The first major housing proposal within the Frome Gateway Regeneration Area has received planning permission from Bristol City Council. The scheme will plug into the existing diverse community of St Jude’s and provide much needed housing and significant public realm improvements.
The proposals, developed for PLATFORM_, will regenerate the historic Crown Sawmills, home of Scaddings Timber Yard for more than 100 years, on the eastern bank of the River Frome in St Jude’s, Bristol, into a mixed-use development comprising 352 build to rent homes, a community space and café, flexible commercial and business space including ‘maker spaces’ and associated amenity space for all residents, including landscaped roof terraces, and cycle storage.
A mix of studio, 1-bed, 2-bed and 3-bed homes will be spread across four main blocks and three link-blocks, rising to between six and twenty storeys high. Breaking up the linear plan into separate, yet interconnected, blocks articulates and sculpts the skyline while creating individual identity through material shifts and subtle brick patterning influenced by heritage buildings in the locality. The commercial workspace, much of it double height, is provided on the ground floor facing both east and west, activating the James Street frontage and the riverside walkway.
Two thirds of the site will be given over to public realm including a new riverside park and public open space with plans to install a new cycle and walkway connection as well as a footbridge across the river. The extension and re-connection of James Street through the site will create a new active travel node between the city centre and this emerging neighbourhood with new connections to several future sites.
The proposal presents the opportunity to create a well-connected, carefully designed built to rent development providing much needed housing within the inner city of Bristol which responds to the setting of the River Frome, maximises the ecological potential for the site and forms a benchmark for the development of other sites within the Frome Gateway Regeneration Area.
Simon Allford recently joined Bespoke Careers for a conversation about his career, life in architecture, and the story of AHMM, giving an honest take on what architecture is really like from the inside, and how to survive the (sometimes) brutal early years.
Simon talks in detail about the first five years of setting up Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, which was founded in 1989 at possibly the worst moment in modern British architecture, and how those years of survival shaped everything that followed – up to the present, with seven new executive directors and an international team of more than 400.
He also touches on his time as RIBA president and his provocative “first we storm the building, them we take back the asylum” quote which came from genuine frustration that the RIBA, he felt, had lost its purpose, and finding that the internal politics proved harder than expected.
Bespoke Careers is a global recruitment agency in architecture and interior design, with over 20 years of experience connecting professionals with employers. They leverage their industry expertise, specialist HR skills and network to provide bespoke recruitment solutions.
To watch Simon's interview, click here.
Planning approval has been unanimously granted by Camden Council for Camden Town Xchange, paving the way for the transformation of the existing site into a vibrant new destination for the local area.
This landmark mixed-use scheme for Camden Vision Limited seeks to breathe life into an underused site located at the very heart of Camden Town centre, where the existing buildings have outlived their use, presenting inactive frontages and poor-quality public realm.
The proposals include the demolition of the existing structures, with the exception of the retained and adapted streamline moderne Parkway façade, and the construction of two new buildings arranged around a raised podium courtyard. The development will deliver a mix of 49 affordable homes on Arlington Road, close to public transport and shopping, and 244 new student best-in-class studios with on-site facilities, creating more opportunities for young people to live and study in Camden.
At the heart of the proposals is a new 1,000 square meter flexible cultural and leisure venue designed to reflect and enhance Camden’s creative spirit, replacing the former Mecca Bingo unit, vacant since 2024, and confirmed closure of the ODEON Camden Parkway in spring 2026.
The design activates Arlington Road and Inverness Street, replacing largely blank frontages with active street-level uses, introducing new restaurants, shops, café space and greening, making the area more vibrant, welcoming and safer for residents and visitors alike, while also working with the existing market on Inverness Street.
The scheme is car-free, prioritises cycle provision, and targets BREEAM Excellent, delivering a contextual yet contemporary response for Camden Town.
AHMM founder, Paul Monaghan, spoke to Scale Careers between crit sessions at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Miami. During the interview Paul told the story behind the redevelopment of 1 Victoria Street, the former headquarters of the Department for Business and Trade, discussing what shaped the concept and how the significant 1960s office building was transformed into a sustainable, commercial building offering carefully designed office accommodation. Paul also reviewed what ultimately lifts a project in front of a jury.
Scale Careers are specialists in architecture, design and digital recruitment. They find, select and connect skilled individuals with successful businesses, working with clients to truly understand their business needs and career aspirations.
Click here to learn more about Scale Careers and watch Paul’s interview.
AHMM has participated in this year’s Gingerbread City, a model metropolis made of gingerbread ‘plots’ designed, baked and assembled by teams representing more than 100 architecture and design practices.
The theme of this year’s city is ‘The Playful City’, celebrating the power of fun, curiosity and design to make our cities happier, healthier and more connected. From colourful, interactive public spaces to rewilded rooftops and buildings that invite movement and joy, architects reimagined what ‘play’ means for people of all ages.
The AHMM plot is inspired by the Rubik’s Cube, a paradigm of endless possibility, with each individual cube reinterpreted as spaces that hold ‘play’. With a focus on a sense of whimsy and joy our model encapsulates a city that represents the kind of play we find throughout the homes and communities of the places we live and work in. Through a series of individual scenes that are connected within the form of a Rubik’s Cube you can see that through play all of our personal tastes are unified by the creation of a space where you can bring yourself happiness through the activities you love to do.
Now in its ninth year, the Gingerbread City is organised by the Museum of Architecture, a charity dedicated to finding new ways for the public to engage with architecture and to encourage entrepreneurship within the architectural practice to stimulate learning, collaboration and action. The exhibition is on display at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross until 4 January 2026.
To read more about the exhibition and book tickets please visit here.
