Like the first line of a novel or the opening of a film, the design of a threshold sets the theme and draws you in, according to Sam Jacob, one of the speakers at Making an Entrance: fresh thinking in threshold design, an Architects Journal webinar. Supported by INTRAsystems, the event took in everything from the wider concept of the threshold to the details of specifying entrance matting.Speakers presented case studies that explored these important gateway spaces. Jacob kicked off proceedings with a lively presentation that referenced Daphne Du Maurier and the work of Saul Bass, as well as work by his own studio. For Jacob, the entrance is a really important place where you move from one world into another world. He clearly seizes the opportunities this presents with gusto, such as the utilisation of Somerset Houses architecture for the exhibition The Horror Show! with an archway appropriated to evoke a gaping mouth to dramatise the moment of crossing the threshold.For a new threshold at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the practice sought to make an entrance that talked about the values of the V&A, said Jacob. This included a new glass entrance door and ceramics in the toilets in reference to the museums glass and ceramics collections respectively. The ceramics included terrazzo made from crushed, discarded Jasperware a nod to the museums strong connection to Wedgwood and digitally printed tiles using figures from the ceramics collection. The result, said Jacob, achieves a kind of cultural resonance even in the most functional parts of the V&A.AdvertisementMorrow + Lorraines reworked and extended entrance to Alder Castle, part of a Cat A refurbishment of the eight-storey, 1990s office building, presented the practice with many challenges. The building overlooks the London Wall a scheduled monument and is close to the Grade I-listed St Anne & St Agnes church in the City of London. As well as improving the entrance, the practice addressed the underwhelming approach via a bridge over the Wall and adjacent public realm.The resulting design, presented by associate Sarah Matheou and architect Radostina Stoyanova, was an opportunity to create something very meaningful and remarkable, said Stoyanova. As part of the extension, the massing is brought forward to the bridge midpoint with a single-storey canopy that both marks the entrance and amplifies the contrasting spacious volume of the new reception beyond. Care was taken to follow the existing strong datum lines and to create a more delicate transition with the immediate environs, with an information point halfway across the bridge, and improved landscaping.We wanted it to look as if it had always been embedded within the fabric of the existing building, said Matheou.The Part M challenge of navigating the level changes to the gardens was a particular issue. The final design provides a 1:21 slope, and outward opening automatic opening doors.Joanna Warda, a senior interior designer at tp bennett, presented the practices ongoing 7,500m2 refurbishment of The Langfield, which will transform two end-of-life commercial offices close to Victoria Station. The retrofit will move the entrance to the left of the building down a wide portal and walkway to enable the practice to activate the whole frontage of the building, and allow us to create a pocket garden, says Warda. In combination with a public caf and distinctive walkway soffit, this will increase the buildings presence and public offering.Advertisementtp bennett plans to retain as much structure as possible, with the exception of a part of the faade that has been condemned. Warda talked about the practices use of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to inform its specifications, along with its ADLib specification resource, which enable it to fully understand a products environmental, health and social impacts. She recommended asking hard questions and getting familiar with EPD terminology. The plan is for ADLib to become an open source platform later this year.Aaron Dixon, specification consultant at INTRAsystems, set out some of the practicalities of specifying entrance matting which, he says, plays a crucial role in keeping an entrance safe and tidy. This is generally used in three zones external matting, primary internal matting and secondary walk-off area. In terms of amount, while British Standard and WELL standards are 2.1m and 3m respectively, INTRAsystems rule of thumb is 4m, with matting depths up to a maximum of 21mm. Environmental performance is increasingly relevant Dixon has noticed that design teams now want to see EPDs for entrance matting, which the manufacturer has for all its products.He set out the circular credentials of the INTRAform DM ecoSwitch product, which has a replaceable insert system that avoids replacing the aluminium profile system. As well as its practical functions, matting can also contribute to the wider design aesthetic, whether through the use of different colours or configuration, such as chevron patterns. This can give a much more dynamic, creative look and feel to an entrance, he said. Different shapes are also available in the INTRAshape range.While thresholds clearly offer great creative potential, they also present plenty of technical challenges. Jacob talked about their very demanding nature and the logistical difficulty of incorporating necessary equipment and cabling without it becoming a total mess.Achieving certifications for bespoke elements was also challenging. Working with existing buildings can present extra difficulties, especially for Part M compliance. Dixon identified the challenges of weather draught lobbies are a big help in counteracting cold air. And on a maintenance level, as entrance matting is designed to collect dirt, its important that clients understand that it will need regular cleaning.The panelAaron Dixon specification consultant, INTRAsystemsSam Jacob founder, Sam Jacob StudioSarah Matheou associate, Morrow + LorraineRadostina Stoyanova architect, Morrow + LorraineJoanna Warda senior interior designer, tp bennettHattie Hartman (chair) sustainability editor, The Architects Journal

A virtual image of UK Parliament Source:&nbsp ShutterstockLeading architects including David Chipperfield and Amanda Levete have called on the government to protect the professions intellectual property rights from AI In a consultation that closed last month, the government proposed allowing AI firms to use the copyrighted work of creative industries including architecture, music, film, TV, publishing and design without permission.In theory, it would allow AI firms such as ChatGPT and Midjourney to create new content having learned from existing intellectually protected work without breaking copyright law. However, the government says creative firms will have the choice to opt out.Writing in a letter to technology secretary Peter Kyle, more than 30 high-profile names from the design world said the proposed law change risks running roughshod over the design and creative industries.AdvertisementThe designers argue that their profession, like the music industry, is built on copyright, intellectual property and patents and that AI companies were being allowed flout copyright law.Just like the music sector, we rely on a mix of copyright and IP and patents. Interconnected and progressive, these copyright systems allow us to imagine and build the world around us, the group said in a letter first shared in The Guardian.They argued that the choice of opting out was unfair, as it placed the burden on the creative sector. They claimed the government was avoiding demanding that AI companies observe the law and our copyright so that we can determine when and on what basis we share our imagination and hard work.Chipperfield, founder and principle of David Chipperfield Architects, Jasper Conran, son of the late Terence Conran and chairman of Conran and Partners, and Levete, founder and principle of AL_A, were among the signatories to the letter.A RIBA report last year showed that 43 per cent of architects use AI on the occasional project. However, 58 per cent of architects surveyed by the institute said they believed AI increases the risk of their work being copied.AdvertisementA government spokesperson told The Guardian that existing copyright law was holding back the creative industries, media, and AI sector from reaching their full potential.The statement added: We are committed to greater transparency from AI developers regarding the content used to train their models. We have always been clear that no decisions will be made until we are confident in a practical plan that meets all our objectives.2025-04-02Gino Spocchiacomment and share

The Wandsworth tower, called Nest Battersea, would provide 147 flats, as well as 500m of commercial space near to the London Heliport.It would be built close to the Thames, on the site of Heliport House, a vacant five-storey office block, and two industrial garages, which would all be demolished to make way for the new plans.The building is earmarked for the same site as Will Alsops planned 15-storey Heliport Heights tower block, which gained planning permission in 2014.AdvertisementThe mixed-use scheme on stilts, which would have been the late Alsops last in London, was never built.The Alsop plan was for 14 flats one on each floor with a duplex at the top none of which would have been designated affordable. A third of the homes in HTAs scheme will be affordable. About 15 will be wheelchair-accessible.The building will be fitted with air-source heat pumps and solar panels, and will also use a waste water heat recovery system.The architects aim to minimise emissions by reusing demolition waste on site, as well as using 100 per cent recycled rebar and window frames with high recycled aluminium content. The building will also be fitted with centralised ambient loop air heating conditioning systems and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery.The scheme will also feature some improvements to the local public realm, including new planting and signage on the riverfront. Also included within the block itself will be a roof garden and childrens play area.AdvertisementDevelopers said that they were breathing new life into a part of Battersea thats been under-utilised for too long. Despite the marketings focus on local regeneration, a promotional video for the scheme uses imagery from the South Bank and Westminster Bridge Road, several miles away.London heliport bosses said they wanted to look at more detailed plans before commenting. The developers said they had consulted with aviation experts and did not foresee any issues.Consultation on the initial plans took place in February this year. Planning consultants told the AJ that 20,000 people had visited the portal.Concrete Amsterdam worked as concept architects, with HTA drawing up more detailed designs.The project team hopes to get through the planning phase in the next two years.HTA, the AJ100 Employer of the Year, delivered the masterplan for the nearby Winstanley estate regeneration for Wandsworth Council and Taylor Wimpey.The private developers exited the 2,250 home scheme in January, with HTAs role in the future of the project left unclear.Will Alsop's RA Summer Exhibition-winning model of his Heliport Heights scheme

This years competition, again with a prize purse of 25,000, seeks inventive design proposals to transform any site in the UK into a cohesive and integrated community of at least 300 new homes.The brief responds to the governments ambitious goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next five years. Concepts will be expected to zoom in on the experiential aspects of typical living spaces and provide solutions to ensure quality as well as quantity remains part of the outcome.The 16-strong longlist (see full details below) includes Ash Sakula, Patch Collective, Clifton Emery Design, daab Design Architects, Morris+Company, RCKa, Studio Woodroffe Papa, and The Place Bureau.AdvertisementThe annual prize recognises the best of transformative architecture of the home. It is open to multidisciplinary teams featuring at least one ARB or RIAI-registered architect. Each year, three shortlisted teams receive 5,000, while the overall winner takes home a further 10,000.The award is named after architect, visualiser and Hayes Davidson founder Alan Davidson, who died of motor neurone disease in 2018. For 2025, The Davidson Prize is partnering with leading visualisation studio Hayes Davidson, which will provide creative consultation and provide the winner with an additional week of support to help them engage with key decision makers.Jury chair Pooja Agrawal architect, planner and chief executive of Public Practice said: One of the great things about The Davidson Prize is the way it brings together multidisciplinary teams. For me thats not just about bringing together different professional skill sets, but also peoples lived experiences after all housing is about peoples homes.The range of proposals we assessed were varied, tackling finance, typologies and planning. There were so many interesting ideas to learn from and collectively they provided a vision for what the future of housing in the UK could look like.Akil Scafe-Smith, jury member and director of Resolve Collective said:This year's submissions creatively addressed a variety of contexts in responseto The Davidson Prize's challenge. It was particularly moving to see the vision and feel the energy of the non-London and Northern England based proposals and I'm excited to get into choosing the three finalists.AdvertisementThis years theme is Streets Ahead: The Race to Build 1.5M Homes. It asks collaborative teams to draw up compelling visual arguments for a minimum of 300 new homes on a site of their choice anywhere in the UK or Ireland.Last years Davidson Prize was won by The Apartment Store a concept to reinvent empty retail space as homes designed by Studio Saar with Landstory, Stories, BAS and Megaphone. The 2023 Davidson Prize was won by Helping Hands, drawn up by a team led by Liverpools Studio MUTT and collaborative research outfit Neighbourhood.The inaugural contest in 2021 was won by a team led by Haptic Architects under the banner HomeForest and featuring poet Lionheart, designer Yaoyao Meng, digital designers Squint/Opera and musicians Coda to Coda. The teams biophilic design aimed to bring the restorative effects of nature inside, [and] playfully blend digital and physical worlds to soften the constraints of working from home.Alongside Agrawal and Scafe-Smith, the judging panel includes Jonny Buckland, creative partner at Studio Saar and 2024 Davidson Prize winner; Lucy Watson, commissioning editor, House & Home at The Financial Times; and Jonathan Falkingham, founder and director of Urban Splash.The next stage will see three teams shortlisted and paid5,000 each to further develop their concept. The overall winner will be announced in June.daab Design Architects, HomeGrown Plus, Expedition Engineering, Robert Bird Group, Third Revolution Projects, Atelier Crescendo Between the Lines - Living with IndustryThe Davidson Prize 2025 longlistF.U.N.N.E.L by A IS FOR ARCHITECTURE, WSP, SpacehubHardworking Landscapes by AOMD, Edit, Periscope, Dion Barrett, Ruth Lang1 House, 2 Homes... make a neighbourhood by Ash Sakula with Human NatureWearWork by CARD Projects, PATCH Collective, and System of Systems300 Homes within a Union Street Mile by Clifton Emery Design, Nudge Community Builders, Millfields Trust, Plymouth Energy Community, Devon and Cornwall Planning ConsultantsBetween the Lines Living with Industry by daab Design Architects, HomeGrown Plus, Expedition Engineering, Robert Bird Group, Third Revolution Projects, Atelier CrescendoPermitted Development + by Elephant in the City Morris+Company, Hub, Stantec / Hydrock, Studio Knight StokoePositive Disturbance Realising Brownfield Potential by FLOC, MAZi, Hyem, Stef Leach, Broaden, Thurston Illustration, SHED, Artis, Henna AsikainenMetroland by Harper Perry, Urban Design Works and Studio Mint with North East Combined Authority and NEXUS Tyne and Wear MetroThe Rail Belt by James Waddington with Nathaniel Welham and WSPBeta Boroughs How Could Better Data Help Us Beat the Housing Crisis? by RCKaKommuna Palace by Studio Woodroffe Papa, Lawrence Barth, Almitra Roosevelt and Anagha Othalur of AA Housing and Urbanism, Whitby Wood, XCO2Forever Island A New Model for Young Islanders by The Place BureauGrowing Places by University of West England StudentsLiving in the Landscape A community for all ages by William Burgess & Oliver BurgessRUN! by Yolande Barnes Consulting & Space SyntaxWilliam Burgess & Oliver Burgess Living in the Landscape - A community for all ages

