AHMM has been appointed by developer HB Reavis as the design partner for the redevelopment of Elizabeth House, close to Waterloo Station in central London. The team is delighted to have the opportunity to deliver something that will be of lasting benefit to Waterloo, Lambeth and London, creating a world class, contemporary office-led development that will support thousands of jobs and provide public realm improvements for the tens of millions of people who visit and travel through Waterloo. AHMM will now work with the client to develop proposals before consulting widely with the local community during 2018.
AHMM’s project to transform the University of Amsterdam’s Roeterseiland Campus has been included on the RIBA International List 2018, and will now be considered for the RIBA Awards for International Excellence, which form the shortlist for the RIBA International Prize. The recently completed project – which has already won the AJ Retrofit of the Year Award, and WAN Education Award – has reinvented the campus, designed in the 1960s by Norbert Gawronski, to provide a new home for the Amsterdam Law School and Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences with lecture theatres, libraries, tutorial, seminar and meeting spaces, and a collection of public rooms with views across the city. The phased intervention has seen the revealing of the previously obscured canal through radical ‘surgery’ to one of the campus blocks as well as the creation of new public space. Awarded every two years since 2016, the RIBA International Prize is given to a building which exemplifies design excellence and architectural ambition, and delivers meaningful social impact. Find out more about the International Prize here.
1 King William Street has been awarded Refurb of the Year at the inaugural AJ Architecture Awards. The project has seen the extension and integration of a 1990s office block and a 1920s grade ll listed building in the Bank Conservation Area to create a new unified high-specification office space. The judges commented that 'the lobby is full of delight and the exteriors reward study as an exemplar for new City offices'. Find out more about the AJ Awards here.
Work has begun on the site of the former Madeira Hotel in Falmouth for the Fitzroy, one of three current AHMM projects for developer Pegasus Life. The Fitzroy takes its cue from the grand hotels lining Falmouth’s esplanade, using a material palette of off-white render, natural stone and slate roofing to integrate with the conservation area. The expression of three gables gives the facade a strong rhythm and a vertical emphasis, with large offset balconies providing double height space and shading to the sea-facing glazed facade. Due for completion in summer 2018, each of the one and two-bedroom apartments will have panoramic views across Falmouth Bay and towards the historic Pendennis Castle.
image courtesy of SW Media
Hawley School was given the Outstanding Design Award at the Camden Business Awards ceremony held on 30 November. The new primary school forms the first phase of the Hawley Wharf Masterplan, and comprises a new-build three storey building and the conversion and integration of a Grade II listed building.
Award judges ‘appreciated the quality of communal, collective spaces created by the framing of the central cloistered courtyard, with wide double height entrance hallways and corridors. Spaces are flexible and accommodating with generosity created through intelligent design. The diversity in materials is well controlled and both the complexity of programme and relationship of the school to its urban setting are sophisticated and well-handled.’
Find out more about the Camden Design Awards here.
AHMM's Westminster Bridge Road for urbanest has been named Overall Winner in the Mixed Use category at this year’s World Architecture Festival Awards in Berlin. The WAF Awards form the centrepiece of the World Architecture Festival, which this year marked its tenth anniversary, and shortlisted projects are judged via live crits by a panel of international judges. Clad in curved, stacked bands of black and white continuous aluminium and glazing, Westminster Bridge Road is a multi-use ‘city sandwich’ close to the Palace of Westminster in the heart of London, and includes a sixth-form college for 850 students, student housing with 1050 rooms and supporting facilities, 50 apartments, incubator space for start-up businesses, a health club and community sports facilities for local schools. Find out more about this year’s winners and the Festival here.
New Scotland Yard was last night (8 November) named Project of the Year at the Building Awards, which are organised by Building Magazine to recognise projects and initiatives across the construction industry. AHMM was also highly commended for Architecture Practice of the Year. Meanwhile, Barns Road – also shortlisted for a Building Award – won an award from the Oxford Preservation Trust in a ceremony held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. See the full list of OPT Award winners here.