Photography by Rachel Ferriman
Whilst at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Miami, Simon Allford, AHMM founder, spoke to Scale careers between crit sessions to dive into the Urbanest Battersea project, a new carefully designed, highly sustainable development comprising three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building and is the first major Passivhaus student housing development in London. Simon also discussed the mindset designers need in order to communicate ideas with impact, confidence and iteration.
Scale Careers are specialists in architecture, design and digital recruitment. They find, select and connect skilled individuals with successful businesses, working with clients to truly understand their business needs and career aspirations.
Click here to learn more about Scale Careers and watch Simon’s interview.
On Thursday, 04 December, the project team for The Ariel celebrated the topping out of the final phase of the Television Centre masterplan at a ceremony onsite with the client, Mitsui Fudosan UK, development manager, Stanhope, and construction manager, Multiplex. This marks an important milestone in the masterplan’s journey which has radically reinvented the first purpose-built television studio in the country into a new, fully mixed-use development.
The Ariel by AHMM, together with the nine-storey Scenery House designed by dRMM, will provide 347 apartments, penthouses and townhouses. The accommodation will range from studios to four-bed townhouses with a complementary range of amenities including residents’ lounges, a screening room, co-working spaces and meeting rooms, as well as a private dining room and roof terrace, with interiors being designed by MSMR.
The two buildings are designed to have a distinct character of their own, complementing each other as well as those buildings already established across the wider estate. The Ariel is divided into two sections: Levels 0-7 form a full crescent plan, providing flexible commercial use at the lower and upper ground floors and smaller dwellings above. Levels 8-23 occupy a smaller part of the crescent plan, giving rise to a slender residential tower housing larger dwellings. The proposed façade will enhance the curvature of the building through horizontal bands clad with white terracotta ribbed panels. Private balconies stacked on top of the other will create a play of light and shadow while the expression of a higher floor to ceiling height space at the top will elongate the tower.
The public realm will also be enhanced with particular attention paid to greening the areas in and around the buildings. Landscape architect, Gillespies, has designed a courtyard garden, rooftop terrace and pocket park between the two built elements of the scheme.
On completion, which is scheduled for mid-2027, this final phase will offer standout apartments, penthouses and townhouses giving the opportunity for a new set of individuals to find their place, further open up the site to local residents and create a pedestrian connection through to Hammersmith Park via interlinking streets.
AHMM founder, Paul Monaghan spoke to Grow Places about his career spent designing buildings that shape everyday life and the people behind them. During the episode Paul reflects on the evolution of architecture, the joy of delivering real projects, and why staying grounded matters in an ever-changing industry, sharing stories of lessons learned, challenges embraced, and the belief that good design genuinely changes lives.
Grow Places is a platform that evolves neighbourhoods to deliver meaningful and lasting value. They are a production company for the built environment and make projects happen from to vision to reality, working in partnership with landowners, private offices, investors, operators and charities to realise best value through projects, they grow places with their partners and communities.
Click here to learn more about Grow Places and listen to Paul’s podcast.
Norton Folgate: Blossom Yard and Studios, Nicholls & Clarke and Loom Court and 76 Southbank have been named Regional Finalists for the 2026 Civic Trust Awards. The Civic Trust Awards scheme was established in 1959 to recognise outstanding architecture, planning, and design in the built environment.
Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station, Norton Folgate comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm. Given the variegated character of Norton Folgate four different architecture practices were brought together to diversify the architectural approach and style. As the masterplan architect, AHMM also designed three buildings, namely Blossom Yard and Studios, Nicholls & Clarke and Loom Court, while three other architects, Stanton Williams, Morris + Company and DSDHA, designed Elder Yard, 15 Norton Folgate and 16 Blossom Street respectively and landscape architect East led the public realm strategy. Morris + Company's 15 Norton Folgate is also a Civic Trust Regional Finalist.
76 Southbank sits on the banks of the River Thames and was originally designed by Sir Denys Lasdun, completing in 1983 as an office and client marketing centre for IBM. Although the building was listed in 2020, it did not meet modern standards and presented an opportunity for sensitive, qualitative and quantitative improvements to both the building itself and surrounding public realm. The respectful adaptation of this important heritage building has resulted in a highly energy efficient scheme which, through careful design, retained 80% of the structure and delivers an addition 11,000 square metres of flexible office space. It significantly improves both the building itself and by pedestrianising a once car-orientated public realm, relinks the river and Upper Ground into a pedestrianised destination and riverside promenade to last another 40 years in the evolution of the South Bank.
76 Southbank has also been named a Regional Finalist for the Selwyn Goldsmith Universal Design Award, which is delivered in parallel with the Civic Trust Awards and celebrates places that are responsive, flexible, welcoming, and easy to use and occupy, allowing all to use them with dignity and equality.
All Regional Finalists will now be considered by the National Judging Panel with all 2026 National Award winners announced in January 2026.
Last night, 27 November, Assembly Bristol was highly commended at the AJ Architecture Awards in the Workplace Project (£10 million and over) category with the judges commenting ‘Allford Hall Monaghan Morris’s approach to opening up the site to the city through the cluster of buildings has established a new benchmark for regeneration for the city of Bristol.’
Transforming a long vacant site adjacent to the city’s inner circuit road and William Jessop’s Floating Harbour, the Assembly Bristol campus is anchored around a waterfront park, creating a new urban place that positively engages with the city, brings colour to the skyline and links the waterside with a restored historic street, Cheese Lane. A hierarchy of three buildings shape the space and frame a connecting vista from Pip and Jay Church to the water’s edge. The campus is sewn into the city with permeable routes and gardens that allows the public to move through via Cheese Lane, a waterside route or up and over a shared green podium.