Mercato Metropolitano Ilford opened last July on Chadwick Road in the London Borough of Redbridge, promising business opportunities, cultural exchange and 100 new jobs all with expectations the Elizabeth Line would help bring an influx of people to the area. As of February this year, only an ice cream kiosk remains of its former 20-plus traders and less than a quarter of the food halls floor space is open to the public and at reduced opening hours. This is most likely a symptom of a gloomy post-Christmas blip, but it is just the latest of many challenges that the market has seen on its seven-year stop-start ride from conception to completion. This is not a story of a failing entrepreneurial endeavour but one of perseverance and about attempts to fulfil a promise to one of the most diverse communities in the country.The low-tech community food markets journey began in 2018 as part of Redbridge Councils Spark Ilford regeneration project for the creation of a cultural quarter, funded through the Mayor of Londons Good Growth Fund. An existing surface car park earmarked for housing was identified as one of three council sites for five years of meanwhile use, along with Redbridge Town Hall. Sustainable food and community market provider Mercato Metropolitano was introduced to Redbridge Council following the successful opening of its flagship market at Elephant and Castle, boasting a sustainable and community manifesto that aligned with Redbridges vision of an Ilford for all.AdvertisementIn 2018, Redbridge ran a day-long charrette-style competition for the pop-up market-cum-cultural hub commission. Four teams including Asif Khan, Jestico + Whiles with Goldfinger Factory and Greig were contenders, and Interrobang was chosen. Interrobang was at the time an architecture and engineering practice, founded in 2015 by Smith Mordak within natural materials-specialist engineer Webb Yates. However, it was wound up in 2020 when Mordak, who is now chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, moved to Buro Happold to become a director of sustainability and physics.Interrobang was the laziest, jokes Marc Clark, regeneration programme manager at Redbridge, recalling that the winning team put together just two pages during the day-long charrette in the neighbouring town hall. The process was intended to give emerging and smaller design practices a chance to bid for mayoral-supported projects, as well as to inform the brief, adds Clark. However, it had nailed down exactly what client Mercato was looking for: ideas for a covered commercial and community facility featuring a rooftop hydroponic farm and education space, useable for community events, music, urban farming and studio space, and meeting Mercatos own ambitions for an element of self-sufficiency.Clark speaks positively about the charrette, saying it set up a good working relationship from the outset. We werent the direct client, but everyone wanted it to succeed, he adds. Unusual at the time for Greater London Authority-funded projects, the process of a charrette was selected to encourage the client to engage with the ideas of the design teams, rather than focusing primarily on fees.The designs starting point was the car park that is used to being rained on, says Webb Yates associate Dan Cole, recalling that the projects core philosophy was to return the site undamaged at the end of the lease period, leaving the site free from buried structures that would need to be removed. Initial proposals were for a hyper-flexible timber structure with demountable frame that could be reconfigured or relocated to other sites. Circular design principles were central, and the project would be detailed to eliminate material wastage through maintenance.AdvertisementSo, no foundations, just timber feet, he adds, the idea being that these feet would sit atop the car park site, spreading the structures load with vertical bracing and just three sets of concrete ballast to tie the shed structure down and prevent it from being blown away. Only two lengths of column would be needed across the whole building, these structural feet essentially comprising two projecting prongs at either side of columns that can be extended and adapted for other sites as and when needed. Finally, unusually, the team proposed hydroponic cultivation for the roof plants growing in water instead of soil.Mercato Metropolitano began in 2015 with a pilot project during the World Expo in Milan, regenerating a 14,000m2 disused railway station. Set up by Italian businessman Andrea Rasca, the heavily branded venture made a move to London, successfully opening a popular venue in a former paper factory in Elephant and Castle in 2016 apparently after a chance meeting with Mayor Sadiq Khan. Now there are three more: one in a Grade I-listed building in Mayfair; one in Elephant Park; and another, perhaps most suited to its bougie food prices, in Wood Wharf.Mercato Metropolitano claims its core aim is regenerating areas and bringing communities together, as well as being sustainable and inclusive in its offering. Its focus is on sustainably sourced products, artisan producers and being hyper-local. Its dreaMM campaign aims to nurture and support young businesses, transforming them into budding entrepreneurs. Mercatos key rules for the markets programme were to serve food on crockery, with cutlery, and have a central wash-up area for these, eliminating plastic waste; to have a 24-hour biodigester for breaking down organic food waste into biogas and fertiliser; to send no waste refuse to landfill; and to provide flexible space for local food traders and community activities.During the pandemic, the market was put on hold. And, with the wind-up of Webb Yates architecture arm, a new tender was put out to take the project forward in its construction phase. Hotel, bar and restaurant specialist Clark Architecture, led by Anthony Clark, was brought on board, having completed Mercatos other London venues.At about the same time, two other consultants were brought into the project to value-engineer the design. The first element to go was the second-storey hydroponic farm. Specialists suggested that the multi-span polytunnels would work best in a large shed rather than on a roof and, in view of the additional weight of the water, it was decided that a rooftop community garden instead would be the best compromise.The next elements to come under scrutiny were the external ducts and chimney flues, which provide extraction from cooking zones. They were deemed oversized, but Anthony Clark and his team fought hard to keep them as they are. Aesthetically they are a major part of the sheds visual appearance and typical of Webb Yates exposed M&E design. Theyre a genius part of the design, says Clark. Theyre very low-tech.When the project started on site, more issues arose. Beneath the car park were several Second World War air raid shelters. Although the design took account of these, additional undocumented tunnels were discovered, which limited the structure to one storey. The team had to conduct plate tests to ensure the structural loads onto the markets bespoke-designed timber feet would work.As there was a 1.2m drop across the site, drains had to be put in place around the sites perimeter and the car park resurfaced with asphalt to tackle surface water concerns. Building Control was cautious about the buildings structural integrity, sitting so lightly on sloping ground, and didnt sign off the project until it was literally about to open.The scheme that has so laboriously been built is a large, airy shed, clad in translucent polycarbonate cladding simply fixed so that it can be easily removed, if needed. The demountable structure of glulam columns and beams with CLT infill panels all sits lightly on the ground as envisaged seven years ago, but the feet for the columns are made out of standardised steel plates instead, due to budgetary constraints.The timbers have been set out on a kiosk grid to the standard dimensions of the scrapped polytunnels. Bolted connections and waterproofing systems mechanically fixed in small sections also enable localised repair in the event of damage. The difficulty was not knowing who was going to come in, says Anthony Clark, pointing out that the schemes adaptability was about both functionality for the different vendors and circularity.The ducts and chimneys are a real celebratory moment, says Redbridges Marc Clark. The symmetry is key. Hes right. Standing along Clements Road, the scheme perhaps seems the most stripped-back shed-like form there can be for good reason but it should be celebrated that the flues and chimneys were kept as originally designed, with vents boldly placed on the column gridlines.The flues were reduced in height slightly, but the simple, main moves are still evident. Shiny, wide and tall chimneys, coming out of the external sides of the faade, both give articulation to an otherwise simply detailed, empty expanse and hint at the sheds uses within. They are the key aesthetic of the scheme in terms of proportion and set a horizontal datum for the long elevations so that the sloping ground isnt immediately noticeable.Along the north edge of site are the back-of-house spaces biodigester and zero-landfill recycling facilities simply cordoned off by an acoustic wall to keep the noise down.A mezzanine level has been built inside the hall for community use but as of February, it remained unused. Provision is left for a lift and stair core to one side. Stage two including this and the rooftop garden is expected to get under way in the next eight months.The L-shape of the market can be changed and set up in a different way, if needed, says Cole, pointing to the flexibility of the sheds redeployable modules. Its essentially giant Meccano. Webb Yates went as far as to bring a contractor and cost consultant on board to price the hypothetical eventuality of disassembly and reconstruction. We wanted to show it was feasible, Cole says.At the time of opening last year, filled with more than 20 traders local to Ilford, the market drummed up plenty of excitement in the local press. However, since then, prospects have changed and it has become clear Mercatos financial performance over the past couple of years has taken a drastic hit. At the end of last year, founder Rasca resigned and a new director was appointed. In December last year the group surrendered the lease of its Elephant Park site to a third party.Although the market isnt operating at full capacity, the team is still pleased. Its a beautiful outdoor structure, says Marc Clark. The low-tech structure is truly flexible, and its an example of a fully demountable structure: everyone agrees it could be used for something else. Hopefully, with Mercatos change of management and a bit more investment the scheme can live up to its intentions of being an incredible asset for Ilford and the local community.And, technically, despite its numerous challenges, this scheme provides learning opportunities for others and shows that, with forward planning, demountable architecture is possible.Architects viewHaving collaborated previously with Mercato Metropolitano, Clark Architecture was appointed at Stage 4 to help move the Ilford project forward. Construction was planned to start on site in late 2020. The team was determined to deliver the project for the community after the unavoidable disruption of the pandemic.The building is essentially a covered market and therefore has no heating or cooling demand. It is open to the elements at the base of all faades and at the eaves to allow fresh air to circulate and to prevent overheating in warmer months. Plastic reusable wind curtains can be installed to provide a sheltered lobby when required in colder months. The building is considered to have low energy demand with respect to Approved Document L2 (Conservation of fuel and power).Timber lends itself to reuse and was the natural choice for a sustainability-focused temporary community space. The building is formed from glulam columns and beams with CLT softwood infill panels at low level and polycarbonate cladding at high level. The roof is a softwood CLT slab covered with a single-ply membrane. Internally, the language of the various kiosks, services and centralised areas creates a cohesive feel through the use of standard sawn timber planking.The acoustic fence was also specified to be demountable. The internal face is clad in Quietstone light a rigid, durable absorber made from 94 per cent recycled expanded glass beads, while self-bearing panels are mechanically fixed direct to walls for easy maintenance and demountability.The next phase of the project intends to unlock the multipurpose mezzanine space and create a community garden on the roof. Pre-planning applications have been discussed with the London Borough of Redbridge, whose feedback was positive. Were looking forward to seeing the structure evolve to serve both its current and future communities.Anthony Clark, director, Clark ArchitectureEngineers viewThe brief, which centred around a building that would occupy a site for only five years, was the perfect opportunity to explore the principles of circular design. The compressed building lifespan meant that not only was a demountable timber frame the sustainable choice, but one that made the project economically viable, extending the return period of the initial capital expenditure.Demountability was core to the structural philosophy and informed both the overall arrangement and detailing. Recognising that the current configuration might not always work on future sites, the grid was rigidly set so that the glulam timber components formed a kit of parts, allowing the structure to be re-assembled in arrangements to suit other plots. Connections between the timber members were detailed with clip-in concealed connectors that allow the elements to be taken apart without any damage or modifications that might hinder their re-use.Foundations were also initially conceived to be in the form of adjustable timber feet that bear directly onto the car park surface and, at the same time, take out level differences across the site. However, below-ground structures and budget constraints meant these didnt make it to the constructed frame.The novel brief of this project led us to innovate solutions, ending up with a truly demountable structure (the feasibility of which was demonstrated through a costing exercise between a cost consultant and contractor for a hypothetical building move).While these solutions certainly threw up new challenges, it helped shed some light on to how we might adapt designs of more permanent structures to be disassembled in the future.Dan Cole, associate, Webb YatesWorking detailManufactured in Italy by X-LAM Dolomiti, a company well-versed in offsite prefabrication of timber structures, the exposed engineered timber frame revolves around the principle of repeating standardised elements.This serves the dual purpose of reducing the initial construction time as well as allowing it to be easily moved and reconfigured without the need for additional bespoke elements or excessive waste. Due to Covid-related travel restrictions at the time, X-LAM handed over erection of the frame to UK-based companies B&K Hybrid Solutions and Oyster Design and Construction. It was delivered in eight loads to coincide with the assembly programme.A unique plate test methodology was devised during early conversations to provide some information as to the performance of the installed foundations under load. Plate testing equipment was used to load the pads and mimic the loading of the proposed structure in an attempt to show that the settlement encountered was within the limits allowed by the structural design, and again to develop the lifting plan and position of the mobile cranes around the site for the most efficient and safe assembly of the frame.A flame-retardant impregnation treatment a polymeric blend of organo-phosphate and nitrogen salts was applied to the timber to achieve a Class 0 rating. The cladding and waterproofing were fixed in small sections so that repair and maintenance could be carried out in localised sections and not cause disproportionate replacement of materials.Panels were installed by means of a panel coupling, provided by tongue-and-groove joints and aluminium fixing clips fixed back to a secondary structure.Anthony Clark, director, Clark ArchitectureProject dataLocation Mercato Metropolitano Ilford, 3 Chadwick Road, London IG1Start on siteOctober 2020CompletionJuly 2024Gross internal floor area1,128mConstruction cost2.9 millionConstruction cost per m2,570ArchitectInterrobang (up to Stage 4), Clark Architecture (Stage 4 onwards)ClientMercato MetropolitanoStructural engineerWebb Yates (up to Stage 4), Rebus Engineering (Stage 4 onwards)M&E consultantWebb Yates (up to Stage 4), Bocca Consulting (Stage 4 onwards)Quantity surveyorJackson Coles (up to Stage 4)Project managerClark Architecture, MilbankApproved building inspector StromaTimber specialist X-Lam DolomitiLocal timber specialist B&K Hybrid SolutionsAcoustic consultant Blackbird AcousticSurface water drainage Pura DesignMain contractorOyster Design and ConstructionCAD software usedRevitSustainability dataPercentage of floor area with daylight factor >2%N/APercentage of floor area with daylight factor >5%N/AOn-site energy generationNilHeating and hot water load152 kWh/m/yrOperational energy183 kWh/m/yrTotal energy load235 kWh/m/yrCarbon emissions (all)32 kgCO2/m/yrAnnual mains water consumption3.3 m/occupantAirtightness at 50PaN/AOverall thermal bridging heat transfer coefficient (Y-value)N/AOverall area-weighted U-valueN/AAnnual CO2 emissions32 kgCO2/mEmbodied carbon140 kgCO2eq/mWhole-life carbon160 kgCO2eq/mPredicted design life50 years