Three AHMM projects have been announced as regional finalists in the 2018 Civic Trust Awards: New Scotland Yard and One King William Street in London, and Barns Road in Oxford. Established in 1959, the Civic Trust Awards recognise outstanding architecture, planning and design projects that have made a positive contribution to the local communities they serve. Barns Road has also been nominated for the Selwyn Goldsmith Award for Universal Design, which aims to reward and promote exemplars specific to universal design. Award winners will be announced in December – find out more about the finalists here.
The Oklahoma City Ballet has been awarded funding to continue the transformation of the former AEP Fitness Center into a new base for the company and school. Originally completed in 2015, the award-winning building became the new home of the OKC Ballet in May of this year, and will be known as the Susan E Brackett Dance Center. The new funding from the Oklahoma-based Kirkpatrick Foundation will ensure the redevelopment of two new studios below ground and see the transformation of the former basketball court and current ground floor studio into a new performance hall. Find out more about OKC Ballet’s plans for the development here.
<AHMM has picked up five awards from the American Institute of Architects’ Oklahoma chapter. Given at the chapter’s annual conference last Friday (20 October), the AIA Oklahoma Design Awards recognised four AHMM projects in Oklahoma City and Grand Lake o’the Cherokees: the Commercial Architecture Honor Award was given to Bob Moore Campus, and the Residential Architectural Honor Award to Grand Lake Poolhouse. The Plow Building – AHMM’s home in Oklahoma City – was given an Adaptive Reuse Citation Award, while Jesus Saves won an Adaptive Reuse Citation Award and the People’s Choice Award
Last week The Vincent celebrated reaching its highest point with a topping out ceremony for the two new mansion blocks at the former Wayneflete Private School for Boys. The scheme in Bristol for Pegasus Life – which earlier this year won a Housing Design Award – will provide 65 luxury one, two and three bedroom retirement apartments, and communal facilities across the mansion blocks and the refurbished former school.
New Scotland Yard has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award, which each year gives recognition and encouragement to excellence in publicly funded buildings and infrastructure. The award was announced last night at the British Construction Industry (BCI) Awards. In addition, our client Roger Harding, Director of Real Estate Development for the Metropolitan Police, was given the BCI Award for Outstanding Individual Contribution in recognition of his lead role in the project as well as his work on rationalising the Met’s estate and commissioning new police training and forensics facilities in London.
New Scotland Yard is the result of an RIBA-organised international competition won by AHMM in 2013 to develop the former Curtis Green building on London’s Embankment for the Metropolitan Police’s new headquarters. Completed in December 2016, the project has since won awards including an RIBA National Award and an AJ Retrofit Award.
On Friday a team of four AHMM staff took part in Dig Deeper, a mixed event race raising money for Anthony Nolan and 353. Amidst the beautiful scenery of the Lake District our team ran, cycled, swam and climbed to win first place in the mixed team category. There’s still time to support them here.
Planning has been granted by Westminster Council for a new mixed use development on Carrington Street. The new scheme will replace the existing NCP car park with two sets of massing around a newly created pedestrian route linking Yarmouth Place and Carrington Street and forming a new connection to Green Park. The new development will include 29 residential units, office space and a gymnasium, as well as retail units, an art gallery and a restaurant on the new street frontages.
Ermine Street Church Academy, a primary school forming part of the Alconbury Weald masterplan, has celebrated its official opening with a day of activities and a ceremony led by the Bishop of Ely, the Right Reverend Stephen Conway, and the Reverend Julian Pursehouse, chair of the east Anglian District of the Methodist Church. The 3-form entry school first opened its doors last September to ten students, and now caters to over 70. The school was designed to help create and shape the emerging community at Alconbury, with outdoor communal spaces and a double height school hall that provides a civic marker for the new neighbourhood.
Planning has been granted for a new residential development for older people at St John’s Road in Tunbridge Wells. The scheme is AHMM’s third project with developer Pegasus Life, following the recent planning success of The Fitzroy in Falmouth and The Vincent in Bristol. The new development replaces a former bus depot and will provide 89 apartments with guest suites, staff accommodation and communal facilities.