The three buildings unify the campus whilst each possessing a character of its own. Building A, now the Bristol headquarters of BT, is long and narrow, holding the street edge and protecting the waterfront park from the clamour of traffic. Building B is the smaller of the trio, enjoying a gentle waterside setting whilst Building C brings sculptural height over the public realm.
Reducing embodied and operational carbon was one of the leading initiatives for the scheme. Modern methods of construction supported a lean and efficient approach to construction, delivering a 26% saving on carbon emissions compared to other new build office developments in Bristol. The project has been awarded BREEAM Excellent and EPC A.
Last night, 27 November, Norton Folgate received an AJ Architecture Award in the Mixed-use Project category with the judges describing it as ‘a piece of real placemaking’ that ‘stayed fresh in our minds throughout’.
Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station, this office led-development for British Land comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm.
Given the variegated character of Norton Folgate four different architecture practices were brought together to diversify the architectural approach and style. AHMM was appointed as masterplanner and designed three buildings namely Blossom Yard and Studios, Nicholls and Clarke and Loom Court while Stanton Williams, Morris + Company and DSDHA designed Elder Yard, 15 Norton Folgate and 16 Blossom Street respectively with East leading the public realm strategy.
The project reflects the success of a decade long collaboration between the client, architect and contractor team. Despite the complexity and challenges of the project, the team have successfully delivered their vision and created a scheme that stitches old and new together to restore this important, historical part of London. Norton Folgate sets new standards for retrofit, refurbishment, and redevelopment, acting as a blueprint for reusing building fabric, which is a necessity in the built environment industry’s approach to tackling the climate crisis.
The jury praised AHMM’s leadership in ‘managing and working with other architects to create different buildings that formed a permeable neighbourhood,’ and highlighted the sensitive reuse of existing fabric on the Elder Street Conservation area site, ‘keeping the memory of the buildings – at times you weren’t sure what was old or new; elsewhere it was beautifully apparent.’
BVN and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, with RSP Architects, have won the international design competition for United World College of South East Asia’s (UWCSEA) new 5-hectare Dover campus located in Tengah, Singapore.
In response to the ambitious and complex client brief, the new campus authentically reflects UWCSEA’s values and mission ‘to make education a force to unite people, nations, and cultures for peace and a sustainable future’. Taking ideas of unity, sustainability and well-being, the campus has been designed as a living, breathing community and will nurture belonging, experiential learning, and deep connections with nature.
The campus comprises a primary school set in the forest, a centrally located middle school, shared facilities such as DT, science labs, learning centre and language rooms, a high school and Science block addressing the street, sports facilities including pitches and a new aquatics centre, centrally located auditorium and arts centre which acts as a beacon visible from the adjacent Tengah Park, a boarding house site with examination hall connected to the main campus via a new bridge and a green spine which unites the whole campus.
Andrew O’Donnell, Director at AHMM, said: “It has been extraordinary to see just how fully the College enacts its mission in every aspect of teaching, community building and the day-to-day operation of the school. This really served to inspire us during the competition and it is now wonderful to be working directly with the College to realise the shared vision we have created with them for the new campus.”
AHMM has been selected as a Finalist in the Best of Built Environment Practice category in this year’s Thornton Education Trust Awards.
These awards recognise and celebrate outstanding initiatives, organisations, and individuals who are bridging the gap between the building environment and young people. The Best of Built Environment Practice category rewards practices and strategies that embed children and young people, through mentoring, outreach, or community benefit initiatives, in their social value commitments and strategies, demonstrating a commitment to positive impact within the built environment.
As an important part of our Partnerships work, AHMM has a long-established aim to support the future architecture profession and help to ensure it is diverse. In 2024/25 we donated £52,700 to 36 children and young people (CYP) programmes across the UK and estimate that we have engaged with 1,350 young people.
AHMMs’ Partnerships Group, which was set up in 2016 and is led by our highly experience and knowledgeable Partnerships Lead, Claire Pollock, develops innovative CYP projects, embedding expertise and contributing to moving AHMM – and the sector – forward through collaborative practice.
Our CYP work is embedded in all levels of our practice. In 2024/25 264 education mentors undertook 1,431 volunteering hours and we often use our buildings as a creative resource for CYP to explore the built environment with us. Outcomes are shared and celebrated, with displays around the office for staff and visitors to enjoy as well as sharing internally.
Planning approval has been granted by Birmingham City Council for the regeneration of a former ironworks situated at the gateway to Digbeth, one of Birmingham’s most culturally significant districts.
This landmark mixed-use scheme for Hartwell Plc, the automotive and property development company, seeks to draw on the rich character of Digbeth and create a carefully designed development that will drive the regeneration of the area. Comprising of four new buildings, ranging in height from seven to three storeys, and one retained listed building, the 1.13-hectare site will deliver 260,000 square feet of new creative, media and education space, commercial floor space with a roof terrace with views across the city, 240 new homes and retail, along with an enhanced public realm.
The site is split into two buildings which address Digbeth High Street, forming a gateway into the development and providing a strong urban presence, and two internal buildings to the rear of the site celebrating the view along Digbeth High Street with a varied and undulating roofscape, creating a strong high street presence. A dynamic and active ground floor comprising of retail, commercial and building entrances, is central to the design, animating the new public realm and the wider site.
The scheme has strong sustainability aspirations, targeting BREAAM ‘Excellent’, alongside WELL and WiredScore Platinum Certification, and a minimum 10% biodiversity net gain.