Kensington and Chelsea planners have advised the councils planning committee to approve the application to add four storeys to the five-star 1973 Park Tower Hotel and rework the impervious podium and public realm. The designs go before the committee on Thursday (3 April).The 40m-tall tower, just south of Hyde Park, will increase by 15m in height under Stanton Williams plans. The 2012 Stirling Prize winners proposed rooftop addition will rise 10m above the height of an existing application drawn up by Darling Associates, which was approved in 2020.The latest scheme would remove the existing two top floors before adding an extension of six storeys, four of which will house eight flats. None of the homes will be designated affordable.AdvertisementThe other storeys will be given over to hotel rooms.Stanton Williams claims the 52-year-old cylindrical building currently appears squat and suggested the added height would give it a vertical emphasis denoting successful tall buildings.The hotels distinctive mosaic tiles would also be cleaned under the plans, alongside other more minor changes such as replacing the windows and thermally improving the facade.The podium, described by council planners in its current state as unattractive, would be redeveloped with a restaurant and roof terrace, as well as other commercial space. This tower base currently contains a casino, which would not survive the redevelopment. Planners said this would be welcomed.Stanton Williams said the revamped podium would transform the public realm into an attractive and welcoming place, animated by active frontages and transparent elevations, sympathetic to the surrounding context. They described the current state of the frontage and streetscape as poor and uninspiring.AdvertisementThe plans also include an extension of the basement to include an electrical substation and the removal of a public underground car park below the hotel.The number of hotel rooms would decrease from 271 to 240.Hotel owners Marriott said that it would not be commercially viable to include affordable housing in the hotel extension. If planning permission is granted Marriott set to pay 16.5 million to offset this.Stanton Williams said it had the aim of bringing the building back to life, regenerating a very prominent site in the heart of Knightsbridge, and achieving significant enhancements to the local streetscape and public realm.Recommending approval, council planning officers said the scheme provides high-quality residential and commercial floorspace in a sustainable edge-of-town-centre location, adding that the extensions and alterations had been carefully designed to respect the context of the site.Proposals with red line showing outline of the existing building

A new employee-less architecture practice run entirely by AI has been set up by an unnamed UK-based tech investor Autarchy is billed as providing the most innovative, responsive and tailored multi-stage architectural service available anywhere in this changing world.The studios bots clients can choose from a range of different avatars and voices have been trained using architects existing schemes, planning submissions from more than 350 local authorities, university curricula and video recordings of four years of ARB prescription exams.The AI engine has also scraped all the relevant planning policy documents and government legislation issued over the past two decades.AdvertisementThe practice also offers: a built-in banking app, for both receiving and making payments: a quantity surveying tool which automatically costs up jobs based on live prices; a dynamic carbon calculator tool; and a deep-dive material passport app which scours banks of existing materials (and soon-to-be-demolished buildings) for relevant project products.The only human currently needed is one to physically take a site surveillance drone which monitors the build 365 days a year to safe space on, or next to, the construction plot. Current aviation regulations do not allow AI-guided drones to move autonomously over built-up areas.The bot has already been trialled on an almost flawless and on-budget small back-garden pavilion project in Berkshire, where it worked on a private commission across all RIBA stages for the owner of an electric car manufacturer.According to PR agency Flyvende Gris, the only issue throughout the entire build was a minor disagreement with the contractors, who had twice been caught using sub-optimal materials.Testimonies from local planning officers praised Autarchy for its politeness, patience and rigour and lack of archi-speak.AdvertisementFlyvende Gris said the backers next step was to extend Autarchys remit yet further, so it could become its own client, using AI-supported crypto funds to finance schemes.Autarchy bills client using calculations on how much time and effort the selected avatar would take to deliver a project, if they were human and operating at peak ability, uninterrupted by scrolling through social media messages etc.It also builds in excess fees for that avatars real-life overtime, if demands are onerous, last-minute or ridiculous.AI 2025-04-01AJ news deskcomment and share TagsAI

Lambeth Council's planning committee gave unanimous approval to the scheme, which involves retrofitting, part-demolition and extension of Walker Housein Vauxhall, south London, earlier this month (17 March).The practices consented scheme includes retention of the faade and structure of 91, 93-95 and 97 Vauxhall Walk and the demolition and redevelopment of 83-89 Vauxhall Walk to create a larger five to six-storey building.Three buildings will have two-storey roof extensions, creating five and six-storey buildings, while the fourth new block will be six storeys tall. Overall, this will increase floorspace by 617m2on the 3,930m2 site.AdvertisementAn active ground floor will be introduced in the form of retail space, a new entrance and caf for Walker Books, which has occupied the site for 37 years.Gibson Thornley said this will allow the publisher to have greater outreach with local schools and families while upgrading a set of buildings that have beenadapted to in an ad hoc way following their original uses for industry. Energy performance will also be improved.The practice said the development, which is aiming both BREEAM and NABERS accreditation, will have a whole-life carbon of approximately 580 kgCO2/m (A1A5), below the Greater London Authority (GLA) threshold, and targets the aspirational benchmark of 600 kgCO2/m.Cross-laminated timber will be used where new structure is added, resulting in a 55 per cent reduction in embodied carbon compared with traditional methods.Matt Thornley, co-founder of Gibson Thornley, said: The project is an exciting opportunity for working with an ambitious owner/occupier to create a sustainable headquarters that looks outward, making better connections to the community. The proposals draws on the heritage of the site, creating robust but elegant extensions that enhance the character of the local area.AdvertisementWalker Books director Mike McGrath said: We are delighted the team has gained approval from Lambeth. We have been in Vauxhall for over 30 years and this project allows us to create a building that looks forwards. The revitalised building will allow greater community outreach and support local SME businesses.Site view:Project dataClient Walker BooksArchitect (lead consultant) Gibson Thornley ArchitectsLocal authority LambethDevelopment manager TrigonDevelopment partner KingshottMechanical and electrical engineer HydrockStructural engineer Heyne Tillett SteelSustainability consultant HydrockPlanning consultant DP9Heritage consultant KM HeritageCost consultant BeadmansFire engineer HydrockPrincipal designer Project Four SafetyTransport consultant CaneparoApproved inspector SWECOPublic engagement Lowick Group

The decision by Basingstoke and Deane borough council, which has sparked opposition from local residents and heritage groups, would see Ashe Park House near Basingstoke replaced with a new two-storey home in the Queen Anne style.Smallwoods building will feature stone dressings, a central pediment set against a tall hipped roof with dormer windows sash windows and a projecting timber cornice, reflecting local architectural heritage.The owners will also knock down four outbuildings and build a swimming pool linked to the main house, as well as making landscaping changes, including planting an orchard. Arts and Crafts cottages on the estate will be retained.AdvertisementThe decision sparked criticism from local residents and SAVE Britains Heritage over the loss of the house. The heritage body has also raised environmental concerns.Jane Austen visited Ashe Park House from her home in nearby Steventon in the 1790s. The main house was rebuilt between the 1860s and 1890s, several decades after Austens death in 1817. SAVE Britains Heritage said the 1860s building itself had architectural merit.The heritage group said the demolition would result in the erosion of the areas historic richness and distinctiveness. The group also objected on environmental grounds, saying it was more sustainable for the building to be refurbished, rather than redeveloped.Several neighbours also lodged objections, echoing sustainability concerns and claiming that the house had been kept to a high standard until the current owners bought it, at which point it had begun to fall into disrepair.However, Smallwood and owners Shuk Ting Sharon Leung and Gillian Sin Hang Ho, who bought Ashe Park House in 2022, disputed this.AdvertisementSmallwood said changes over the centuries had altered the appearance and building fabric of the main house as well as the outbuildings on site, resulting in a piecemeal, incoherent appearance.Historic England last year gave the building immunity from listing because the estate had been heavily and repeatedly altered, diminishing any potential claim to architectural interest.The government's heritage watchdog said that the current house is not the building that Austen wrote about and visited and said: There is no evidence that this earlier building is embedded in the current house of 1865, built nearly 50 years after her death nor that it had any direct influence on her literary output.Over the late 19th and 20th centuries, more significant structural and cosmetic changes followed, both to the main house and outbuildings. When the house was sold in the 1930s, a sales brochure showcased a Tudorbethan interior refurbishment. Two major house fires took place in the 1930s and 1960s, requiring more repair work.Changes to the outbuildings included the conversion of one as a bottling plant as part of a failed attempt at commercially extracting mineral water in the 1970s.The estate fell into dereliction in the 1980s before being revived in the 1990s. More changes followed, with work continuing into the 21st century. Recently, the house has been somewhat neglected, with evidence of water ingress.Recommending the application for approval, Basingstoke and Deane Council planning officers said that the replacement building is considered to be of a high architectural standard and thus suitable for the built and natural context.The owners said in response that they had not allowed the estate to deteriorate in any way, and that the new house would be designed to modern [] regulations and incorporating sustainable technologies, thereby achieving a significantly more energy efficient building with a long-term sustainable future.A timeline for completion is unknown. Source:SmallwoodSmallwood's proposals for a replacement Ashe Park House

Teams selected for the maximum eight-year agreement will have the opportunity to on a range of educational projects including new build and refurbishments with the government department which is responsible for education, child services and skills development across England.The contract is divided into ten lots split between both high and low value project bands covering the North, South, North East, Yorkshire and The Humber, East Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West and North West and West Midlands.According to the brief: Department for Education is seeking to establish a new Construction Framework, the existing Construction Framework (CF21) is set to expire in November 2025.AdvertisementThe Department is establishing a closed framework for the construction of new and refurbished schools, and other educational buildings (including colleges and university buildings), together with community facilities and/or public buildings which are ancillary to such education facilities or form part of the development on the same site in England.The Department for Education is responsible for school and skills education. There are around 21,600 school buildings comprising 64,000 buildings in the state sector across England.The latest procurement comes shortly after the Department for Education launched a search for delivery partners for its programme to decarbonise a swathe of UK schools.Bids for inclusion on the latest framework will be evaluated 70 per cent on quality, 20 per cent on cost and 10 per cent on social value.Competition detailsProject title Construction Framework 25Client Department for EducationContract value18.5 billionFirst round deadline Midday, 7 May 2025Restrictions TBCMore informationhttps://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/011792-2025

Open to multidisciplinary teams under 40 years of age and based in Europe, Europan18 seeks proposals for 47 urban sites spread across 12 countries on the continent. Countries contributing competition sites include France, Spain, Germany, Sweden and NorwayThe latest competition is focussed on re-sourcing existing neighbourhoods and public realm by reconsidering natural elements, ways of life and inclusivity, and materials. The winning teams will each receive a cash prize worth 12,000 in local currency along with support to negotiate a commission to deliver their scheme.According to the brief: The fragility of the Earths ecosystem and social crises lead to the imagination of alternative practices to harmful extraction of resources, overconsumption and pollution of living milieus.AdvertisementRegenerating projects embracing nature and culture are to be though and implemented. It is about weaving synergies between biogeophysical data with socio-spatial justice and health ones.Three main directions for designing forms of resilience and resourcing of inhabited milieus make possible to reactivate other forms of dynamics and narratives around the ecologies of living and caring.First held in 1989, Europan was set up to boost young European designers and promote open dialogue and cooperation between European countries on issues relating to housing and urban planning.Now in its 18th edition, the contest is organised by a European federation of national architecture organisations. The UK had once again failed to offer up a single site for inclusion. The UK last submitted sites in 2008 for Europan 9.This years sites are themed around reusing derelict structures, promoting open neighbourhoods, creating new urban relationships, dealing with water, reactivating soils, and regenerating landscapes.AdvertisementPlots featured in the contest include a 148.6ha former winery in Felanitx, Mallorca; the 26ha village of Roa near Oslo in Norway; the 410ha Klara Nova agricultural district on the edges of Novi Zagreb in Croatia; a 253ha railways lands site neighbouring Lisbons Aguas Livres Aqueduct; and a 103ha industrial site in the centre of Turku, Finland.Competitors may apply for a maximum of one competition site in each participating country. Their applications may include either a strategic reflection on the overall site or an architectural solution for a defined part of the plot. All proposals will be evaluated by the Europan Scientific Council prior to the national juries selecting a winner.Participating teams must feature at least one architect, with all members aged under 40 and holding either a European degree or working in Europe.Submissions may be in English and potentially the local language of the contest site and must include three A1-sized display boards, a description of the submitted project plus three promotional images and a project text of four pages. Applicants must pay a 100 registration fee.The overall winners, to be announced on 17 November, will each receive 12,000 and support to negotiate a design commission. Runners-ups will receive cash prizes worth 6,000. A special mention may also be announced.Competition detailsProject title Europan18Client EuropanContract value TbcFirst round deadline 29 July 2025Restrictions No competition organizer and/or member of their families are eligible to take part in the competition on a site where he/she is involved. Still, he/she can participate on another site in which he/she is not involved. For implementations, Europan follows EU law on public procurement and all EU sanctions that are in place at any given time.National sanctions may also apply differently in individual countries. Competitors are themselves solely responsible for evaluating if their eligibility to participate can be affected by these sanctionsMore information https://www.europan-europe.eu/en/