AHMM architect Jazmin Rogers has picked up a bronze medal in standard distance triathlon at the Grand Final of the ITU Age Group World Championships, held this year in Rotterdam. The ITU is the official triathlon organising body for the World Triathlon Series and successfully advocated for the inclusion of triathlon in the Olympic Games. Jazmin’s achievement means she is the third best in her age group in the world, and she continues to fit in training around her role as an architect in AHMM’s Bristol office. Her medal was one of 20 for the GB Standard Distance team – find out more here.
New Scotland Yard, the home of the Metropolitan Police, has been awarded this year’s AJ Retrofit Award for best office over 10,000m2. The Retrofit Awards celebrate excellent design, engineering and construction that extends the life of an existing building through retrofitting in an exemplary way; past AHMM winners have included Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre (Retrofit of the Year 2016) and the University of Amsterdam (Retrofit of the Year 2014). Find out more about all the 2017 winners here.
The final building within the Hawley Wharf masterplan has reached its highest point. The six storey office and residential building joins seven other new buildings at the canalside development which, on completion, will provide a mix of affordable and market homes, incubator workplace units, artisanal and industrial workshops, a cinema, a variety of local retail opportunities and a flexible and open market building. The development also includes the recently completed Hawley Primary School.
Today has seen the launch of White Collar Factory at Old Street Yard, the latest iteration in AHMM’s long term research project with Derwent that has explored the enduring qualities of industrial buildings and applied them to the modern workplace. The 76m, sixteen storey tower features high ceilings, generous, flexible floorplates, sustainable ‘concrete core cooling’, and the first use of natural ventilation in a spec office, with openable windows and user-controlled internal environment. It also has a rooftop running track believed to be London’s first of its kind, as well as a club-café space for workers to relax, meet and enjoy views over the city. While the tower is complete, occupied and forming a new landmark on the Old Street roundabout, work continues on completion and fit-out of neighbouring buildings and public realm at Old Street Yard, which together will create a new piece of city in this pivotal location.
AHMM is again participating in Open House London, an annual celebration of architecture that sees more than 800 buildings open to the public during the weekend of 16-17 September. For Open House London’s 25th year, AHMM is opening pioneering housing at Adelaide Wharf; Stirling Prize-winning Burntwood School; RIBA Award 2017 winners New Scotland Yard, The Library at Willesden Green and Grand Union Studios/The Ladbroke Grove; ‘city sandwich’ Westminster Bridge Road; new apartments at Weston Street in Bermondsey; the recently completed White Collar Factory; and its Old Street roundabout neighbour The Bower. Find out more on the Open House website. Please note all tours of New Scotland Yard are fully booked.
Elderberry Walk, AHMM’s second residential project for HAB Housing, has been granted planning by Bristol City Council. The 161-residence scheme sits on the long-vacant site of Dunmail Primary School in the Southmead area of the city, and the new streets have been designed following consultation with local residents. The design focuses on fundamental principles such as ensuring that front doors face front doors and parking is carefully integrated, and demonstrates that high social, environmental, and ecological aspirations can be achieved at low cost. Landscape is also a key part of the design: trees planted by schoolchildren in the 1970s are retained and a central green lane with wildflower swales follows an established dog-walking route to a nearby park. Construction is expected to begin later this year, with first homes available for occupation in late 2018 and final completion in 2020.
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris has been announced as the winner of the RIBA competition to design a new bereavement counselling centre for Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool. The new centre, located on the main hospital campus, will provide a new home for Alder Hey’s counselling and support services for people affected by the death of a child. Inspired by the idea of a secret garden, AHMM’s design for the centre is made up of a cluster of outdoor spaces and pavilions, each one with varying pitched roofs, windows and views in response to differing requirements of function, privacy and openness.
Hillside, a new house for a private client, has been granted planning approval by Guildford Borough Council. The two storey family home replaces an existing single storey house on a steeply sloping triangular site in the Surrey Hills. Influenced by the architecture found in the nearby villages, the simple material palette consists of a flint retaining structure with charred timber facades providing solar shading to the south facing windows, and will go on to influence the material finishes for the internal spaces. Hillside is due to start on site in spring 2018.
AHMM’s work and practice have been shortlisted for three Building Magazine awards. New Scotland Yard is a finalist for Building of the Year and Barns Road for Housing Project of the Year, while AHMM is shortlisted for Architectural Practice of the Year. Winners will be announced in London on 9 November.
