without being over dominant in its context. Paul talks about how the project is “all about the sea”, its curved balconies “expressive of the shoreline and the boundary with the beach”. The lower part of the scheme, off the Brighton Road, has more to do with the an interpretation of the historic architecture of the town, forming a square that references the Regency architecture of the south coast, with a lush, green landscaped garden filled with planting that will survive the marine environment.

But there’s no denying that it’s the tower that makes the scheme something special. It’s a clever design, wrapping sensuous curved forms around a simple square footprint. Off-setting the balconies not only creates an interesting organic statement, but also means that flats have effectively double-height space above their sea view, giving a grandeur that surprises and delights. It’s visible from a lot of the south coast – on a clear day you can see it from Brighton seafront. High quality housing-led development could well be the key to unlocking our coastal towns, but essential to this approach is design of the highest quality and Worthing has that covered.

Paul Zara chairs RIBA Sussex, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts