page_title: Weald and Downland Living Museum
section_title: Gridshell
hierarchical_section_title: Weald and Downland Living Museum / Buildings / Gridshell
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of the Gridshell building at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
context_page_description: The Weald and Downland Living Museum is an open-air museum in Singleton, West Sussex. The museum is a registered charity.
  The museum covers 40 acres, with over 50 historic buildings dating from 950AD to the 19th century, along with gardens, farm animals, walks and a mill pond.
  The principal aim at the foundation of the museum was to establish a centre that could rescue representative examples of vernacular buildings from South East England, and thereby to generate increased public awareness and interest in the built environment.
  The museum principally promotes the retention of buildings on their original sites unless there is no alternative, and encourages an informed and sympathetic approach to their preservation and continuing use.
  The buildings at the museum were all threatened with destruction and, as it was not possible to find a way to preserve them at their original sites, they were carefully dismantled, conserved and rebuilt in their historical form at the museum.
  These buildings, plus two archaeological reconstructions, help the museum bring to life the homes, farmsteads and rural industries of the last 950 years.
context_section_description: The Weald and Downland Gridshell was constructed in 2000–2002. An innovative design built primarily to create an accessible store for the museum's rural life collection, it also houses the museum's conservation workshops, and an exhibition area is in the foyer. The building has won eight awards, and was runner-up for the RIBA 2003 Stirling Prize.
caption: The Gridshell building
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