Shortlist: Mersey Observatory Design Competition

The RIBA has announced that a shortlist of five designs for the Mersey Observatory in Crosby has been selected by the judging panel. The international design competition attracted an outstanding response, with 92 designs received worldwide from architects in New York, Finland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany, Austria, China and Denmark, as well as the UK and Ireland.

The shortlisted practices are:

Ellis Williams Architects, Preston Brook
Duggan Morris Architects Ltd, London
Phos Architects, London
Farrell and Clark, Leeds
Studio 8 Architects, London

Competitors were set the challenge of designing an Observatory that will be loved by local people, as well as attracting people to visit Crosby and creating new jobs. The Observatory will be the first spectacular landmark seen by visiting tourists onboard cruise ships coming into the new landing facility at the Pier Head. It will be required to meet high standards of sustainability, including using renewable energy sources. It must also not impact negatively on the sites’ important nearby wildlife habitats, especially the foreshore.

Designs range from a startlingly elegant V-shaped structure with a suspended viewing pod cantilevered out over the River Mersey, to a triangular wedge shaped building extending out over the river.

The five designs are preliminary at this stage and will be refined over the coming months ahead of a public exhibition next February.

As well as architects and regeneration experts, the selection panel also included Crosby resident Ian Hamilton Fazey, representing the views of Waterloo Residents Association and the Friends of Crosby Coastal Park.

Comments from local people on the short listed designs are welcome and can be made by emailing observatory@merseybasin.org.uk. Comments will be passed on to the judging panel so they can be used when the winning design is selected in March 2008.

People will also have a chance to comment when an exhibition of the shortlisted designs goes on display in February 2008. A winner will be selected in March 2008.

Ian Hamilton Fazey, chairman of the Waterloo Residents' Association and a member of the jury for the competition, said: "This will be a signature building at the point where the Mersey becomes Liverpool Bay. It will be visible for many miles and act as a powerful statement of Liverpool's resurgence.
"As it looms ever larger when the great cruise liners sail up the Crosby Channel into the Mersey, we want something that will surprise, delight and impress people from all over the world.
"The project has wide popular support, partly because we would all like to see the back of the Mersey waterfront's very own architectural carbuncle, but also because, over the years, the Observatory will bring in millions of visitors and greatly boost our local economy, with considerable opportunities for Waterloo's restaurants, cafes, pubs, and shops."

Walter Menzies, chief executive of the Mersey Basin Campaign, said: “The River Mersey changed the world. Its regeneration is one of the great success stories of the last twenty years. In the twenty-first century its future is exciting. The story of the river yesterday, today and tomorrow must be told. The Mersey Observatory could have no more magnificent site and the short listed entries brilliantly show the potential.”