Rooted in Rochester, and floating on heritage

October 12, 2025

Beneath the gaze of Rochester Castle, a new pavilion sits lightly in the grounds — neither competing with its surroundings nor retreating from them. It is an act of quiet confidence: a contemporary insertion that draws its strength from understanding the site it occupies.

 

Set into the slope, the pavilion reveals itself gradually. From above, its living roof extends the green line of the former castle embankment, while from below, a slender rhythm of timber and glass emerges beneath the planted surface — a calm counterpoint to the castle’s massive verticality. The building quite literally floats above history, spanning the buried line of the ancient castle ditch. Its no-dig foundation ensures the archaeology beneath remains untouched, the structure bridging past and present with precision and care.

The crumbling remains of the historic gatehouse walls are no longer hidden in the corner of an opportunist urban carpark but are brought into public view.  The green roof is bisected by a slot window revealing glimpses of the new café below, a space conceived as a quasi-archaeological chamber.

Inside, the design translates the language of excavation into crafted architecture. Rough-sawn timber linings recall the shuttering of an archaeological dig. The limestone floor, embedded with fossil fragments, carries a quiet echo of the discarded fish bones found within the castle ditch — remnants of centuries-old meals that had settled and compacted like layers of sedimentary rock. Every material choice speaks of touch and time: timber, stone, metal, and glass, all left to weather with dignity.

The pavilion forms a calm, sociable room for the city — a space where people can pause, gather and look back toward the old gatehouse and upward at the scale of the awe-inspiring castle walls. The green roof above restores the continuity of landscape, inviting biodiversity back into the heart of Rochester while re-establishing the natural contours of the embankment.

This modest yet intricate structure is both a lens and a threshold: a way of looking out at Rochester’s layered skyline while standing directly above its hidden stories. It is a testament to how contemporary architecture can hold, rather than overwrite, history — demonstrating that humility, precision, and care are as vital to design as innovation itself.

For Stolon Studio, this is architecture as archaeology of ideas — a conversation across centuries, bridging what was once a defensive boundary to become a place of meeting, reflection and renewal.

About the author

Robert Barker

Robert Barker is one of the co-founders of Stolon Studio Ltd and an RIBA fellow. He has 20 years experience in architecture, planning and landscape design. He has delivered some unusual and highly innovative architecture, such as the Thames Amphibious House, the prefab Chichester Floating Home, and the flood-resilient property at the BRE park (whilst a director at Baca), as well as Forest Mews and Kaolin Court co-housing and various other schemes. He has developed master-planning and infrastructure projects, in London, Essex, Norwich, Littlehampton, Rochester, South-end, Amsterdam, Dordrecht, and Paris. He has been responsible for numerous projects researching zero-carbon, climate adaptation and flood-resilience; and is now exploring the benefits of multi-generational development. At Stolon he has a growing expertise in complex backland or infill sites. He continues to innovate in each and every architecture project, evolving and exploring new concepts, different materials and working methods in a constant search to create better living and working environments.