Phoenix Yard’s vision is to create a landmark, mixed-use neighbourhood at the gateway to Digbeth, designed to complement the area’s character while enhancing its next chapter as a thriving creative quarter. From the start AHMM has worked closely with its client to ensure that the design respects the site and area’s industrial heritage whilst delivering distinguishing architecture, energy efficient buildings and public spaces that are fit for the exciting future. Phoenix Yard complements Digbeth’s unique identity while contributing positively to the evolving place This is a major milestone for Hartwell and a significant step for Digbeth
Last week, 13 November, Kentish Town Health Centre was awarded an Architecture Today Award for a building that stands the test of time in the Healthcare category, with the judges commenting: ‘An early example of the unique blend of clarity and sophistication that fuelled AHMM’s phenomenal success, Kentish Town Health Care Centre is attracting renewed interest from politicians as a model for devolved health provision. On its completion in 2008, it was clear that this was something special. Over the years it has gone from strength to strength.”
The original Kentish Town Health Centre (KTHC) brief called for a new health building to house a large GP practice and a wide range of facilities. The project champion Dr MacGregor’s vision was to create a building where not only medicine, but health and art came together for the community. The design team, inspired by a game of Jenga, embraced ideas of transparency and connectivity and worked collaboratively to create a building that expresses this holistic approach to healthcare, with a complex interplay of adaptable, interlocking internal and external spaces for the GP practice, a wide range of community health services, office space, staff facilities, a library and meeting rooms.
When it opened in 2009, KTHC was met with widespread approval from both the public and staff who noted that ‘patients appeared to be more relaxed in the waiting room’. The project initially won an RIBA Award for Architecture and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2009. Over the years the building has performed exceptionally well in terms of increasing the outreach of the health offering to the wider community. Along with the Creative Health initiative, Camden Mosaic, a service for children and young people with disabilities has joined on the first floorlevel and a new Neighbourhood Team covering district nursing, occupational therapy, children’s services, social care, physiotherapy, and mental health is now housed on the second level – brought together for the first time in the same building leading to much improved communication and performance. This is also demonstrated by an increase in patient numbers (originally around 14,000, currently approximately 30,000).
In Dr Macgregor’s own words “With our new building we were trying to achieve an integrated and uplifting place where not just medicine, but health and art could come together for the community – the building delivers just that. In the main waiting room and wherever you are in the building everything is connected. The wonderful play of light and views to different spaces makes everyone aware of what is going on and where it is located. The whole team have worked tirelessly to provide the outcomes were sought in the original brief – it is a joy to now inhabit these delightful spaces.’
Event photograph by Agnese Sanvito
Last week Urbanest Battersea received a Property Week ESG Award in the ESG New Build Project of the Year (Large) category, with the judges commenting “The project stands out as a powerful example of meaningful, sustainable development achieved through true collaboration and innovation. Its thoughtful approach to social value and community impact highlights the dedication and quality behind every aspect of the scheme.”
Urbanest Battersea, delivered by private student accommodation provider urbanest, is a new highly sustainable development comprising three student buildings, a dedicated commercial building, public house, café and Enterprise Business Unit (EBU), located opposite the Battersea Power station development. It is the first Passivhaus student housing development in London and the largest Passivhaus certified building in the UK providing 852 student rooms.
Standing as an industry-leading example of what can be achieved through collaboration and commitment to excellence, Urbanest Battersea not only provides compelling architecture but also demonstrates sustainable construction, achieved through the combined expertise of urbanest, AHMM, Henriksen Studio and Mace.
Angus Kearin, Head of Development at urbanest says “From my perspective, the level of collaboration and dedication throughout this project was truly remarkable. The final design not only enhances Battersea’s evolving skyline but also stands as a bold example of how residential buildings can be both beautifully designed and sustainably delivered whilst keeping within the budget set at the outset. It sends a powerful message to the industry: meaningful carbon reduction is achievable through innovation, determination, and a shared vision.”
Dragos Arnatu, Building Certifier, Passivhaus Institute comments: "Urbanest Battersea exemplifies the benefits and innovation of Passivhaus design applied to student living. Delivering unmatched energy efficiency, Passivhaus buildings maintain consistent indoor temperatures and superior air quality, reducing the need for heating and cooling systems. Students benefit from a thermally stable space conducive of focus and relaxation, while the integration of renewable energy sources aligns with broader climate goals. This building also stands out for prioritising community and modern amenities, offering a holistic lifestyle that balances sustainability with urban convenience.”
Angel Square, a highly sustainable, all-electric, deep-retrofit building for Tishman Speyer located directly above Angel Station, has reached practical completion.
This landmark development utilises the structure of three previous interconnected postmodern office blocks to provide 187,400 square feet of modern office space above a highly permeable mixed-use ground floor comprising of a public house, a new grand lobby with access from Islington High Street and entrance to Angel Underground Station. Angel Square sits across from the Angel Building, AHMM’s earlier reinvention of an unloved 1980s commercial building.
Angel Square retains 80% of the original reinforced concrete frame, basement and foundation volume, minimising demolition and delivering significant associated embodied carbon savings. The previous building’s multiple cores have been removed and replaced by a new core in the centre of the building’s plan, providing adaptable, future-proofed floorplates which can be split into a variety of tenant sizes. An at-grade entry for cyclists provides access to generous end-of-trip facilities which connect directly to the office floorplates. The building’s first tenants shall arrive in early 2026.
The existing structural grid has been retained with the original ribbed concrete soffit exposed and supplemented by new infills adding to the unique architectural character of the floorplates. The internal structure has also informed the rhythm of the façade design which is comprised of articulated GRC columns and ledges, profiled metal spandrel panels with tonal variation tied to the surrounding context, a flared ‘butterfly’ roof storey and glazed terracotta elements at ground floor.
