London Regatta Centre 25th Anniversary
ritchie*studio are delighted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the London Regatta Centre commemorating the official opening on March 30, 2000, by HRH The Princess Royal.
It provided London and the southeast of England with its first Olympic standard rowing facility and a unique rowing tank developed with Arup with 2-speed pumped water to simulate real open water rowing for amateurs and professionals.
ritchie*studio organised the design of the boathouse and clubhouse within parallel lines of gabion walls – a construction technique more often associated with civil engineering than architecture but pioneered in architecture by our office in 1992 at Terrasson, in France. In the case of the boathouse, the building is defined only by the free standing gabion walls and a lightweight stiffened catenary stainless steel sheet roof.
We would like to thank all those who have participated in the Regatta’s Centre realisation, notably our client, the Royal Albert Dock Trust, our fellow design consultants at Arup and the contractor Bovis-Lelliott and their sub-contractors.
2000 Royal Fine Art Commission Trust Sports Building of the Year
2000 RIBA Award
2002 Civic Trust Award
London Regatta Centre
Aircraft appear on water
in a liquid landscape, where
the sun rises above a basin
and sets behind a rising city.
Two competitive rowers
dream a fantastic building.
others decline the work
offering us a chance to plan
how two buildings can be one
where docks tighten into a throat
on a tight triangle of land. 
By impressing new walls upon old walls
made of destructed empire warehouses
emerging powerful forms
can shape the dockside again
not with thin corrugated sheet
but caged undulating minerals.
© Ian Ritchie 1996