Construction begets destruction. Architecture has long been admired for being a slow art, but it has been slow too in facing up to the deeply-rooted historical prejudices that continue to cast a long shadow over the profession and its role in what the United Nations describes as the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. In September, I will begin a three-year piece of original research into the extractive history of architecture as part of a Major Research Fellowship awarded by the Leverhulme Trust.Situated at the intersection of architecture, coloniality and the triple planetary crisis, this work will confront the disciplines role in heralding the Anthropocene a potentially new geological epoch defined by our species planetary impact. The research intends to investigate the discipline not as a chronology or assemblage of built objects, styles, personalities, or experiences predominantly from the West, but as an extractive, invariably inequitable and planetary process of world-making.This work builds on my long-standing interest in researching non-canonical histories that have been overlooked, marginalised, or ignored and, more recently, their intersection with the Anthropocene.AdvertisementWhile debates still rage around the definition of the Anthropocene, the terms effectiveness as an overarching cross-disciplinary framework for researchers remains vital.As Chris Thomas,head of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity at the University of York (UK) recently wrote inNature, The concept of an era of human-driven change provides convenient common ground to collaborate with researchers from other disciplines.This is something that people in the arts and humanities and the social sciences have picked up as well [] It is a means of enabling communication about the extent to which we are living in a truly unprecedented and human-altered world.It is in this spirit that this project was conceived, providing a response to this existential challenge from the discipline of architecture, both as a major study of its past and as an advocation for a different and better future.As someone professionally invested in the built environment and its history for over a quarter of a century,I have long been uncomfortable with how the discipline of architecture privileges the experiences of a global minority over those of what theeducator and anti-racist activist Rosemary Campbell-Stephens has coined the global majority.As we increasingly confront the reality of our planetary impact and limitations, this partial view of the environments we have constructed most of which have been built comparatively recently is not merely disingenuous, but increasingly and dangerously irresponsible.Today, the buildings and construction sector accounts for around 37 per cent of total global CO2 emissions, much of which comes from the production and use of cement for concrete. According to the United States Geological Survey, in the three years from 2011-2013, China consumed more cement than the USA did throughout the entire 20th century. In 2007, as the global human population was nearing 7 billion (it now exceeds 8 billion), humans became an urbanised species for the first time, with more people living in cities than in rural areas. Since the early 20thcentury, the mass of material humans produce (a large proportion of which are building materials) has doubled every two decades, resulting in the total mass of human-made material now outweighing all biomass on earth.Such statistics reveal a bigger picture of extraction over longer timeframes, evidencing architectures planetary impact.These facts not only reveal our species suicidal appetite for building anew, they also mask, as Professor Jeremy Till has stated, architectures addiction to extraction. The roots of this addiction run deep into extractive histories of coloniality, wherein architecture was deployed as a means of projecting and sustaining power intellectually and geopolitically the canon and the cannon.AdvertisementFor more than half a millennium, architecture has been rooted in the extraction of natural and cultural resources through colonial domination and cultural exploitation, from coal to humans, from data to indigenous knowledge and from energy to intellectual property. When published, my research aims to join and support the growing voices arguing for architecture to become a restorative, regenerative and reparative practice, encouraging an emergent and urgent change in architectural education and practice that shifts a centuries-old focus on building anew to repairing and improving the already built.Edward Denison is Professor of Architecture and Global Modernities at the Bartlett School of Architecture 2025-03-31will hurstcomment and share

Teams selected for the maximum four-year agreement will provide specialist development advice to the quango, local authorities and other public bodies across England to promote happier healthy communities and better places to live.The framework is divided into three lots covering strategic outcomes planning and leisure services delivery, assessments of need, and urban design services. Key aims include ensuring new and renewed places support people to become more physically active.According to the brief: We know bespoke procurement exercises are frequently conducted to appoint specialist support in strategic planning, leisure procurement, urban design and planning.AdvertisementThis framework will provide access to specialist consultants (small and medium sized enterprises, as well as larger organisations) with extensive knowledge and expertise, who will be selected for their ability to deliver high quality, consistent services for contracting authorities to support active environments and to create places and spaces for people to be more active and build healthier active communities.Sport England was created in 1996 with a remit to promote government and lottery investment in new facilities to increase the number of people participating in sport and activity.The organisation aims to promote both regular sport and general activity among a wide range of people including groups which statistically engage less in sports. The organisation has provided support and guidance on a range of high-profile projects including the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Wembley Stadium development.Key recent research by the organisation has included the creation of affordable models for new sporting facilities including school sports halls, sports centres and adult community swimming pools.Recent Sport England-supported projects have included a new timber-framed grandstand by Hopkins Architects at Herne Hill Velodrome in south London.AdvertisementThe latest framework will be open to local authorities, town and parish councils, non-departmental public bodies and leisure services providers to help them procure specialist services that help promote active lifestyles.Individual projects let through the framework will be awarded either by mini competition, call-off or direct award. Fees are expected to be worth around 3 per cent-to-5 per cent of the total framework value over its lifetime.Bids for inclusion on the latest framework will be evaluated 70 per cent on quality, 20 per cent on cost and 10 per cent on social value.Competition detailsProject title SE1184 Active Environments FrameworkClient Sport EnglandContract value 5.4 millionFirst round deadline Midday, 18 July 2025Restrictions TbcMore information https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/011842-2025

The permitted development plans will see 166 flats put into 22-storey Apollo House and 419 flats into 20-storey Lunar House. The 1970 office blocks stand next to each other on Wellesley Road, straddling Sydenham Road.As far as it is aware, the practice believes the project will be the countrys largest office-to-resi permitted development scheme to date, exceeding Formation Architects 404-home Delta Point build-to-rent scheme, also in Croydon.Lunar House and Apollo House were commissioned by Harry Hyams, best known as the developer of Centre Point, their names reflecting his fascination with space travel in the wake of the 1969 moon landing.AdvertisementThe tower had been used as the headquarters for UK Visas and Immigration. However, the Home Office division has now relocated and Singaporean developer Ho Bee Land is bringing forward the housing plans.Croydon Council has approved two prior notifications for the scheme, meaning it does not oppose the permitted development based on the limited criteria it is allowed to assess, such as fire safety, contamination and transport impacts. Source:Studio Egret WestAxonometric view of permitted development plansStudio Egret West said its scheme re-imagines the future of these iconic, space-age-inspired structures [], ensuring their sensitive reuse while laying the foundation for an innovative and holistic regeneration of the site.The practice said it would preserve the architectural character of the buildings through carefully aligned partitions and window mullions, while gallery access spaces will enjoy natural daylight and panoramic views.The flats will be of various sizes, including family homes, with 75 per cent exceeding national minimum space standards. The flats will also have adaptable layouts, with sliding partitions.AdvertisementThe towers lend themselves to retrofit, according to the architect, as they were originally built as speculative offices with highly adaptable floor plates, featuring a structural grid free of loadbearing walls, continuous ribbon windows and a freestanding lift core.Studio Egret West said the permitted development plans marked the first milestone in a broader vision, with possible later phases including a lunar-inspired landscape, extensions to the existing buildings and a 40-storey lunar rocket tower.View of Lunar House (left) and Apollo House (right)

The contest organised by Newcastles Farrell Centre with support from the Northern Architectural Association seeks concepts to transform the A167 Gateshead flyover which closed amid safety concerns at the end of last year and is now expected to be demolished.The competition invites participants to put forward bold, original and compelling solutions to transform the raised road running between St Edmunds Road and Gateshead Foodbank into a new accessible destination which serves as a connector for the local area.According to the brief: This ideas competition looks beyond demolition to explore the possibilities for re-using, re-imagining and re-constituting the Gateshead flyover and what that could offer the city and the region: from the environmental and economic upsides, to the opportunities for supporting health, wellbeing and civic pride by creating a new green space in the heart of Gateshead.AdvertisementEntries will be reviewed by a panel of experts who will select four winning projects, which will be displayed in a small exhibition at the Farrell Centre in May 2025.Gateshead is large town of around 200,000 inhabitants located on the south banks of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle. Local landmarks include the Anthony Gormley-designed Angel of the North sculpture on the town's fringes.The Flyover Futures contest focusses on transforming the elevated Gateshead flyover which closed to traffic in December 2024 following the discovery of structural defects that could have led to its collapse.The structure is expected to be demolished and replaced with a new surface-level boulevard however the contest organisers are seeking surprising and transformative ideas to reuse the structure as an ecologically vibrant destination for pedestrians and active travel.Participants are encouraged to consider new ways of accessing the structure and also the inclusive re-development of the immediate environment. The competition is open to everyone with multidisciplinary teams encouraged.AdvertisementApplications should include a maximum of three images and a short 300-text of description. The four winning teams due to be announced on 21 May will each receive a 250 honorarium.Competition detailsProject title Flyover FuturesClientContract value TbcFirst round deadline 28 April 2025Restrictions TbcMore information https://www.farrellcentre.org.uk/explore/flyover-futures-ideas-competition/

The Optic is a new-build three-storey office and laboratory building designed for British Land constructed on a 12-acre development in a 10-year joint venture with Peterhouse College, Cambridge.It provides over 9,300m2 office and flexible laboratory space and sits adjacent to a headquarters building for tech firm ARM, also designed by Scott Brownrigg. The development is part of a wider strategy to meet demand for life science space within the Oxford Cambridge Arc.The Optics form features a faade of aluminium fins, providing solar shading and articulating its first floor level. A recessed second floor has a wrap-around external roof terrace and amenity space.AdvertisementInternally, a double-height, curved entrance reception is clad in timber and hosts a large steel staircase and space for informal work and meetings.On every floor, the internal arrangement is flexible, with provision for an accessible shower and WCs, allowing for single or multi-occupancy. Floor-to-ceiling glazing offers natural light and views over the surrounding landscape.The public realm has been improved with updated landscaping creating opportunities for outdoor working with permeable surfaces and swales that double as natural boundaries to the site. A continuous path around the perimeter of the site provides a trail for children.Designed to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating, the building uses recycled raised access floors and reused aluminium and glass. Additionally, an external air source heat pump, bio solar PV roof and over 94 EV charging hubs are also incorporated.Architects viewSituated at the western edge of Peterhouse Technology Park in Cambridge, The Optic represents the next step in the evolution of flexible, sustainable laboratory and office design. Commissioned following our successful headquarters development for the UKs leading silicon chip designer, ARM, this project establishes a new benchmark for adaptable research environments.The 105,000 sq ft, three-storey development is designed to accommodate both a single large occupier and multiple smaller tenants, ensuring long-term adaptability. Positioned at the threshold between urban expansion and agricultural landscape, the building serves as an interface between science and nature.A defining feature of The Optic is its bespoke curtain wall system, incorporating modulated aluminium blades that produce a dynamic parallax effect as one moves around the building. The golden anodised aluminium harmonises with the seasonal hues of the adjacent farmland, reinforcing a dialogue between built form and landscape. Internally, soft curved forms and timber detailing echo the exterior faade, while exposed services and raw materials reflect the technological essence of the laboratories within.Sustainability is embedded in the projects material strategy, employing high-GGBS concrete, recycled raised access flooring, and recycled aluminium cladding. Achieving a BREEAM Excellent rating, The Optic contributes to the evolving architectural language of Peterhouse Technology Park while setting a new standard for research-led workplaces.Ed Hayden, director and head of life sciences, Scott BrownriggClients viewHaving a building that looks great is one thing but having a project where the whole design and delivery journey has been enjoyable makes a real difference. An incredibly positive project culture was created amongst all team members, with everyone committed to doing what was right for the project. The team at Scott Brownrigg listened to what we wanted to achieve and, as a result, was able to successfully interpret our requirements. Creating flexible and adaptable spaces that also embraced our sustainability credentials, which was really important for us.The aesthetics of the building are really special, in particular the design incorporates external fins that change colour as you walk past them giving the building a depth and complexity while creating visual interest. When delivering complex construction projects, having everyone working together with a common goal is incredibly important. The project team invested time in creating positive relationships amongst themselves and with British Land, and the result is an amazing end product that we can all be proud of.Lynn Summerfield, project director, British LandProject dataLocation Peterhouse Technology Park, CambridgeStart on site August 2023CompletionFebruary 2025Gross internal floor area 10,295m2Gross (internal + external) floor area 25,240m2Site area 18,540m2Form of contractDesign and BuildConstruction cost 40 millionConstruction cost per m2 3,660Architect Scott BrownriggClient British LandStructural engineer RambollM&E consultant RambollQS CB3 ConsultingPlanning consultant Carter JonasTransport consultant Bryan G Hall ConsultingLandscape consultant Liz Lake AssociatesAcoustic consultant RambollProject manager StacePrincipal designer Scott BrownriggCDM co-ordinator (client side) ArcadisApproved building inspector SwecoMain contractor SDC BuildersFaade contractor MTW ArchitecturalM&E contractor Venables AssociatesCAD software used RevitAdvertisement

