Resolven Miners Welfare

The tripartite aims of this proposal are to rejuvenate, revitalise and regenerate the Resolven Miners Welfare Hall as a gateway to Resolven. The RMW Hall is a community asset not yet fully realised, thus it is hoped in this proposal that the building can serve the community and the wider local area with a multi-functional third space design that respects the hall’s heritage internally and externally.

The vision for Resolven is to encourage the community to congregate back to the RMW hall that it is highly proud of, to draw the community closer and be a model for what other nearby Welsh communities could be. Additionally, important was the celebration of the Art Deco heritage of the hall, thus the proposal explored, analysed and restores the Art Deco style frontages and large internal theatre/cinema space. In rejuvenating the hall to this former glory in a renewed innovated way, it would serve Resolven for decades to come.

The architectural drivers for the proposal were the exploration of the hall’s former Art Deco façade and tectonics. This led to the restoration of the red brickwork, glazing, and Art Deco white tiling to its full frontage. This would not only respect past fond memories yet also revitalise them to modern standards to maintain their future. The unique selling point focused on design intentions to create copious amounts of external spaces and integrate the extension that is secondary to the Art Deco heritage. In revitalising the community and the hall, introducing programmes was a key driver. Re-introducing the theatre/cinema and prioritising the existing Drift restaurant. Other programmes feed into the primary spaces: the roof garden, market space and communal meeting chamber. By reintroducing several purposes to the hall, it would become a fully functional building across all its spaces.

The group design process was highly collaborative, distributing the development across distinct roles from cost manager, heritage consultancy, sustainability and community officer, structural consultancy, and project manager, each with their own focus that was bridged together in a single proposal. The group stage design proposes new sets of spaces that were conceptualised in an iterative process that accounted for design, atmosphere, heritage, construction, cost, and relation to the existing building. This coordinated design ensured a thorough design that seeks to rejuvenate the village and its community through considerate architecture.