A significantly enhanced public realm increases pavement widths and routes around the building and provides access to a new office lobby and corner café along Islington High Street. A new public street is introduced to the north of the site, linking Islington High Street to Torrens Street, further increasing the permeability of the site. Balconies and terraces throughout each of the office floors have been marked with a planted balustrade to soften the building’s roofline, positively contributing to the building’s urban greenery. A planted roof terrace provides panoramic views and external amenity for the building users
Alex Russell, Associate Director at AHMM, said: “Achieving practical completion at Angel Square is a testament to the hard work and effort of the entire project team. From the start, the building’s approach has been to work with the previous building’s structure and introduce new elements and adaptations that create inspiring new workspace and amenities. Through reshaping the existing structure, the new building sits in its context with an improved public realm with new, accessible connections, generous pavement widths and actively engaged facades.
Martin Simonneau, Managing Director and Head of UK, Tishman Speyer, said: “Practical completion at Angel Square marks an exciting milestone in the transformation of this landmark Islington site. We’re proud to have delivered on our vision to create a sustainable, future-focused workplace that combines outstanding design, connectivity and amenity in one of London’s most vibrant neighbourhoods.”
Yesterday, 13 November, the client, British Land, design team and consultants celebrated the opening of Broadgate Central, London’s newest retail destination, delivered as part of the wider 1 Broadgate building designed by AHMM.
After four years on site, the 50,000 square foot retail, leisure and amenity arcade houses 28 new brands across two levels, complementing and providing direct access from Liverpool Street Station to the 500,000 square feet of new office space that rises above.
AHMM’s second project as part of British Land’s revitalisation of the Broadgate campus, following the award winning 1 Finsbury Avenue, 1 Broadgate maintains the principles and geometry of the original masterplan by framing the public space around Broadgate Circle and formally addressing the southern edge of Finsbury Avenue Square. The massing and articulation help to break down the perceived scale of the building with the lower-level volumes pulling apart to create entrances into and through the building and new arcade. The distinct colours of the elevations are taken from the earthy and autumnal colours of the buildings in the surrounding area; the metal fins are coloured to express the building’s stacked volumes, gradually darkening from the base to the top.
Treyarch has been highly commended in this year's World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards in the Interiors: Workplace (Large) category.
AHMM has reimagined a 1960s warehouse building in Los Angeles to create a dynamic gaming studio as the new headquarters of Treyarch Corporation, a division of video game and interactive entertainment company Activision Blizzard.
The building, which was first constructed in 1969 as an industrial facility, has been thoughtfully renovated to create expansive open double-height spaces tailored for diverse departments, encouraging social interaction, testing and cultivating a dynamic environment where creativity and innovation thrive. At the core of the building lie specialized spaces designed for cutting-edge video development, including state-of-the-art audio editing suites, a screening room and a photogrammetry room.
The project seamlessly integrates specialised requirements for the client while respecting and showcasing the history of the structure. It brings flexibility by minimising cellular offices and providing open office workstations, giving the ability to adapt the building for any future needs. Finishes and facilities have been designed to a create a fun and comfortable environment to work in, reflecting the company’s brand identity while creating a timeless space to evolve and grow.
As a part of this year’s Living Wage week AHMM celebrates 10 years as a Living Wage Foundation accredited employer.
The Living Wage Foundation brings together employers, people and communities across the UK to shape work that works for everyone, recognising the leadership of employers choosing to drive up employment standards and provide stability.
By paying the real Living Wage, we support our employees and contracted staff with a decent standard of living, helping to drive up standards to tackle in-work poverty. As a contributor to the Islington Living Wage Action Group, we also help to promote these principles across other businesses within the borough.
During the last week of October a group of ten young people, aged between 16-18, visited the AHMM office in Morelands, London, for three days of work experience as part of the RIBA EDI work experience programme, our social value commitments for One Victoria Street and 1 Broadgate and a young person from the Academy of Real Assets, an organisation we support.
The brief, entitled ‘The Memory House’, saw the students exploring the theme of memory and tasked with designing a house based on existing experiences of space. They wrote their own brief about who the house was for, how it was arranged and constructed, and were encouraged to explore various aspects of the house using a number of media such as drawing, model making, digital design and collaging. Over the three days, the young people participated in workshops including a model shop demonstration, routes into architecture and a site visit to 1 Broadgate.
Focused on improving social mobility and diversity in the profession, RIBA’S national work experience programme organises work experience placements for 16-28 year olds from underrepresented backgrounds in practices across the UK. The RIBA and EDI Action Group Work Experience Programme believe work experience is crucial to enabling young people to realise their ambitions of working in the built environment.
76 Southbank has been named Retrofit Project of the Year, with the judges commenting “An elegant and elemental retrofit of a notable building that preserves and enhances the character of the building and transforms it ready for modern use with a 50% gain in net internal floor area. Impressive sustainability credentials with 80% of the structural frame reused and some innovative construction methods too.”
Delivered with developer Stanhope, the scheme has preserved this important building originally designed by Sir Denys Lasdun, carefully refurbishing, extending and enhancing it to deliver new flexible and highly sustainable office space while greatly improving its setting within the South Bank conservation area.
The building is a leading example of purposeful, low carbon design, achieving both BREEAM Outstanding and 5-star certification under the NABERS Design for Performance standard. Employee wellbeing is at the heart of the design with a range of flexible spaces provided, including high quality end of journey facilities and over 5,000sqm of large outdoor terraces.
AHMM has been named Architectural Practice of the Year in the 2025 Building Awards, with the judges commenting “The quality and breadth of this firm’s proposal was impressive. The practice is building on previous research and sustainability to push themselves and the sector forward’.
As part of our entry, we showed continued progress on key projects in the UK and US, with the completion of several, including Urbanest Battersea, our first PassivHaus building; the final phase of Assembly, a trio of office buildings in central Bristol; the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus Research Hub, the home for Bristol University’s Digital Futures Institute; and a major new office building overlooking a sensitive site in Oklahoma City.