Conserved amid the forbidding, jagged cliffs of Portland, on the coast of the English Channel in the county of Dorset, are the enduring traces of a past able to capture the beauty of Portland Stone, the inspiration for this collection.A recurring feature of a number of iconic institutional buildings, such as the Palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, the foundation stone of London Bridge, the British Museum, the headquarters of the Bank of England, the National Gallery in London and Dublin and the UN headquarters in New York, Portland Stone has travelled slowly through the centuries to bring us its impressive beauty, preserved by time. This collection is a modern tribute to the timeless allure of a charismatic, powerfully expressive stone.Delicate shades of colour, soft cloudy effects and subtle touches of light envelop the tiles in the new Lithos collection, embellishing it with distinctive graphic details to create simple yet sophisticated surfaces able to adapt to all kinds of applications and living spaces.The six collection colours (Lithos Beige, Bianco, Grigio, Nero, Taupe and Tortora) come with a thickness of 9 mm in the sizes 30x60 cm and 60x60 cm, with an anti-slip surface, and in the new R10 natural finish, which combines a pleasant appearance and a delicate tactile sensation with the technical characteristics required for increasingly international design projects. The 90x90 cm size is available with a natural surface, the 60x120 cm size is available in R10 natural, satin and grip finishes, and the 120x120 cm size is available in R10 natural and satin surfaces, while in the 120x278 cm size, the new Lithos collection comes in a 6 mm thickness and with an R10 natural finish, as well as an extraordinarily soft satin finish, for a natural, matt look.In the colours Beige, Grigio, Taupe and Tortora and the sizes 60x60 cm and 60x120 cm, Lithos is also available with a thickness of 20 mm, with an anti-slip surface, ideal for dry laying on turf, sand or gravel, or for raised laying.The range is completed with 30x30 cm mesh-backed mosaic tiles with 5x5 cm and 5x15 cm tesserae, a cannet decoration in the 60x120 cm size, and a 29.5x29.5 cm curved mosaic tile, available in all the colours in the collection and with a natural surface.Lithos offers a modern, versatile finish for design projects that require top technical performance, as well as guaranteeing maximum creative freedom to compose indoor and outdoor floors and walls in both residential and public settings, and for the contract, hospitality and wellness sectors. This adaptable, sophisticated design tool is perfect for creating both total looks and attractive colour contrast effects, also in combination with other Casalgrande Padana collections. The elegant mix & match effects it offers are ideal for embellishing all kinds of dcor styles and settings.Like all the Casalgrande Padana stoneware collections, Lithos is composed of natural raw materials. Eco-compatible and fire-resistant, it does not give off harmful substances in the event of fire. It is non-absorbent and resistant to wear and tear, abrasion and thermal shock. Durable and easy both to lay and clean, its beauty remains unaltered over time. In addition, thanks to the Bios Ceramics technology (available on request), this new collection combines excellent technical performance with antibacterial, self-cleaning properties able to reduce polluting agents.Casalgrande Padanas porcelain stoneware tilesare obtained thanks to a cutting-edge manufacturing process focused on sustainability and taking account of scientific research and development and the latest advances in environmental technology, with sophisticated anti-pollution equipment that enables the recycling and full recovery of all components in the process, resulting in virtually zero emissions and dispersion.For many years now, Casalgrande Padana has been endeavouring to adopt the finest technologies and management procedures, applying circularity criteria to the use of energy, water and production waste, with a view to respecting and safeguarding the landscape and territorial balance.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves Source:&nbsp Flick / HM Treasury Network Rail will build up to 40,000 homes in the next decade via a new property company, the government has announced The new developer will become operational later this year and attract public and private investment to build homes on unused land in the UKs rail estate, the government said on Thursday (27 March).The property company will be created between Network Rail, which owns and maintains the UKs rail network, and London & Continental Railways (LCR), an existing state-owned development company.The treasury named four sites which are in the pipeline for development by the new company. These are:AdvertisementNewcastle Forth Yards: a 40.5ha site by the Tyne, to the west of Newcastles city centre, where up to 5,000 homes could be built;Manchester Mayfield: where there is an opportunity for another 1,200 homes around the disused Mayfield station, according to the government. Early plans relating to a 1.4 billion regeneration on the site have been submitted by shedkm and Studio Egret West, with plans overseen by a public-private partnership which includes LCR.An unnamed site in Cambridge: the government says a mixed-use scheme with 425 new homes could be built here. The site is probably around the under-construction new station at Cambridge Biomedical Campus.An unnamed site in Nottingham: the government says 200 homes could be built following 348 successfully delivered homes at The Barnum. The Barnum is next to Nottingham Station, was designed by Franklin Ellis Architects and developed by Bloc Group and Network Rail.The government has also said it is creating a new task force to help build homes on publicly-owned brownfield land.Unused land will be identified, developed and released by a cross-government collaboration, which will focus on getting it back into productive use as quickly as possible by removing barriers, the government said.This ambitious new partnership approach will explore new delivery models, establish collaborative agreements between the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Homes England, Network Rail and other government bodies, bring in the private sector ultimately getting spades in the ground sooner.The government said the first site to be unblocked will in Ripon, North Yorkshire. The site will be transferred from the MoD to Homes England later this year to expedite the delivery of 1,300 homes.It added that a partnership between the MoD and Homes England will also aim to unlock 1,300 homes at Chetwynd Barracks in Nottinghamshire and deliver thousands of homes at Wyton airfield in Cambridgeshire.AdvertisementChancellor Rachel Reeves said: For too long, surplus government-owned sites have gone underused, but they are a huge untapped resource that could create opportunities for the next generation of homeowners.In contrast with the failed approach of the past, we are making the best use of public land to build the homes that families and our Armed Forces need, improving opportunities for homeownership and creating jobs across the country.2025-03-28Will Ingcomment and share

According to reports, a strong 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Mandalay in Thailands neighbour, Myanamar, causing shockwaves which rocked the Thai capital hundreds of miles away.It is believed 320 construction workers were on site when the building near Chatuchak Park, which was set to become government offices, came down. In its latest update the National Institute of Emergency Medicine said that 70 people were missing and another 20 workers were stuck in a lift. Videos show the under-construction building collapsing within seconds.Emergency services are continuing their search for survivors among the rubble, though there has already been one confirmed death.Bangkok is not thought of as a high-risk earthquake area. BBC journalist Bui Thu told the BBC World Service that it had been a decade since Bangkok had a really strong or powerful earthquake like this.She added: Buildings in Bangkok are not engineered for earthquakes, so I think thats why I think theres going to be big damage.In my apartment I just see some cracking on the walls and water splashed out of swimming pools and people just yelling.Other videos showed high-rise buildings swaying as the aftershocks hit the city, including the 77-storey MahaNakhon skyscaper by Ole Scheeren. Earthquake 2025-03-28Richard Waitecomment and share TagsEarthquake

The new structure was designed to contrast with the brick Vernacular Revival style of the 19th century house, itself designed by Victorian architect Ernest Newton, one of several on Newton Park Place in the Chislehurst Conservation Area.Its oak frame was prefabricated by specialist joiner Tim Gaudin in Devon before being dismantled and reassembled on site. The rear faade has full-width 4m-wide bi-folding windows with integrated window seat, while exposed oak joists extend out to form the pergola. Planters around this are intended to support vegetation that will provide screening to the living room, solar protection and, over time, form a green enclosure for outside dining.Inside, separate spaces have been created for a kitchen, living and dining, the latter with an exposed oak joist ceiling lit by an overhead skylight and a picture window. A 3m-deep spiral wine cellar has also been created below from engineered limestone concrete.AdvertisementSolar panels have been incorporated on the roof of the main house while the extension is topped by a wildflower green roof.The garden design by Lilly Gomm extends directly out from the architecture of the house and is divided into two areas, a pond with adjacent bench seating and a larger open space with loose, naturalistic planting.Architects viewKelly was a superstar client and we loved working together to craft such a beautiful home for her and her family. In terms of natural materials, quality of space and sustainable approach this is exactly what we aim for with our residential projects and feel this has added so much to this historic home.Craig Rosenblatt, director, ROARClients viewWe absolutely love this extension, it has transformed our home and created a space we truly enjoy. ROAR has managed to marry the charm of an old gardeners cottage with a modern and quietly striking extension which pulls the garden and nature inside. My teenagers (and I) really love being home, whatever the modern word for cool is, I know they feel our house softly expresses it. ROAR was fantastic and really excelled at this high-quality architecture.Kelly Johnson Source:ROARProject dataLocation Chislehurst, south-east LondonStart on site July 2021CompletionApril 2023 (garden completed August 2024)Gross internal floor area 30m2 (extension)Form of contractJCT intermediate Building Contract with Contractors Design 2016Construction cost 450,000 (excluding VAT)Architect ROARClient Kelly JohnsonGarden designer Lilly GommJoinery Tim GaudinMain contractor Dardan Building ServicesAdvertisement

With up to 40 per cent of carbon emissions coming from the construction industry, the profession needs to find ways of adapting the type of buildings it designs, and fast. The default option for any project should be to adapt and re-use an existing building, one of the key demands of the AJsRetroFirst campaign.Our ongoing series seeks to celebrate the projects that save buildings from demolition or give them a brand new life.Lee Whiteman of Whiteman ArchitectsTell us about the projectThis project is all about giving a 1920s Art Deco house a fresh new look while keeping its charm. Its in Riverdale Gardens, Twickenham, a stone's throw from the river, and the plan is to extend, renovate, and update the cladding and windows.AdvertisementThe scheme will add a rear ground floor extension to create more living space; replace the old pitched roof with a flat roof and extension; give the faade a full makeover with new cladding and windows; and create a new-build outbuilding in the back of the garden.The house is growing too from 253m to 320m of floor space. Thats an extra 67m of room to play with.The houses on Riverdale Gardens are mostly red brick Queen Anne-style houses and typical semi-detached interwar houses. The house in question is detached and completely unique, standing out from the prevailing character of the street.What were the challenges of the existing building?The primary challenge, which also presented a unique opportunity, was the existing architectural style of the house. The clients were drawn to the property specifically because of its aesthetic, which meant that any proposed changes needed to strike a delicate balance between improving functionality and preserving the original character. Modernising and enhancing a house with a distinct style, while respecting its heritage, can often be a complex undertaking.AdvertisementMeanwhile the rear building lines are all over the place. Some of the [neighbouring] houses have big extensions, some dont. So there was room to push the design a little but no clear precedent.And, although the house has an Art Deco vibe, it is not the best example of the style. Any changes needed to respect that style while still modernising it and enhancing the original intentThe property also boasted a garden that was slightly longer than those of the neighbouring houses. This presented an opportunity to extend the house and incorporate a substantial outbuilding without compromising too much outdoor space. However, it was essential to strike a balance between indoor and outdoor areas, ensuring that the garden retained its functionality and aesthetic appeal.Had demolition ever been considered?Initially, starting from scratch was considered, due to the extensive changes required. The costs of making these changes were comparable to starting anew. Therefore, from the outset, we evaluated the advantages of both options to ensure everyone had a clear understanding of the pros and cons of both directions.How did you convince the client not to flatten the building?Honestly, it just made sense to keep it. Heres why:Eco-friendly choice Knocking it down and starting over wouldve created a ton of waste and used way more materials.Retrofitting was likely cheaper than a full rebuild in the end.The house has great bones. The structure was solid, and keeping its Art Deco charm while making it modern was a win-win.The main reason the clients purchased this property was because how unique it was and starting afresh simply didnt sit well.What stayed? The core structure and overall form. What changed? The roof, new extensions, new cladding, and modernised windows.Original ground floor plan (left); and proposed layout (right)Aside from retaining the original fabric, what other aspects of your design reduce the whole-life carbon impact of the building?The clients really went all-in on sustainability for this one. The cladding is timber composite, which looks great and keeps things eco-friendly; a more sustainable way of heating the house will be adopted, namely air source heat pumps. This will, in turn, require the house to be thermally more efficient and well-ventilated; the newest Building Regs (June 2023) require better insulation, so the house will be warmer in winter and cooler in summer the requirements of the insulation is ultimately on par with a new-build.Even walls which are not required to be upgraded to suit the Building Regs will be upgraded to make the house generally more thermally efficient.There are smart design tricks like retaining high ceilings to help with natural cooling and recessing windows to reduce overheating.First gloor planWere the planners supportive of the proposals?The planning officer initially intended to refuse the application, believing it would be out of character. He called us to give us the news that the application was going to be refused and offered the opportunity to withdraw the application if we preferred.The planning officer intended to refuse the plansHowever, digging deeper into this we were able to put across our view. We explained the existing house is currently at odds with the architectural character of Riverdale Gardens. While it was originally conceived with Art Deco influences, its execution was unsuccessful, resulting in a design that neither aligns with the surrounding streetscape nor stands as a strong example of the style it sought to embody.Our proposal aims to address this by enhancing the existing building and elevating it into a well-executed and cohesive example of Art Deco architecture. Rather than replacing the structure entirely, we have taken a sensitive approach that respects its original intention while refining its proportions, detailing, and materiality to create a more authentic and celebrated contribution to the street.What have been the main lessons from the project that you could apply to other developments?Here are a few takeaways:You dont need to demolish to transform a space. This house went from dated to inspiring without losing its charm.Sustainability isnt always a choice incorporating elements like thermal mass and effective insulation significantly reduces energy consumption. Due to updated Building Regulations, where altering 50 per cent of an elements surface mandates compliance with improved U-values, the distinction between new builds and refurbishments is becoming less clear.Context matters picking up the phone and explaining to a planning officer the architectural intent can completely change the outcome of an application. The planning officer was only calling out of courtesy. If I did not answer, this project may not be going ahead.Layouts matter just as much as size they didnt add a lot of floor space, but they completely reworked the floor plan to make better use of space.Concept mark-upHave you seen a change in approach to demolition and retrofit from clients?Yes, but these are things we are seeing on most of our projects now! This is a great example of the shift toward retrofitting instead of rebuilding. More and more people are realising that retrofitting can often be a similar cost to a new build, its better for the environment, and that you can keep original architectural details and still moderniseRetrofits like this one are probably a bigger chunk of the workload now than they were a few years ago. Interestingly we are seeing experienced developers also exploring retrofitting instead of new builds. This is mainly down to cost rather than sustainability reasons but it is still encouraging to know there could be a market shift.Riverdale Gardens proposed outbuilding

Councillors on Southwark Councils planning committee narrowly agreed to back the so-called Borough Triangle scheme, drawn-up for Berkeley, last night (26 March) after an almost four hour-long discussion, admitting no that 'theres not such thing as the perfect plan'.Opponents of the high-rise redevelopment of the site protested outside while the application was decided, voicing concerns over density, massing and the number of social homes on offer. More than 400 objections were lodged against the application.Maccreanor Lavingtons scheme proposes four brick-clad towers between 10 and 44 storeys high, together delivering 892 homes, of which 157, or 17 per cent, are earmarked as affordable and social. By habitable room, the proposal is 35 per cent affordable and social.AdvertisementTenures for the affordable and social homes will include mostly family sized units, planning documents say. A majority of the units for the private market include one and two-bed studios.Smaller traders at Mercato Metropolitan, the pop-up food and drink venue that currently operates on the site, will be offered units in a dedicated market space once complete, according to Southwark Councils planning report. However, other operators will be relocated elsewhere by Berkeley.The consented scheme also includes proposals for a Latin community centre and at least 1,780 m of public open space.Borough Triangle is a triangular site that faces Southwark Crown Court and is bounded by Borough Road and Newington Causeway. One building that features on the draft list for locally listed buildings would be maintained, while another would be partially retained.However, local architect Benedict OLooney was among those raising concerns over the loss of the Institute of Optometry building and the size of the largest tower as part of Southwark Conservation Area Advisory Group.AdvertisementHe argued in a letter to Southwark Council: The proposed demolition oftheInstituteofOptometry is unfortunate and unacceptable [...] It is one ofthe last remnantsof the late Georgian terrace that characterised Newington Causeway when it was improved 200 years ago [...] Why throw these historic buildings away?Maccreanor Lavington originally submitted plans for the site in late 2022 for 838 homes across five buildings, including towers standing 46 and 42 storeys tall. That scheme also included 35 per cent affordable and social homes.However, that application was withdrawn and the architects redesigned the scheme to accommodate second staircases. Berkeley also acquired the Institute of Optometry building next door, enlarging the application site, since the 2022 planning application.The approved plans are the latest in a string of proposals for the triangular plot.In 2014, Stephen Marshall Architects submitted plans for a pair of towers standing at 40 and 32 storeys on the site. The plans, which included other blocks between four and 12 storeys, would have created 576 homes as well as new headquarters for developer Peabody.The scheme was withdrawn in 2016 and Squire & Partners subsequently drew up a masterplan for 600-700 homes on the site. Peabody consulted on the early Squires plans in 2017 but the site was subsequently sold to Berkeley in 2020.Site view:

