The headhouse will provide ventilation and emergency access to the high-speed railway's 10 mile-long Chilterns tunnel below.
The headhouse is one of four that will be built above a vent shafts leading down to the high speed rail tunnel below and is similar in style to the HS2 headhouse at Chalfont St Peter announced earlier this year.
Set back from the main A413, the single storey design is inspired by barns and historic agricultural buildings found in the surrounding area. This has influenced the building's dark and neutral colours, which are designed to fit into the surrounding landscape and to weather naturally over time.
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The landscaping around the headhouse, for which designers took inspiration from the surrounding natural environment including native trees and chalk grasslands, has been designed to screen the building through planting and blending it into the landscape.
The Little Missenden headhouse will sit atop a 17.4m diameter, 30m deep ventilation shaft that will reach down to the railway's twin tunnels below. It will contain fans and other equipment designed to regulate air quality and temperature in the tunnels, remove smoke in the event of a fire and provide access for the emergency services.
In addition to the headhouse the site will include an autotransformer electricity station and a stair and vent building both of which carry similar design cues.
HS2 Ltd's senior project manager, Mark Clapp said: "Designs for the Little Missenden headhouse are the culmination of many hours’ work to develop a scheme that both serves the needs of operating HS2 and is in keeping with local design heritage.
|Our four-week engagement with the community is an opportunity for them to tell us their views of the scheme. As part of this programme we’ve arranged three online webinars where people will hear about how the designs were developed."