The practice continues to be recognised as an industry leader with major awards, including RIBA London Building of the Year, and we have led on sustainability through our in-house building performance team and second annual carbon report, pioneering the publication of upfront project carbon data. We have also successfully published the Fit Out // Rip Out report which examines whole life carbon impact of Cat A fit out.
Outside our project work we continue our commitment to nurture and develop our people with a training and development strategy that supports people at every stage of their career. We are proud to offer Level 7 apprenticeships, combining formal education with real project experience and a mentoring programme for full time employees. We are also embedding learning through policy and culture change introducing dedicated policies on Women’s Health and Neurodiversity in 2025.
Today, Wednesday 5 November, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris is delighted to confirm the appointment of seven of its directors to the practice's Executive Board, joining founding directors Simon Allford, Jonathan Hall, Paul Monaghan and Peter Morris, who established AHMM in 1989.
The new executive directors are Thomas Gardner, Hazel Joseph, Susan (Susi) Le Good, Robert Romanis, Wade Scaramucci, Philip Turner and Marc Williams. Each of them has made a significant contribution to the work and practice of AHMM over the last two decades, in London, around the UK and internationally.
Simon, Jonathan, Paul and Peter look forward to working ever more closely together with this expanded executive leadership team.
On Tuesday, 28 October, AHMM hosted 12 young people from The Creative Dimension Trust for an architectural drawing workshop at our Morelands Office in London.
The workshop began with an introduction about how architects, specifically those at AHMM, use architectural drawings to communicate their designs. The young people then participated in a guided drawing and idea development session, followed by an open session where they developed their own work and ideas. Next, the students explored the intersection of drawing, creativity and AI, ending with a visit to the AHMM modelshop.
AHMM has collaborated with the Creative Dimension Trust, which has provided workshops and work experiences for young people from less advantaged backgrounds since 2016, including architectural model making work experience placements.
Last Friday, 17 October, two groups of students from Syracuse University in New York visited the AHMM office in Morelands, London.
They were given a tour around the office, with the chance to meet some of AHMM’s architects to talk over a number of the practice’s key projects, as well as discussing different pathways into architecture.
They then got the opportunity to visit Norton Folgate, a three-block urban site occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe which retains a significant number of historic buildings, creates six new buildings and new public realm. Here they discussed the masterplan’s building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention and how it sets new standards for retrofit and refurbishment, and redevelopment in central London.
The students’ main takeaway from the visit was that they liked London and were interested in our historic built environment but weren’t really enjoying the weather.
Earlier this month the Bristol office ran a Shape My City workshop with Hayhurst & Co. as part of our ongoing Partnerships Education work with the charity Design West.
Shape My City is an award-winning talent accelerator programme for 15-18 year olds that seeks to change the future workforce across the built environment. The programme is a year-long, free-to-access course, which gives young people opportunities they might not otherwise have, made possible by the support of built environment partners.
As the Architecture session of the programme and the first session of the year, students were tasked with designing a community centre at St Werburghs City Farm which answered the question; what key ingredients create successful spaces for a community to come together?
The students started by drawing 2D plans, which they developed into 3D forms with card and paper modelmaking on a site plan of St Werburghs City Farm, finally adding collage to bring their community building to life. The collected proposals showed a thoughtful approach to architectural design, including addressing user experience, sustainability, sunlight/orientation, and developing an understanding of scale.
photography by Paul Blakemore
On Friday, 17 October, the project team for Holloway Park celebrated the topping out of phase 1 of the masterplan at a ceremony on site with the clients Peabody and London Square. This marks an important milestone in the masterplan's journey to deliver 985 new homes in Islington, including 415 social rented homes.
AHMM’s proposals for the site of the former Holloway Prison will create an integrated and reconnected residential masterplan and will include 60 extra care homes, a sensory garden, a new public park, as well as shops along Parkhurst Road. In partnership with Islington Council and the local community, a Women’s Building will also be created – a vital new space offering essential services and facilities.
The primary vision for the site is to provide high quality homes and spaces that are connected to the surrounding area and retain the green heart of the existing landscape, opening up the historic site to the public for the first time.
Completion of the first homes designed by AHMM, with project delivery by Veretec, is planned for 2027.
Last night, Wednesday 15 October, Norton Folgate won One-off Major Project of the Year in this year’s BD Architect of the Year Awards.
Norton Folgate sits within the Elder Street Conservation Area, occupying a prominent position between the City of London and Shoreditch. One of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and an architect team led by AHMM and including Stanton Williams, Morris + Company, DSDHA and East, the scheme retains a significant number of historic buildings, creates six new buildings and delivers new public realm.
Rather than applying a blanket strategy the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention to breathe new life into the architecture with sensitively designed new buildings. It sets new standards for retrofit, refurbishment, and redevelopment in Central London, and acts as a blueprint for reusing building fabric, which is a necessity in the built environment industry’s approach to tackling the climate crisis.
The judges said, “This ambitious retrofit and new-build project transformed a derelict urban site into a vibrant public space. With exceptional architectural quality and sensitive interventions, it sets a powerful example for regeneration in historic city contexts – an achievement truly worth celebrating.”
The final phase in the 10-acre regeneration masterplan at Elephant Park in Elephant and Castle, London, has been submitted into planning.
Developed for HUB, AHMM’s proposals transform a 1.2 acre site into a mixed-use development comprising 678 co-living homes and social housing, a community health hub and active ground floor amenity across three buildings and improved public realm.