Shoreditch Village Phase ll has been granted full planning and listed building consent by Hackney Council. The project - just across the road from the Tea Building – proposes two new flexible office and retail buildings with a glazed connection, and also includes the renovation of a Grade II listed terrace building on Shoreditch High Street, a new two-storey warehouse building on Anning Street and a new two-storey building on New Inn Yard. The development will create a new street market for Shoreditch under the East London Line extension viaduct, reinstating a historic passageway that once ran through the site.
The redevelopment of 1-4 Marble Arch, known as Project Nash, has been unanimously granted planning consent by Westminster City Council. The existing building sits at the corner of Great Cumberland Place and Marble Arch, and together with the Cumberland Hotel forms the backdrop to the Marble Arch designed by John Nash. The proposals, designed for The Portman Estate, will see wholesale redevelopment of the building behind a retained façade. New floor plates will create flexible retail and office space, implementing current and future office standards and sustainability targets, whilst sensitive façade alterations and the addition of a rooftop extension aim to establish a new identity for the building.
Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, opened New Scotland Yard on 13 July. Though the Metropolitan Police have been working in their new home on the Embankment since the beginning of this year, the event marked the official opening of the new headquarters with the unveiling of a special plaque and new coat of arms, and was attended by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, and other members of the Met and London’s emergency services, as well as Paul Monaghan on behalf of the AHMM project team. New Scotland Yard has won a RIBA National Award and is currently shortlisted for BCI, AJ Retrofit and World Architecture Festival awards.
Simon Allford has contributed to a film made by Derwent London about the importance of art in their buildings. The film also features the Tea Building, Angel Building and White Collar Factory, all of which feature specially-commissioned works by artists including Thomas J Price, Teresita Fernandez, Sachiyo Nishimura and Ian McChesney. You can watch the video here.
The Vincent, a residential project in Bristol, has been given the HAPPI Award at the Housing Design Awards 2017. The HAPPI (Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation) award celebrates innovative approaches to the design of older people’s housing, with a specific focus on the user’s living experience. The scheme for Pegasus Life, which is currently on site, will provide 65 retirement apartments and communal facilities in the refurbished Queen Victoria House and two new blocks.
AHMM’s proposals for Stour Wharf, a residential scheme in the Olympic Park, have won the New London Award for unbuilt homes. New Scotland Yard and Google Pancras Square also received commendations at the NLA Annual Lunch held at the Guildhall today (5 July). Find out more about the New London Awards here.
Simon Allford recently explored AHMM’s ideas around Extra Ordinary architecture as part of FX Magazine’s series of talks by leading designers, writers and thinkers including Joan Bakewell and Jonathon Porritt. You can watch Simon’s talk along with others in the series here.
AHMM has been awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Norwood Property Lunch, an annual property event organised by Norwood, a leading UK charity supporting vulnerable children and families, children with special educational needs and people with learning disabilities. AHMM is the first architecture practice to win the accolade in the 18 years of the awards, and White Collar Factory also picked up the Commercial Development Award, presented to client Derwent London.
AHMM’s new exhibition and accompanying talk by Simon Allford at the British School at Rome explores the idea of the essential architecture of the Universal Building. The exhibition focuses principally on how this approach is manifested in six projects in the very diverse physical, political, cultural and incidental contexts of London, Amsterdam, the United States and India: New Scotland Yard, AEP Fitness Center, Burntwood School, Chobham Academy, the University of Amsterdam, and proposals for a headquarters campus in India. An accompanying set of images sets the six projects in the context of AHMM’s built work over the last 28 years, from the early Poolhouse project in rural England to the groundbreaking White Collar Factory. The importance of the art of an Extra Ordinary Architecture to AHMM’s four founding partners was established in The Fifth Man, their joint diploma thesis at The Bartlett School of Architecture in 1986, in which they stated that ‘function alone is not sufficient means to generate architecture; and that it is in the field of everyday buildings that architecture has failed the city’. AHMM’s work since then has explored how Extra Ordinary architecture is made from the ordinary, making the generic specific to current use without in any way precluding further uses in an unknowable future.