The Anemos consortium, which also includes Arup, London-headquartered retail specialist Leslie Jones and Danish wayfinding designers Triagonal, will oversee a phased expansion of Athens International Airport (AIA), increasing passenger numbers from 26 million to 40 million passengers a year by 2032.It has been reported that the first stage of the mammoth job has an estimated budget of around 540 million (650 million) and will take the 24-year-old airports capacity up to 33 million passengers by 2028.Originally designed and constructed by Hochtief and completed in 2001 ready for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, Athens International Airport is the largest airport in Greece, located 20km from the city centre.AdvertisementThe expansion project will both extend and alter the main terminal building and overhaul the satellite terminal building. The proposed masterplan also features landside and airside updates, aircraft stands, gate seating and commercial areas.The plans for the existing main terminal include new north and south oculi large halls with roofs up to 24.5m high covering gardens, lounges and shops.The satellite terminal will change function to become a dedicated Extra Schengen facility with significant operational and spatial modifications and will be linked by a tunnel to the main terminal.The AJ understands the team, which also includes design managers Plan A, saw off bids from a number of other consortia with high-profile, international names to land the giant infrastructure project.Last year Grimshaw was among the roster of architects behind Londons new flawless, efficient and beautifully choreographed Elizabeth Line, which won the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize.Proposed Athens airport expansion (March 2025) as designed by Grimshaw, Haptic, K-Studio and Leslie Jones north oculusArchitects viewUnifying the existing airport with the new elements is central to the design concept: an airport that reflects the past, present and future of the city. This is guided and informed by a response to the spirit of Athenian life, the architecture and materiality of Athens, and the celebration of a city that is ingrained with layers of time. Pragmatic in layout securing an ease of operations, efficient flows and intuitive wayfinding, a sense of place will pervade, with a rich landscaping strategy, cohesive and natural materials palette, and an infusion of daylight to all parts of the terminal building.The design will also build on AIAs net zero operations target and whole life carbon commitments, adopting passive design principles, low carbon structures and materials. modular efficient construction systems, and renewable energy, waste and water systems. The project is targeting a LEED Gold standard.Running on a north to south axis the design to the Main Terminal Building includes a new landside identity to the west. A distinct, repetitive and modular faade, creating a lifted internal colonnade, is defined by stone vertical fins extending across the structure. Intersecting this rhythm are six new portals, contemporary, light but distinct stone forms, providing an order and scale that directs and welcomes passengers to the new check-in/departures hall. In the hall, the soffit is also lifted, diffusing daylight deep into this busy transitional space prioritising passenger navigation, flow and access.Two new unforgettable Athenian moments as part of the design are the north and south oculi, destination points and new dwelling spaces, extending the existing structure and accessed via active, flowing, rhythmic street spaces, balconies, VIP lounges and commercial zones. The north oculus is the primary space, a rich landscaped Mediterranean garden set in a 24.5m-high circular, tiered space a volume that at once impresses and grounds the experience of the terminal and the city beyond.Entering the northern oculus from airside at ground level passengers experience a microcosm of the city life the hospitality of Athens a memorable moment with an architectural language that flows and leads the eye to specific environments across the Main Terminal Building (MTB).The south oculus is another dwell area where three terraced levels are arranged around an atrium space with generous seating and extensive landscaping alongside smaller food and beverage units to create a unique and memorable experience. Again, through a lifted soffit, daylight is diffused across the space providing long views across the terminal and navigation towards the departure gates.As part of the design proposals the Satellite Terminal Building will change function to a dedicated Extra Schengen facility with significant operational and spatial modifications. Linked to the MTB via a tunnel, the passenger circulation areas of the building will be substantially improved, including the integration of atrium space which, following the principles of the MTB brings daylight into the function of these spaces, ultimately enhancing the passenger experience.The strategy for delivery across the terminal buildings emphasises a programme of modification and extension that will be transformative, while minimising disruption to the existing facilities.

Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design StudioPhotography: Jim StephensonNearing completion, this 650m house on the remains of a former brickworks in rural Wiltshire is designed to Passivhaus standards. The former factory was built in a clay-rich area now the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.The project, a collaboration with Austrian rammed earth specialist Lehm Ton Erde, consists of low-rise structures sitting on the footprint of the 19th century brickworks structures, with rammed earth buildings placed between, creating sheltered courtyard gardens. The construction is a mixture of rammed earth walls and lightweight timber elements. The walls are made of site-won clay, which is combined with demolition aggregate and water, avoiding the use of cement and lime stabilisers. The proportions of the mix equal parts of each constituent material were devised to be easily explained and repeatable by a builder unfamiliar with the process. The earth walls enclose bedrooms, living areas, snugs and nooks, while creating carved forms, such as benches and niches, much like the pochs of a medieval castle. The rammed earth has also been used for the stairwell, long faades and heated flooring. The material can extend over 100m without movement joints when designed correctly.Alongside the earth, the material palette comprises cedar shingle roofing, copper drainpipes, Chicksgrove limestone sills, bag-rubbed brick and reclaimed greenheart timber colonnades.AdvertisementOnce fully complete, the scheme will be one of a few examples in the UK that use unstabilised rammed earth.Visual: Tuckey Design StudioProject dataLocation Wiltshire | Start on site March 2021 | Expected completion April 2025 | Construction cost Undisclosed | Client Private | Structural engineer Webb Yates | Contractor Stonewood Builders | Rammed earth consultant Lehm Ton Erde |Natural materials Unstabilised rammed earth, Chicksgrove and Purbeck limestone, reclaimed greenheart oak, cedar shingles, Douglas fir, clay plaster, myceliumShugborough Visitor Centre by Citizens Design BureauPhotography: Citizens Design BureauGranted planning permission in 2024, this is a net zero welcome centre built with straw bales on the 17th century, Grade I-listed Shugborough Estate in the West Midlands. London-based Citizens Design Bureau has designed a curved eco-lodge, whose structure will be constructed from renewable and locally sourced materials, using a timber structure and straw bale infill to minimise carbon emissions, in addition to blown glass, sheeps wool and wood fibre board.Providing ticketing, a caf, toilets and access facilities on the site of a currently underutilised outbuilding, the shape of the centre has been designed to curve around the roots of an oak tree, while a second structure housing toilets and services mirrors the curve, protecting the root zone of chestnut trees behind the building. Heating will be drawn from ground source heat pumps, with electricity provided by a combination of roof and ground-mounted photovoltaic cells. The aim is for operational net zero, with a predicted energy use of 49.4-52.9 kWh/m.The building will be a new gateway for the 365ha Shugborough estate, which has been managed by the National Trust since 2017. It forms part of the National Trusts masterplan for the estate, which includes accessibility improvements and rewilding across the site.AdvertisementReferencing Shugboroughs history of horticultural innovation including growing Britains first hothouse pineapple the faade features a textured pineapple pattern created using pargetting, a traditional but dying craft employing lime, sand and water.Visual: Secchi SmithProject dataLocation Milford, Great Haywood, Stafford | Start on site Wider site construction: December 2024, visitor centre: April 2025 | Expected completion December 2025 | Construction cost 2.7 million | Client The National Trust |Structural engineer Civic Engineers |M&E engineer Introba |Straw bale specialist Wellspring Architecture |Natural materials Straw bales, lime pargetting, lime render, clay plaster, wood fibre boardsWelfare Building, The Heathland School by Wellspring ArchitecturePhoto: Webb YatesRecently completed, this 250m building provides facilities along with a sensory garden for The Heathland School, which caters for students with special educational needs. Employing a number of natural and circular economy techniques, the scheme has a unique structure that employs both low-carbon and recycled materials throughout, including foundations made of recycled car tyres and timber piles. The external walls are formed with loadbearing straw bales sourced from a local farm in Osterley, which in turn support an asymmetric timber pitched roof. The windows and doors are all made using 100 per cent FSC-certified timber frames.Being located beneath a busy flight path, the building had to meet rigorous acoustic criteria, achieved through high-performance acoustic glazing and the properties of the straw bale walls and dense natural fibre insulation in the roof. The building also meets stringent accessibility requirements. The combination of high thermal insulation, incorporation of MVHR and solar PV panels, in addition to the windows, make the building net zero in operation.Construction started with the timber roof, propped by temporary works, to keep the straw bales dry and viable while stored on site. Once the walls were constructed, the roof was then lowered onto them. The roof features a lightweight living roof on its shallower pitch and cedar shingles on its steeper pitch.The project engaged trainees from The School of Natural Building during the construction programme, offering practical courses in straw bale building.Visual: Wellspring ArchitectureProject dataLocation Hounslow, London TW4 |Start on site July 2023 |Completion September 2024 |Construction cost Undisclosed |Client London Borough of Hounslow |Structural engineer Webb Yates |Contractor Borras Construction |Natural materials Loadbearing straw bales, timber, wood fibre, lime render, rough sawn larch, clay plaster, local ash dado cladding, recycled gypsum boards317 Finchley Road by GroupworkPhotography: Webb YatesThis 3,000m granite stone building, providing 22 homes above lower-level workspace in north-west London, is due to complete at the end of this year.Using approximately 725 tonnes of granite from Larvik in Norway, the project is a 10-storey self-finished stone structure, completely loadbearing, without the need for steel reinforcement bars or a secondary structure the first building of its kind since the last stone cathedrals were erected. The volcanic rock will form 596 columns and beams. When finished, it will have about 80 per cent less embodied carbon than a steel frame clad in stone and 55 per cent less than a concrete structure clad in stone.The volcanic rock was chosen after extensive fire testing of its performance compared with limestone at the British Research Establishment. It was discovered that a lava stone exoskeleton would require roughly half the amount of stone to that of a limestone exoskeleton, due to its superior resistance to internal fracture during a fire.The scheme won planning permission in 2016, but former developer Linea Homes only carried out demolition of the existing building before selling the site.Visual: GroupworkProject dataLocation 317 Finchley Road, London NW3 |Start on site November 2021 |Expected completion October 2025 |Construction cost Undisclosed |Client 317 Finchley Road |Structural engineer Webb Yates | Contractor Ernest Park |Stonemason Lundhs |Natural materials GraniteWolves Lane Horticulture Centre by Studio Gil and Material CulturesPhoto: Henry WoideThis former council-run plant nursery and garden centre in Haringey was taken on in 2017 by a consortium of community food-growing organisations and volunteers, including the Black-led community interest company The Initiative, growers enterprise Black Rootz and OrganicLea, a co-operative producing and distributing food and plants locally.Plans under way for revitalising this semi-derelict site include three new low-carbon buildings, along with a series of courtyard spaces, constructed from bio-based materials such as straw and locally sourced timber. The scheme focuses on growing and distributing wholesome food and engaging local communities in education, enterprise and events.Billed as a replicable model for community-led market gardens, the project has been backed by the Mayor of Londons Good Growth-funded Market Garden City programme, aiming to develop plots for local food production, distribution and kitchens, which also offer access to green space, training, volunteering and employment. The scheme will provide a new community hall for hosting communal kitchens, workshops and events; an office and classroom building for the African diaspora-led Ubele Initiative campaign group; and a large communal distribution building and food store.The construction system consists of a lightweight timber frame infilled with straw bales sourced from a farm just outside London. The frames are being constructed from lower-grade C16 timber, sourced from smaller local mills. The elevations are lime-rendered and overclad in places by timber screens, providing additional protection.As much material as possible was retained from the existing buildings. Concrete waste from existing slabs were used to form the rubble trench foundations and clay extracted when digging them was used as plaster for the internal walls.One of the most important elements of the project has been the notion of the site as classroom, with participatory design and knowledge-transfer at the core of the design and construction process. This has ensured that the knowledge and skills needed to maintain the buildings have been learnt by the community that will occupy them.Visual: Studio Gil and Material CulturesProject dataLocation Wolves Lane, London N22 |Start on site June 2023 |Expected completion May 2025 |Construction cost 2.3 million |Client The Ubele Initiative, OrganicLea |Structural engineer Tisserin | Contractor WORK |Straw bale specialist School of Natural Building |Natural materials Straw bales, clay plaster, limecrete