The proposals mark a significant milestone in the final phase of the Elephant Park regeneration, building on its established build-to-rent offering with what would be Elephant and Castle’s first purpose-built co-living scheme. Plans also include the provision of one-, two- and three-bed affordable homes home site, 100% of which would be social rent. Generous outdoor amenity spaces will be provided, including a shared podium courtyard accessible from all three buildings, complete with a dedicated children’s play area, as well as two rooftop terraces.
The provision of a new community health hub, located on the ground and first floors of one of the buildings, responds to a long-standing need for improved healthcare infrastructure in the area to cater to its fast-growing population.
The public realm design, led by landscape architects Gillespies, completes their vision for Elephant Park, prioritising permeability, greening and active frontages that encourage community use and enhance connectivity to the wider community.
Damien Sharkey, Managing Director at HUB, said: “We are excited to reveal our proposed plans for this important site, which we have worked hard to ensure responds to local needs and community views while melding cohesively with the rest of Elephant Park. As one of the final sites to come forward in this neighbourhood, we have an opportunity to deliver essential infrastructure for this community with a new community health hub, alongside new co-living and truly affordable social rent homes. We look forward to moving forward to the next stages in this process alongside our partners to realise our collective ambition to deliver and outstanding final development at Elephant Park.”
Paul Monaghan, Executive Director at AHMM, said: “Following our early involvement in Elephant Park with West Grove and the subsequent Park Central East and West Developments we’re thrilled to once again collaborate with HUB, Gillespies, and the wider design team to realise the final piece of the masterplan. This project represents an exciting opportunity to deliver a truly mixed-use building, one that brings together essential healthcare facilities, much-needed social housing, and vibrant co-living apartments to complete this dynamic new neighbourhood.”
Last night, 14 October, Norton Folgate won a Building London Planning Award and Tower Hamlets Town Hall was highly commended. In partnership with the Mayor of London these awards honour those driving innovation across both the public and private sectors, showcasing the very best in planning excellence and recognising those who are redefining what’s possible in the capital city.
Norton Folgate, winner of the Best Retrofit Project, regenerates a three-block derelict site on the City Fringe which had laid empty for a decade, improving the streetscape and setting of the Elder Street Conservation Area. One of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and an architect team led by AHMM and including Stanton Williams, Morris + Company, DSDHA and East, the scheme retains a significant number of historic buildings, creates six new buildings and delivers new public realm. Norton Folgate sets new standards for retrofit, refurbishment, and redevelopment in Central London, and acts as a blueprint for reusing building fabric. It is a unique destination whose character has been preserved and provides a sense of history within modern sustainable workspaces for businesses of all sectors and sizes.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall, highly commended for Best Borough Led Project, encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, consolidating several of the council’s offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel. Responding to key eras of the existing building’s development between 1757 and 1906, the design utilises architectural characteristics inherent in each to enrich the new internal environment. The Georgian formality of the external facades has been retained, the restored brickwork creating a backdrop to the council’s activities within the new extension.
Last Thursday, 09 October, The Beckett received a Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society Award for its North Elevation along Woodbury Park Road.
Providing 89 extra care apartments on the site of a former bus depot on the edge of Tunbridge Wells town centre, the scheme was driven by later living design principles, which emphasise well-being, social interaction, and design that is ‘flexible and intuitive’.
Three new buildings, varying in height from three to five storeys, are arranged around a landscaped courtyard garden and sensitively respond to the scale difference between St John’s Wood, Woodbury Park Road and the surrounding residential areas.
All apartments feature full-height windows and balconies to ensure a seamless connection with the outdoors. At ground level the sensitive communal landscape design re-opens green corridors across the site and supports the principles of well-being and social interaction.
Developed for Elysian Residences, The Beckett adheres to the later living ethos that life should be fulfilling, engaging and uplifting, enabling residents to live life on their own terms, in their own private home.
Planning approval and listed building consent has been granted by Teignbridge District Council for the masterplan of Stover School.
Located within the historic setting of Stover Park in Teignbridge, Devon, Stover School is a co-educational independent school that provides education which nurtures, celebrates and inspires to children aged 3 to 18 years.
Stover has evolved from a private residence and ‘pleasure garden’ for a few individuals, to an educational establishment at the heart of the community, nurturing and enriching the lives of generations of children. The buildings and landscape have evolved too, sometimes intentionally and sometimes in an ad hoc manner.
The proposed masterplan, which has been divided into three phases, provides an opportunity to consolidate the educational buildings and create a new holistic and long-term vision for the school and its guardianship of Stover that will improve the educational experience of the pupils and the community as a whole.
The proposals include a new flexible sports hall with associated changing facilities, that will be open to the public outside school hours, and two new teaching buildings to complement the existing teaching accommodation on site and provide much needed larger and modern classrooms, a new drama studio, art studios, science labs and new home economic facilities.
Enhanced restorative landscaping throughout the site will restore the historic woodland character of the estate with a new green space at the heart of the Senior School and new opportunities for outdoor learning.
2 Ruskin Square and Urbanest Battersea have both received British Construction and Infrastructure Awards.
2 Ruskin Square, winner of the Commercial Property Project Award, is a ten-storey office development in East Croydon, part of the Stanhope and Schroders masterplan which connects East Croydon station to the town centre. As the new HQ for the Home Office, the building brings together three offices currently spread across Croydon to one location. The project has achieved ambitious environmental and social goals which are being collaboratively addressed with the tenants. It has been designed for adaptability and re-use and sought to minimise embodied carbon and resource use both in construction and operational energy as a Design for Performance (NABERS UK) pioneer project.
The judges were impressed that in the face of unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, this team demonstrated extraordinary agility and commitment by delivering planning in record time. They also noted the team’s ability to foster real synergy across disciplines and stakeholders, setting a new benchmark for government buildings of the future.
