Nottingham has many period buildings with intricate façades and entrances. Historically, these were a symbol of status and prosperity. Details were incorporated within the façade composition, and were conceived as an integral part of the building, not as an afterthought or addition.
The Flying Horse Inn building has details that were incorporated within the composition of the façade and fenestrations.
1. Composition and proportions
The basic rules of composition can be applied to any design including façades, buildings, neighbourhoods and whole cities. Good, clear compositions make the environment easier to understand - more legible. When buildings are legible, the place as a whole becomes more inviting and feels safer. A building is legible when people can guess where the entrance is and what happens behind its walls.
Good proportions are more easily achieved when designers apply a clear measuring system that establishes mathematical relationships between the parts. This traditional approach to designing in proportion can help rationalise façades, making buildings more legible and easy to interpret.
Contemporary architecture is designed using decimal metric systems, as opposed to the historic imperial approach. This needs to be considered when designing shopfronts in historic buildings, to ensure proposals are in proportion with their setting.
Good proportions help create façades with components that follow clear design rules, giving each part a relative hierarchy. In classical architecture, the dimensions of all the component parts of a façade and the separation between components, follow a mathematical rule. Good contemporary design also applies these principles. Good designers emphasise the relative hierarchy of some of the components over others, for example, main entrances stand out and have more intricate detail or interest. Most historic buildings in Nottingham have an enhanced ground floor, which is often the retail space. Nottingham shopfronts tend to be dominated by large expanses of glass, emphasising the status of the retail space and optimising views in to the building. The floors above also have a relative hierarchy, mainly structured by the size of openings and their separation, and the application of detail.
Design Criteria
1.1 Follow the basic rules of composition to design each shopfront façade in response to its immediate environment.
1.2 The proportions of the proposals are informed by the proportions of the building and where possible the historic shopfront, as evidenced from historical research.
1.3 Proposals are formed by component parts that are in relation to each other in terms of size, position, and separation, and they follow specific and clear mathematical rules.