Simon Allford will be giving a lecture this evening (3 July) and the exhibition continues until 21 July at the British School at Rome, via Antonio Gramsci 61, 00197 Rome. Find out more here.
New Scotland Yard, AHMM’s redevelopment of the Curtis Green building to create a new headquarters for the Metropolitan Police Service, has been given a National Award by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The project is one of 49 buildings across the UK given RIBA National Awards in recognition of their significant contributions to architecture – find out more here.
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris was announced as 4th in the AJ100 rankings at the AJ100 Awards ceremony last night (14 June). The Architect’s Journal compiles its annual list from a survey of numbers of architects, turnover and project work. AHMM was also shortlisted for Practice of the Year, Clients’ Choice and Building of the Year (New Scotland Yard). Find out more about the AJ100 here.
Today sees the opening of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, which this year includes AHMM’s drawing of No 1 Oxford Street. Selected from 12,000 entries, the drawing can be seen in the Architecture Gallery curated by Farshid Moussavi RA. The exhibition, now in its 249th year, is the largest open-submission exhibition in the world, and runs until 20 August - find out more and book tickets on the RA website.
AHMM’s London Festival of Architecture collaboration with The City Centre has brought together young people, architects and engineers to create a temporary installation for Paternoster Square, in the heart of the City of London. Over the course of five workshops during May, a group of fifteen aspiring architects and engineers aged 14-19 have been given the opportunity to develop their design skills and create the installation using a modular assembly system called Miniplex. Inspired by patterns found in nature, Miniplex – conceived by AHMM architect Vlad Tenu – is made from flexible plastic pieces, each one fitting together to form symmetrical interconnected shapes that gradually increase in size and can be added to infinitely. The installation will take its final shape in Paternoster Square this Friday, and the public will be invited to join in. Find out more about the City Centre’s Learning initiative here, explore this year’s London Festival of Architecture programme on the LFA website – and help us out with completing the installation on 2 June.
Barns Road has won a RIBA South award, announced at a ceremony last night (25 May). Barns Road is located in Cowley, south-east of Oxford city centre, and provides a mix of social rented, shared ownership and market housing, community rooms, retail and workshop provision for the Emmaus homelessness charity. The scheme features installations by artist Martin Richman, who also worked on the RIBA London award-winning Grand Union Studios. Find out more about the RIBA South winners here.
Four AHMM projects have been recognised with RIBA London Awards announced last night (22 May): One King William Street, the reinvention of a Grade ll listed building in the Bank Conservation Area; Grand Union Studios and The Ladbroke Grove, a mixed use scheme with residential, retail and flexible office space; The Library at Willesden Green, a civic centre including a library, performing arts space, café, gallery, archive and museum; and New Scotland Yard, the new home of the Metropolitan Police Service on the Thames Embankment.
RIBA London winners, along with winners from the other ten regions, will now be considered for RIBA National Awards to be announced in June. Find out more about the RIBA Awards here.
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris has been shortlisted for the AJ100 Practice of the Year Award. One of eight practices in the running for the award – part of the Architects’ Journal’s annual awards and survey of the 100 largest UK architecture firms – AHMM previously won Practice of the Year in 2013 as well as Client Choice in 2015. As announced last month, New Scotland Yard has also been shortlisted by the AJ100 judges for its Building of the Year award. Winners will be announced on 14 June. Find out more about the shortlists and the AJ100 here.
AHMM’s book Extra Ordinary, from the practice’s own FifthMan publishing arm, has been selected to be shown at the German Architecture Museum’s exhibition of shortlisted and winning works from its annual architecture book award. Extra Ordinary – a book of ‘thoughts on architecture and the theatre of everyday life’ – was shortlisted from 214 submissions in 2016 and will be exhibited from September to December at the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt.
Alconbury Weald Club has been announced as a regional winner at the British Council for Offices’ Midlands and Central England awards ceremony today (27 April). The Club, which includes office space, a café and gym, is part of the masterplan for Alconbury Weald, a new community on the site of the former Alconbury airfield near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire which also includes AHMM’s Alconbury Incubator building and Ermine Street Academy primary school. The project will now be considered for the BCO national awards, which will be announced in October.
