Deal Pier Head showing the newly built and opened restaurant
Deal Pier Head showing the newly built and opened restauran. As one of only two surviving piers in Kent, Deal Pier still exists to a substantial length. Its Kentish counterpart at Herne Bay can only boast a shoreward end. The present Deal Pier is the third to have been built here, and is the only new pier in Britain to have been constructed after the Second World War. In 1954 work began on the construction of the third and present pier. Designed by Sir W. Halcrow & Partners and built entirely of reinforced concrete, the pier was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 19th November 1957. Although not as ornate as its predecessors, today's Deal Pier has a simple style and a certain charm. Seating runs along its 1,026ft (311m) length and ends at a three-tiered pier head containing bar, café and lounge. Interestingly, the lower tier at the pierhead is permanently submerged by the sea. Work began in April 2008 to construct a new pier-head with a modern restaurant, with the restaurant opening in December 2008. The elegant design by winning Architect, Niall McLaughlin, provided the most successful resolution to the complex demands of the café's highly exposed coastal location and was officially opened to the public in November 2008. The building’s structure is a series of trussed portal frames made of Iroko wood, with pinned feet to minimise load transfer to the existing pier structure. The frames were developed with Niall McLaughlin Architects to make use of standard length, triangulated timber ‘spars’ for a highly efficient and minimalist structure to resist the vertical, wind, and wave impact load. The individual lengths of Iroko were connected by stainless steel flitch plates, recessed into each joint. It has been short-listed for an award of the Stephen Lawrence Prize for Architecture by RIBA.
Size: 5050px × 3360px
Location: Deal Pier, Deal, Kent, UK
Photo credit: © John Gaffen 2 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: architects, architecture, award-winning, deal, design, kent, pier, restaurant, sea, spars, timber