Empower your practice how to build your business profitabilityWhat makes for a profitable practice? This was the question at the heart of the AJs free webinar on 18 MarchThere are just two levers you can pull to increase business profitability, according to Simon Berry of business software specialist Fresh Projects: charge more, or spend less. The ins and outs of how to do this effectively were explored by Berry, along with a number of architects grappling with todays increasingly challenging market conditions, at a webinar run by The Architects Journal in association with Fresh Projects.With redundancies in the air and the RIBA reporting negative future workload trends for the third month in a row, its certainly a good time to tackle profitability, remarked chair Hattie Hartman.Participants were frank about their experiences. Al Scott of IF_DO shared the practices realisation, after it grew swiftly in 2018, that while it needed a 20 per cent minimum profit for directors to get paid and for the business to work properly, it was only just covering its increased costs. Aware that it needed to understand its business in a more data-driven way, it carried out a complete overhaul of its fees and realised that it was haemorrhaging money at Stages 4&5, the latter in particular. Our appointments were setting us up to fail, he said.AdvertisementIF_DOs response was to redesign its fees to better work for the practice, with closer monitoring of performance and fees based on data. This included, he said, exercising fee agreements to the max, capturing additional fees for additional work, and in particular charging on a weekly basis for Stages 5 & 6.Much of Scotts experiences resonated with Nick Hayhurst of 16-strong Hayhurst and Co, who said it was important to encourage clients to see architecture as a strategic investment rather than an expense.He talked about the challenges of not losing profit in the gaps between the work stages, especially since these services are usually carried out by senior staff. He advocated clearly defining these gap stages and time charging for the work, such as Stage 3+ (between planning application and starting detailed design) and Stage 4+ (between issuing tender information and starting on site). For Stage 5, he advised having a prolongation clause and setting out how such work should be charged, ie pro-rata per week or month. Otherwise, you are giving away your professional expertise for free.Another important area to address to improve profitability was avoiding gaps in practice workflow, Hayhurst said. Project programmes should be updated and reviewed each month, and his practice found it useful to do small projects alongside larger ones to help fill workflow gaps.Judith Stichtenoth, director of 45-strong practice dRMM, talked about the importance of establishing a decent fee agreement with the client from the outset, and of being taken seriously as business people as well as designers.AdvertisementIt was important to never buy a project there has to be a profit, she said. The practice also tries to establish a clause for fee agreements to be reviewed in line with inflation. Like Scott and Hayward, she identified Stage 5 as problematic for profitability. The only way to deal with it is to exactly know your scope, and dont shy away of issuing variations, she said, for example when there are changes to the programme.Stichtenoth advocated clarity and negotiation and open dialogue with the client during the project. If a client wants to reduce fees, propose the omission of certain deliverables accordingly, and issue clarification of scope. When it comes to getting paid on time, she advised clear payment protocols such as 30-day terms rather than two months, a pre-agreed monthly drawdown schedule, and clarity over invoice dates, addressees, purchase order numbers and payment terms. Practices should be prepared to talk to the client and keep telling them how important it is to get paid on time. On the rare occasion that dRMM has had to threaten to stand down when fees havent been paid, the practice does this after taking advice from lawyers, and finds that it does get swift results.For Berry, whose company provides project management tools for built environment professionals, architects need to get the fee right at the start, and that means being clear about their billing rates and the project scope.Not enough architects are brave enough to charge for changes, he said, adding that this can become a profit centre for the business. This was particularly important at the construction stages of a project, when it is better to go for time-based charging. As for the other profitability lever of spending less, Berry identified not just reducing overheads but optimising utilisation as the key move, so that cheaper resources are used to carry out non project work.Project tracking was essential. Berry said that while a spreadsheet was fine for practices with just a few people, it was worth investing in project management software when practices were above five or six people. Scott said this had been game-changing for fee efficiency and had paid for itself 100 times over. Hayward also praised the impact of such software on profitability.You have to have a system and you have to be militant about operating it, he said.Properly capturing levels of overtime was also important to get a true picture of project profitability, and help judge fee levels.Panellists were asked how to deal with an undercutting situation. It was important to stand your ground, said Scott, and ask for the scope of what others are providing in order to establish if there is a fair comparison. Berry suggested providing different fee options for different levels of service, and in doing so putting value to those extra services.Business profitability was not rocket science, said Berry in conclusion: Charge more than what youre paying to deliver the job, and have a system in place where you can track costs.The panelSimon Berry founder Fresh ProjectsNick Hayhurst principal, Hayhurst and Co.Al Scott director, IF_DOJudith Stichtenoth director dRMMHattie Hartman (chair) sustainability editor, The Architects JournalFresh Projects webinar 2025-03-26AJ news deskcomment and share

The AJ100 practices Narrowhouse scheme, backed by local developer GNM Developments for a derelict brownfield site at 52 Gas Street Basin, was recently submitted to Birmingham City Council. The scheme is a redesign of a smaller 160-unit co-living development submitted last summer, which featured two blocks, one rising to 14 storeys, the other to eight storeys. Drawn up for the same developer by Broadway Malyan and Glancy Nicholls, those plans were dropped shortly after.The new three-part development includes the retention of the existing historic former Toll House building facing Gas Street Basin, a six-storey podium building, and a 21-storey tower clad with solar panels.AdvertisementTogether, the revised scheme will deliver 12,000m2 of gross internal floor area, providing space for 249 co-living units and commercial and residential amenities.The project team says the Narrowhouse also aspires to be the worlds tallest multistorey energy-positive development and will reuse existing brickwork from a vacant building currently on the site. The faade features 4,000m2 of photovoltaic cladding.Broadway Malyan said the PV cladding would create enough power to serve residents while supplying nearby buildings through a local grid. It will provide power for EV charging docks for cars and canal narrowboats.Broaday Malyan said that the environmental performance of the building will be enhanced by its super-slim profile, which, at 8.5m wide, is understood would be one of the UKs slenderest residential buildings, if completed.The practice added: [The scheme sets] a new benchmark for high-density, efficient urban living. The Narrowhouses profile supports its energy-positive credentials by maximising the potential for solar energy generation, optimising passive ventilation and gearing and enabling much more efficient energy distribution.Advertisement Source:Broadway MalyanBroadway Malyan's earlier 2024 Gas St Basin schemeBroadway Malyan principal Hugo Fitzgerald said: We are hugely excited to submit these proposals. The Narrowhouse is a pioneering proposal which we hope will set a new benchmark, both in terms of energy-positive and super-slim building design.The proposals ground the development in its history, taking design prompts from wharf building typology and creating an attractive vibrant frontage along an underused part of the citys extensive canal network. Reusing stacked brick from the original building to form the podium makes the building relatable and, with the retention of the Toll House, echoes the past.The 21-storey tower is entirely clad in an animated BIPV faade, signalling Birminghams ambition to move forward with the use of future developments that could potentially offer positive energy to feed back into the city, supporting the citys net zero ambitions, while also providing an exciting new place for Birminghams population to live.Gerald Manton, managing director of GNM Developments, said: The Narrowhouse is more than a building, its a statement about the future of sustainable urban living. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to position Birmingham as a global leader in sustainable development. With the UK working towards net zero targets and demand for affordable housing increasing, Birmingham is perfectly positioned to lead this transformation.Subject to planning, work on the scheme will start in late 2026, with completion scheduled for 2028.Current view

Source:&nbsp Matthew Ling PhotographyA post-occupancy evaluation carried out at Hawkins\Browns award-winning primary school in Derby shows children gravitating towards outdoor spaces and connecting with nature, reports Martha Dillon When pupils at St Marys Voluntary Catholic Academy, Derby, were asked to photograph where they would most like to have their lessons, they all took pictures of outdoor spaces: the amphitheatre, forested areas or gardening club shelter. Asked what made them feel calm in their classrooms, they photographed the windows. In a mapping exercise (see below), red stickers showing where they least liked were mostly assigned to covered areas and indoor spaces (one Year 5 pupil stole the pack and put them all on his classroom).St Marys, designed by Hawkins\Brown and the winner of last years AJ100 Sustainability Initiative of the Year, is the UKs first Department for Education (DfE) funded biophilic primary school, meaning it fosters humans innate tendency to seek connections with ecosystems.After the schools original buildings burned down in 2020, it was selected for the DfEs GenZero pilot to construct schools working with nature for health, wellbeing and the environment. The site has been reoriented, relandscaped and built to low embodied and operational carbon specifications using standardised timber modules and PV panels. Last month, engineer Tilbury Douglas and the DfE hosted a symposium to share lessons from the schools first year of life.Advertisement Source:Sophie Rickard, University of DerbySt Marys most notable biophilic feature is that it massively expands outdoor access. In the UK, only 24 per cent of schools provide daily opportunities for pupils to experience nature, dropping to 18 per cent in more deprived areas. Here, every classroom opens outwards: the schools five single-storey timber blocks connect through winding paths and a covered outdoor canopy.Wherever you are, youve always got sight of some greenery, says Hawkins\Browns project architect David Brook, who is also technical director. Rather than an efficient footprint with internal circulation, most of that circulation is outside kids get a little bit of fresh air when they go back and forth.There are no fenced-off nature areas, while service routes that previously cut off access to trees have been diverted. The outdoor amphitheatre and outdoor Wi-Fi spots facilitate externallessons.Speaking at the symposium, Miles Richardson, a leading expert on connections with nature, said: We have busy lives and there is a battle for attention. Architects need to be designing a place or space so that it prompts engagement. Source:Matthew Ling PhotographyIn St Marys, the grounds are divided into a variety of different areas: busy playing fields, a meditation space, functional hard surfaces (excellent for dance routines, apparently), private forest, and sheltered courtyards.AdvertisementHeadteacher Amanda Greaves tells the symposium that she thinks the most impactful change is that children now choose where they want to go in their play and lunch breaks, creating their own ways of interacting with their surroundings.For Brook, spaces with a bit more identity give children options and preferences, and then, because each one of those [spaces] can be characterised, they will change peoplesdecisions.While spaces might initially look conventional, the same ecosystem-esque flexibility and flow applies within the buildings. The layout is organic the five school blocks are like organs around the central covered spine. Many of the walls and desks are whiteboards and some classroom furniture is on wheels so pupils can move and write dynamically.Even the services are exposed or wall-mounted. This was originally intended to help maintenance and reduce embodied carbon but, in practice, also reinforces the sense of the building as a moving, living system. Source:Matthew Ling PhotographySome children have apparently picked up on this, wanting to understand the pipework labelling. According to Brook, this speaks to those biophilic principles of being in harmony with your natural world, rather than existing in a separate plane independent of it, where we sort of lose thatcontext.An even deeper immersion with ecosystems comes from active learning. St Marys has a gardening club, which prioritises access to students who dont have gardens at home. While this isnt exactly radical, Greaves says they plan to involve parents too. Swales around the site can be used to teach children about blue habitats while low paved walls and brambled areas provide pupils with positive and manageable risks.This is reminiscent of the Forest Schools philosophy, which holds that wilder green spaces are the most fertile places for young people to explore and learn for themselves. Brook notes that there is also an environmental educational component to risk. Having some spiky bushes is quite useful, he says, because then we learn that we shouldnt just be running riot through thelandscaping. Source:Matthew Ling PhotographyMeasuring the overall success of biophilia is tricky. Many formal frameworks are dissatisfying, prioritising aesthetics and passive allusions to ecological features, such as shapes and colours. It is to St Marys credit that the experience of the pupils is centre stage instead. Its blocky buildings may not mimic shells and leaves but they are having an impact.According to pupil surveys by University of Derby PhD student Sophie Rickard (also responsible for the mapping exercise), pupils have shown a sustained increase in life satisfaction post-move, and their reading and mathematics scores have risen. The school also seems to be having a calming effect. The teachers allow stressed and overwhelmed children, many of whom have chaotic home environments, to ask to go outside, which academics interpret as them using eco-systems to self-regulate.I like these big trees, one child reported. They survived the fire and that gives me hope that if you are ill, you can think about that big tree that survived. The findings add to a wealth of evidence that natural systems are crucial for childrens health and development.Another consideration is the health of ecosystems themselves. Last September, a major compendium of international evidence showed conclusively that the view that humans are separate from and superior to nature and that nature comprises objects for humans to use as resources is one of the three main causes of the staggering levels of biodiversity loss worldwide.Shifting to a more reciprocal relationship is quite literally life or death; we cannot use biophilic principles only to plunder nature for its productivity or wellbeing benefits. Source:PICTURE IT MEDIAIn St Marys, a link is emerging: academics say they have seen in pupils a small but sustained increase in nature connectedness, a continued increase in pro-conservation behaviour and stronger environmental perceptionsscores.St Marys cant be replicated everywhere. It is a new build, in a large, open site peopled by young children with structured opportunities to go outside and learn. But there have been transferable successes here. The diversity of St Marys outdoor spaces, its blurred boundary between covered and open areas, and the opportunities it provides to directly engage people with their surroundings are all steps towards a more reciprocal type of architecture.At the symposium, the DfE revealed it had begun a feasibility study for a biophilic secondary school down the road, suggesting that the (unspecified) cost uplift of delivering this pioneering new school has not deterred further exploration. The department also plans to include lessons from St Marys and other pilot schools in design guides, including refurbishment guides, which will be published later this year.Brook wants the project to enshrine a higher standard that we should be working towards. Lets hope so. Thousands of UK schools are overdue major safety and sustainability upgrades. What an unmissable opportunity to drop the greenwashing, and start to repair human and ecological connections at scale.2025-03-26Simon Aldouscomment and share