As we reported last month, three AHMM cyclists, Tom Gardner, Craig Robertson and Lloyd Spencer, joined 200 others from across the property industry for this year’s Cycle to MIPIM. Raising money for charities including Coram and covering over 1500km in six days, our team has so far raised over £5000 towards Club Peloton’s overall target of £600,000 (currently at over £500,000). In its ninth year of involvement in the event AHMM was pleased to provide support directly to all 200 riders for the first time, re-fuelling them with a variety of much needed carbohydrate-heavy afternoon snacks on each day of the ride - scones with jam and clotted cream were reported to be a highlight. During the MIPIM conference itself, Paul Monaghan took part in the LandAid tennis tournament raising over a thousand pounds for the youth homelessness charity and winning the coveted Make a Racket Shield. If you didn’t have the chance to sponsor Tom, Craig, Lloyd or Paul there’s still time to do so.
New Scotland Yard is one of eight new buildings to be shortlisted for the AJ100’s Building of the Year Award, given to the judges’ choice of the best building by an AJ100 practice in the last 12 months. The winner will be announced on 14 June; you can find out more about the shortlist here.
Paul Monaghan will be talking to Robert Elms about New Scotland Yard on BBC Radio London this coming Saturday (15 April) – the show is on from 10am–1pm and will be available to listen to on BBC iPlayer just after broadcast.
AHMM’s scheme for Phase 4 of Chobham Manor, a residential development on the edge of the Olympic Park masterplan, has received planning consent. The unanimous decision was made by the planning committee of the London Legacy Development Corporation, which is responsible for the long-term planning and development of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and surrounding area.
The new three block scheme, located to the north of the East Village neighbourhood, will provide 140 residential units arranged around a landscaped courtyard. The three buildings range from four to eight storeys but share a common architectural language. The buildings facing the park are characterised by a strongly expressed brick clad structural grid, while the mansion block to the rear of the site has a strong horizontal emphasis with textured brick detailing.
A total of nine projects by AHMM have been shortlisted for this year’s awards in the RIBA’s London, East, North West and South regions. In London, The Library at Willesden Green, Grand Union Studios/The Ladbroke Grove, New Scotland Yard, 1 King William Street, Upper Richmond Road and Google 6 Pancras Square have been visited by regional judges; Liverpool’s Royal Court was shortlisted in the North West region; Alconbury Weald Club in RIBA East; and Barns Place in RIBA South. Regional winners will be announced at ceremonies in May.
225 City Road has been granted planning in an unanimous decision by Hackney Council. It joins White Collar Factory and The Bower as AHMM’s third tall building in the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ area. The mixed use scheme will contribute towards the local employment and housing market, with the provision of a significant amount of commercial workspace and 100 private rented sector homes. These will be supported by new retail, café and restaurant uses from a shared super lobby on the ground floor and complemented by public realm improvements around the building and along City Road.
Phase 2 of the Bower is well underway towards its scheduled completion in autumn next year. The existing cladding has been removed, exposing the original 1960s concrete frame. Steelwork additions to north and south elevations will expand the original floorplates, and an interlocking section creates double-height spaces on all office floors. Existing cores are extended to service the enlarged building, and the first sections of new curtain walling will be installed in summer 2017.
Following the success of AHMM’s planning approval for Queen Victoria House in Bristol, Assembly Bristol has also been granted permission after a unanimous vote by Bristol City Council’s planning committee. Three new buildings will deliver a variety of characterful workspace across the 300,000 square foot masterplan, with public spaces and new pedestrian routes providing direct links between Temple Meads Station, the historic city centre and the retail area at Cabot Circus. Building A, the first part of the masterplan, will offer 180,000 square feet of flexible office with private external terraces, fronted by a major new public waterfront garden and floating pontoon. Cafes, bars and restaurants will ensure that Assembly Bristol becomes a vibrant part of the city.
Paul Monaghan will be participating in the LandAid Tennis Classic at this year’s MIPIM property conference in Cannes, which starts tomorrow. With his doubles partner David Mikhail of Mikhail Riches, Paul will be helping to raise money for LandAid, a charity that works to improve the lives of children and young people in the UK who experience homelessness.