The landscape of West Hill in Hastings is characterised by the steep transition from the elevated Wealden basin to the coastal seafront. Streets are lined with formal Victorian-era homes while terraced gardens and retaining walls, marked by the coastal weather, descend the slope to the backs of the houses.This terraced condition poses a challenge to building house extensions, notably the potential investment needed to hold back or cut into the slope and the dark, sunken spaces adjacent to the buildings. House on a Hill is as much a reworking of the fabric of the existing Victorian villa as it is an extension. A number of new pavilions to the rear expand the interior and negotiate the challenging conditions, allowing the natural characteristics of the existing landscape to define the structure and atmosphere of this carefully adapted and extended home.The client, a small-scale property developer, hired architect Hugh Strange on the basis of his construction methodology. Stranges work is typified by a humble reaction to site conditions and a resourceful celebration of typically concealed materials. On site, he spoke openly about the projects construction, putting great weight on collaborating closely with a select group of consultants and suppliers.AdvertisementWith the experienced client acting as project manager and the timber frame package priced early on by the subcontractor, the project bypassed a typical RIBA Stage 4 tender, moving quickly from planning consent to assembly packages for construction.Strange comments: Usually we draw 90 per cent CAD drawings and 10 per cent hand sketches on site, but this was more like 60:40, using sketches to resolve issues rather than a fully resolved construction set.This allowed space for adaptations to arise on site, and for collaborative decision-making, less governed by the constraints of a contractual schedule of works.The project began with shoring up the landscape through tie rods with visible cappings and rough cast in-situ concrete mantles atop the retaining walls. Both are practical, low-cost, infrastructural decisions that, despite leaving their mark on the landscape, seem fitting to its rough patina. Next, four new structures were added to the terraces: three laminated veneer lumber (LVL) pavilions and one galvanised steel pergola. Each is designed as an independent structure, stepped in from the boundaries and offset from the others to create small and large courtyards. The pavilions are lined with red grandis (eucalyptus) windows, with hoods of galvanised steel and topped with semi-intensive green roofs. Designing the extension as a series of pavilions allows space around and in between structures, which avoids overwhelming the site and creates a charged dialogue between the new structure and textured existing landscape.AdvertisementA new gallery replaces a late 20th-century lean-to, extending the kitchen and dining areas into a larger interconnected social space. Carefully adapted openings in the existing wall of the Victorian villa provide diagonal views out to the garden, even from the plans depths. The gallery is lined with a raised bench along its length and tall open sliding windows, and acts as a contemplative resting space. Its layered construction, which uses LVL laminates for both structure and surface, is particularly noticeable in the columns and large downstand beams that, at each end of the gallery, differentiate the lower doorways from the high-level curtain glazing of the courtyard. At right angles to the gallery is a small living area. It is separated by a step up in section, giving the room independence and an oversight of the goings on in the courtyard garden, kitchen and dining space.Both new pavilions open to the courtyard through finely crafted horizontal sliding doors, with the rougher LVL structural columns set back from the perimeter. When these doors are opened, a transformation occurs: the interior opens to the garden leaving the columns standing in open space, evoking the initial construction site condition of timber pergolas. This view out, facing over a deep French drain to the raised existing concrete slab, is reminiscent of sitting on the timber-framed veranda of Kyotos Ents-ji temple, albeit the garden ground is raised above where you sit, rather than lowered. This same gap between the gallery and garden room pavilion allows for an overshoot of the angled galvanised hood. When viewed from the garden room, this almost feels like it is flying inside. This loose fit approach allows each pavilion to feel like a room in a collection of outdoor and indoor territories.Facing the challenge of forming an accessible route stepping up the garden, Strange has added a steel staircase, clipped-on the edge of the retaining wall. This ascends to a home studio where there are views out over the roofs to the sea. A new path extends further up the hill on which a small seat, formed of block and a leftover stair tread, creates a reading space under an existing mulberry tree. At the top level, a steel pergola is more a suggestion of an outdoor room, to be trailed in vines in the future as a place to enjoy the most expansive vista. The project also included the refurbishment of the upper floor, where Stranges scope was more advisory. Its most notable space is a skillfully crafted Japanese meets Bauhaus bathroom.Stranges recent PhD research, Creative Space of the Building Site, emphasises the significance of construction processes in architectural design. He posits that good architecture emerges through construction, allowing for adaptation and innovation during the building process. His thesis references a study on the one-man practice of Walter Segal, who was, in his own words, not prepared to part with any aspect of design or detailing. At House on a Hill, Stranges methodology demonstrates a less rigid and more collaborative approach, emphasising the importance of trust between the architect, client, structural engineer and subcontractors.Stranges frame-first construction methodology sets up a collective spatial and material understanding of the projects aspirations. The subsequent enclosures and linings are carefully sequenced to accommodate and celebrate changes the site throws upThe frame-first construction methodology on show sets up a collective spatial and material understanding of the projects aspirations from the outset. The subsequent enclosures and linings are carefully sequenced to accommodate and celebrate changes the site throws up, allowing creative input from all parties involved. This illustrates a more dynamic and frankly less daunting way to build, with an acceptance that decision-making can be strung out across the project process rather than contractually bundled up at the end of RIBA Stage 4. This more fluid client-architect relationship avoids the limitations of pre-contract decisions.As a young practitioner, visiting the site in person, I came away with an encouragement that the construction process if you take time to understand the way you work, and who with gives the opportunity for playful, honest and unexpected architectural expression.Michael Dillon is director of AOMD (Architectural Office Michael Dillon)Architects viewAbove Hastings town centre, residential areas cling to the hillsides. The steepness of the private gardens had led the clients property, a Victorian detached house with 1980s extension, to turn its back on the outdoor space, while the condition of the gardens concrete terraces had become precarious.The project reorientates the house towards this hillside while piecing together a new route up the rear garden. This interplay of built form and route, along with the central external terrace, now provides the focus of the property.The house has been carefully renovated, and the poorly constructed addition replaced with a gallery space. From this gallery, the kitchen and dining room are now connected, and a few steps up is a new garden room. Further up the hill is a study, accessible only from the outside. Where previously the rooms were disconnected and lacked natural light, there are now multiple routes, and light is brought into the depths of the interior.To reduce embodied carbon, the concrete terraces have been repaired rather than replaced. A series of ground anchors hold steady the retaining walls, identifiable through their distinctive circular caps, while concrete repairs patch cracks.Hugh Strange, director, Hugh Strange ArchitectsEngineers viewThe whole project is predicated on the repair of the existing concrete terraced garden. Previously in very poor condition, the careful anchoring, reinforcing and patching of the undesigned and ad-hoc existing concrete avoided the need for demolition and new retaining walls, with significant savings in embodied carbon. The existing Victorian house was renovated with a number of environmental improvements, including new glazing throughout, added insulation and the installation of an air-source heat pump.The earlier 1980s extension, of poor construction and without insulation, was replaced with a well-insulated extension that encourages cross ventilation and brings natural light deeper within the interiors. All the new construction uses engineered timber (LVL) as a lightweight low-carbon material, and all accommodate green roofs to encourage biodiversity and better manage rainwater.Andy Toohey, partner, Price & MyersClients viewI approached quite a few architects when I first started to plan for my project. Of the architects I spoke to, Hugh Strange really took time to think carefully about what I was asking for.Having said that I knew what I wanted, the design still adapted organically over time, to better meet what I was trying to achieve.My key design criteria was to create a feeling of space and openness and bring more light to the building without settling on a generic glass box (which would sit awkwardly with the original Victorian house).I wondered quite often during the build whether the finished project would be used in the way that I expected. The gallery was a risk it is a space that, on the face of it, has no defined purpose. However, since completion it has clearly become the heart of the extension it encourages me and guests to gather there, move through it from one part of the house to another, and enhances the flow of the house, which was ultimately a key criteria.By opening up the spaces it has helped me break down the distinctions between living, working and dining and gain a space that it totally unique but, equally, highly functional.Simon Basey, clientWorking detailThe new structures, formed of engineered timber (LVL), sit lightly on the repaired concrete. Their construction is precisely articulated, the structural distinguished from the non-structural, and the junctions detailed to allow disassembly and reuse.Critical to the projects architecture, the corner timber junctions articulate the support of beams by posts, and the support of one beam on the notched profile of the adjoining beam.The resulting stepped corner is expressed in the glazing, with sliding doors occupying the higher profile, their large apertures opening on to the central courtyard, and the external metal cladding lifted at these moments to form projecting and protecting metal caps.Hugh Strange, director, Hugh Strange ArchitectsProject dataLocationHastingsStart on siteOctober 2021CompletionJune 2023Gross internal floor area209m2Construction cost600,000Construction cost per m22,870ArchitectHugh Strange ArchitectsClientSimon BaseyStructural engineerPrice & MyersProject managerJethro WarrenPrincipal designerHugh Strange ArchitectsApproved building inspectorJhaiMain contractorN/ACAD software usedVectorworksSustainability dataPercentage of floor area with daylight factor >2%Not suppliedPercentage of floor area with daylight factor >5%Not suppliedOn-site energy generationNot suppliedHeating and hot water loadNot suppliedOperational energyNot suppliedTotal energy load33 kWh/m2/yrCarbon emissionsNot suppliedAnnual mains water consumption110 litres per person per dayAirtightness at 50PaNot suppliedOverall thermal bridging heat transfer coefficient (Y-value)Not suppliedOverall area-weighted U-valueNot suppliedAnnual CO2 emissionsNot suppliedEmbodied carbon93 kgCO2eq/m2Whole-life carbon95 kgCO2eq/m2Predicted design life50 years

The contest organised by local urban research platform ONplan lab on behalf of Penta Real Estate seeks compelling proposals for 85,000m of mixed-use development, including new homes, offices, leisure and retail areas.The two UK finalists for the jobs in the capital of the Czech Republic are Studio Egret West and Morris+Company. Studio Egret West is shortlisted for Block B01 a 20,900m gateway office building while Morris+Company is vying for two residential buildings dubbed Block B02 and Block B03 respectively.The competition launched in November 2024 three years after a team including London practice Marko and Placemakers won a high-profile contest to re-masterplan the entire 24ha Florenc area.AdvertisementFlorenc is the largest brownfield site in close contact with Pragues historic city centre. It is shaped by transport infrastructure, including a bus terminal, train station and highway flyover, and represents one of the citys most complex urban challenges.Bjarke Ingels Group won an international contest organised by The City of Prague for a major new 204 million (CZK 6.1 billion) waterfront concert hall close to the Vltavsk metro station in 2022. The City of Prague also announced an international competitive dialogue to rethink a prominent 56ha waterfront site in the same year.Penta Real Estate is one of the largest independent developers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and has worked on previous schemes by Serie Architects and Studio Fuksas. Fifteen years ago Zaha Hadid Architects won a competition held by the developer for a high-rise Sky Park development in Bratislava.Czech architectural studio ADNS architekti won a contest launched four years ago by Penta Real Estate to design a mixed-use development in Pragues post-industrial Vysoany suburb. In 2023, Studio Egret West and Snhetta working in a 50:50 collaboration alongside local practice Gro Architekti were named overall winners of a Penta Real Estate contest to redevelop Bratislava Southbank.Judges of the latest contest include the German architect Stefan Behnisch, Italian architect Maria Alessandra Segantini, Dutch urbanist Kees Christiaanse and Czech Architecture Prize winner tpn Valouch.AdvertisementUp to eight teams have been shortlisted for each site and invited to participate in the design phase of the competition. The contest features a 700,000 prize fund and the overall winners will be announced in autumn 2025.The shortlistsCompetition block B01Studio Egret WestCHYBIK+KRISTOF/ Atelier Ten/Mfs GroupBarkow Leibinger Gesellschaft von Architektenquerkraft architektur/Jan Proksa ArchitectsKuba & Pila architectsSAS COLDEFY ET ASSOCIES/A69 architectsVietzke & Borstelmann Architekten/Jakub KlkaADEPT/OH BOICompetition block B02Morris+CompanyBaumschlager Eberle LustenauAulk Fier architekti / Machar Teichman / studio reactorA69 architects/ADEPTDe Architekten Cie InternationalVietzke & Borstelmann Architekten/Jakub KlkaLAN/P2PABotticini+Facchinelli/ARW AssociatesCompetition block B03Hasscookzemmrich STUDIO2050AllesWirdGut Architektur/creatura studio/DnD Landschaftsplanung/AED projectMorris+Companyre:architekti/baukuh studio associato/Atelier Kempe Thilledit architects/A69 architekti/NL ArchitectsDe Architekten Cie InternationalStudio Perspektiv/Studio NinedotsIngenhoven associatesCompetition block B04Pelk and partner architects / Thomas Mller Ivan Reimann Gesellschaft von Architekten mbHPavel Hnilika Architects+PlannersBaumschlager Eberle LustenauA69 architects/ADEPTIngenhoven associatesLAN / P2PADe Zwarte Hond Groningen/Apropos Architectsagps architecture/Drig AG/MOBA studio

Reducing the carbon footprint of construction involves the replacement of concrete and steel with timber. Thats a given. But, for the Fire and Rescue Services (FRS), the implications of this change are complex and far reaching. Yes wood burns, but the challenges stem from how it burns, how it loses strength under the action of heat, where it is in the building, whats attached to it, how it is used to form walls, ceilings and floors and, moreover, whether the fire service has sufficient resourcing, training and funding to be effective in this new era of public sector cuts.To enable and future-proof the greater use of timber, architects have a crucial role in strengthening overall building resilience through design. The phrase hope for the best, prepare for the worst seems apposite and, in future, when citing the FRS in building applications, architects might now have to court the intervention they would be seeking in the event of a fire by designing in features that will support the safety and effectiveness of the FRS.A good place to start is the Mass Timber Insurance Playbook, freely downloadable from the website of the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products. This provides a framework for designers of timber buildings to work to with the objective of ensuring not only that the delivered building supports FRS operations, but is insurable.AdvertisementThe Playbook promotes early and ongoing engagement with all stakeholders, including FRS, and promotes measures designed to keep the fire small, support safe access and building stability and resource firefighting operations by options that might include:Giving attention to fire service vehicle access and water provisionInstalling fire sprinklersDesigning to ensure the structure is built of non-combustible materials (concrete and steel), with dominant timber use in floor-plate infillSelecting to use non-combustible materials (concrete) in key areas such as in the building cores, ground floor and (eg) alternating floor platesProviding dry and wet risers (internal firefighting water supplies)It might seem counterintuitive but, by improving resilience, each of these measures helps to enable greater use of timber. So why is such an approach necessary when designing largely timber buildings?There are various reasons for this, including the fact that wood will be replacing materials that last significantly longer in a fire, the fact that several timber construction methods create combustible voids and that wood can smoulder for hours, or even days, often giving few signs of its presence.Unless these material and detailing differences arent specifically ameliorated by the architect, the risk is that fires will be more prevalent, larger and harder to tackle, with potentially less of the building remaining afterwards.Other factors involved in the transition to a net zero future energy generation and storage systems, and lithium battery-powered bikes and scooters, to name but a few may also compound the situation, changing not only the statistical likelihood of ignition but the aggressiveness of these fire-initiating events.AdvertisementIt will take just one or two significant fires in timber or largely timber buildings to destroy the reputation of construction methods that are much needed to save the planet. Theres a lot at stake.Dr James Glockling is the current chair of BSI FSH/16 Hazards to life from fire and a visiting professor at the University of Central Lancashire 2025-03-25will hurstcomment and share