Update: Paul has won the MIPIM LandAid Tennis Classic - he has already raised over £1200 for LandAid, but there’s still time to sponsor him.
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris’ proposals for a gap site on Gray’s Inn Road were approved by Camden’s Planning Committee on Thursday evening (23 February). The proposals for developer Dukelease include a new mansion block above retained shopfronts on Gray’s Inn Road, and the restoration and extension of industrial buildings within the site. The design also includes a new route through the site, extending Brain Yard through to Mount Pleasant, and providing a new external public courtyard; affordable workplace and affordable housing are included within the site. The conservation-led scheme was developed in dialogue with local groups, including the Mount Pleasant Association and nearby Christopher Hatton primary school. The application was supported strongly by Camden planning officers, and approved 6-2 at Committee.
Paul Monaghan will be speaking at the IN Practice conference and exhibition in Naples this evening. The event is organised by the Italian Association of Architecture and Criticism in partnership with architecture journal A10, the architecture department of the University Federico II in Naples and the Association of Engineers and Architects in Campania. The exhibition and conference, produced by Gnosis Architettura, revisits the themes and practices featured in the IN Practice initiative featured at the Venice Biennale in 2016 and collected in the accompanying book, and models, images and artefacts from AHMM and other leading European architects will be exhibited in the Baroque church of Santa Maria del Rosario a Portamedina.
Three riders from AHMM have taken up the challenge of cycling to Cannes with this year’s Club Peloton Cycle to MIPIM ride. Associate Director Tom Gardner, Head of Sustainability Craig Robertson and Associate Lloyd Spencer will be leaving London on 9 March to cycle a total of 1500km over six days, reaching their destination in time for the MIPIM property conference. AHMM is also supporting Club Peloton riders with sponsorship of much-needed afternoon snacks. The annual ride – completed by Peter Morris and Ceri Davies last year – raises money for charities including Coram, and you can sponsor Tom, Craig or Lloyd via Race Nation.
This month the first of five buildings at the Hawley Wharf Masterplan reached its highest point. The AHMM-led masterplan transforms a neglected site in the heart of Camden Town into a vibrant destination, offering a mix of 195 affordable and private homes, a new cinema, retail units, a new open market, and the recently completed Hawley Primary School.
Work has begun on site at Queen Victoria House, AHMM’s first major project to be built in Bristol. The scheme for Pegasus Life will provide 65 retirement apartments and communal facilities in two new blocks and the refurbished Queen Victoria House. Located in the Whiteladies conservation area, the apartments and newly landscaped gardens will benefit from panoramic views of the city.
The new headquarters for the Bob Moore Auto Group is open for business. The recently completed office in downtown Oklahoma has seen the company’s former Collision Center transformed into an open plan office space. Originally built in 1951 the existing brick building has been opened up with two internal courtyards, and extended upwards adding a new second floor.
Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre has secured funding from the Arts Council England Large Capital Grants programme for the third ‘Act’ of AHMM’s award-winning interventions at the Grade II listed theatre. Act III continues improvement works to the front of house areas, creating a larger open bar at the third floor; back of house will also see improvements to facilities and technical equipment. The project will also see the renovation of the basement studio space, formerly the home of the Rawhide Comedy Club, creating a brand new 150 seat studio space for comedy and music events, theatre productions, and rehearsal space for the Youth Theatre and Community Choir. Act III is scheduled to start in May, when the theatre will close its doors until completion later this year.
Planning permission has been granted by the Royal Borough of Greenwich for the redevelopment of two Grade II listed buildings on the historic Royal Arsenal site. On completion, The Officers’ House and the Royal Carriage Factory will offer a mix of commercial units and 146 new homes. The wider Royal Arsenal scheme incorporates a new public space, which will connect the Officers’ House and Royal Carriage Factory to a new Crossrail station, which opens in late 2018.
The Royal Arsenal was historically one of the UK’s most important military sites, reaching its peak during World War One before closing in 1967, and ceasing to be a military establishment entirely in 1994.