Urbanest Battersea, winner of the Housing and Residential Project Award, comprises three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building. Led by private student accommodation provider urbanest, it is the first major PassivHaus student housing development in London. The buildings range in height from 11 to 19 storeys, step in height, and twist to open to key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens; bold colours and glazed terracotta facades draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood. Significant improvements to the surrounding public realm and improved accessibility to Battersea Park will draw people into the site, becoming a catalyst for the regeneration of the wider area.
The judges were impressed by this landmark project on a constrained site which demonstrated high-quality sustainable design, strong collaborative delivery, and measurable social and carbon benefits. Operational and embodied carbon savings, and vibrant mixed-use regeneration were standout features. They also noted the passionate delivery and the commitment to take lessons learned to the wider built environment, especially around comfort cooling.
76 Southbank was also highly commended for the John Armitt Prize. Designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and completed in 1983 as the office and client marketing building for IBM, AHMM, has carefully refurbished and extended the building to deliver an additional 11,000 square metres of flexible and highly sustainable office space. Delivered with developer Stanhope, the scheme has preserved this important building for the long-term future while greatly improving and enhancing its setting within the South Bank conservation area.
Hackney Council has granted planning approval for a landmark mixed-use campus in Shoreditch, East London, for creative real estate developer General Projects.
AHMM's proposals transform a mix of six outdated buildings and vacant land into a creative urban neighbourhood, which will include 70,000 square feet of sustainable office space, a 202 studio long-stay apartment hotel, 12 new residential apartments, and small independent retail units for local businesses. To bring the development to life significant restoration work on the existing terrace of Victorian buildings will be carried out, alongside the delivery of three new buildings.
Reflecting General Projects' ethos of prioritising environmental responsibility, the development seeks to achieve high-performing sustainability standards, including meeting sustainable benchmarks such as BREEAM Outstanding and Net Zero Carbon in operation, and using sustainable construction methods including the use of cross-laminated timber for the 8-storey office building.
At the centre of the development, the current vacant land will be opened up to the public via four new accessible entrances, restoring historic public routes reaching Great Eastern Street, Tabernacle Street, and Singer Street. The proposals will deliver significant public space in the form of a new landscaped courtyard accessible to the public which will include active frontage, public art, and space to hold weekly markets for local suppliers, all set away from the traffic on the adjacent roads.
Frederic Schwass, Chief Development Officer at General Projects, said: "Shoreditch and the Old Street roundabout has long been a hub for creativity and innovation in London. With the redevelopment of this gateway site, we’re excited to bring our vision to life – transforming a deteriorating plot into a new destination fit for the area’s already thriving industry. We’re pleased that Hackney Council is supporting our vision, which will serve as a landmark for development which both echoes and enhances Shoreditch’s unique character.”
Philip Turner, Director at AHMM, said: “This project will revitalise a neglected city block, with different buildings with different uses, responding to different contexts: the warehouse of south Shoreditch, the genteel set piece of Tabernacle Square, and the boulevard condition of Old Street. The buildings combine around a new landscaped courtyard which will offer the public a place to pause amid the hubbub of the wider city.”
Last night, Tuesday 7 October, Norton Folgate received a British Council for Offices (BCO) National Award in the Refurbished/Recycled Workplace category.
Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station, Norton Folgate is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and architect team led by AHMM and including Stanton Williams, Morris + Company, DSDHA and East. The project comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm.
The project regenerates a derelict, unsafe group of sites which had laid empty for a decade, improving the streetscape and setting of the Elder Street Conservation Area. The project goes beyond delivering first clad commercial office space and creates a network of spaces which give amenity and allow spatial choices for people to walk, meet, site and experience this layered and rich part of London.
Norton Folgate sets new standard for retrofit, refurbishment, and redevelopment in Central London, and acts as a blueprint for reusing building fabric. It is a unique destination whose character has been preserved and provides a sense of history within a modern sustainable workspace for businesses of all sectors and sizes.
BCO judges commented that the project 'showcases the meticulous restoration of historic structures dating from the late 1800s. By integrating these with thoughtfully designed new constructions, the project maintains the architectural integrity of the Elder Street Conservation Area while offering a variety of office spaces tailored to different business needs, alongside retail and leisure facilities... Through its sensitive architectural approach, strong ESG commitments and enhancement of public spaces, the project fosters economic and social vitality, setting a new benchmark for sustainable urban regeneration.'
Phase 1 of AHMM’s masterplan for Aberystwyth University to refurbish the Grade II Brutalist Arts Centre and Student Union building on the Penglais Campus in Aberystwyth, encompassing the full refurbishment of gallery 1 and the re-roofing of the listed Great Hall and Theatr Y Werin, has completed and is now open to the public.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre is one of the largest in Wales, with a theatre, concert hall, studio, cinema, gallery spaces, cafes, bars and retail. Opened to the public in the early 1970s, the Centre has undergone a number of improvements and extensions over the years but still retains a majority of its original building fabric and services. The masterplan holistically reviews the function and operation of the Centre and Student Union building with a view to re-modelling certain provisions and ensure that public access and navigation is optimised.
Working with Prfysgol Aberystwyth an architect team led by AHMM and including Buro Happold, Charcoalblue, Gillerion Scott Acoustic Design and Plann developed and delivered the refurbishment of Gallery 1, stripping back failing ventilation and lighting, exposing the existing structure and layers of development history of the site within one room. The new ventilation system is over 60% more efficient resulting in an embodied carbon reduction to the gallery operational energy output and new track lighting provides a flexible system that is adaptable for multiple types of gallery exhibitions. The Gallery re-opened in mid-April this year and is currently being prepared for its second exhibition.
Urgent refurbishment works to the dilapidated roof of the Grade II Great Hall and Theatr Y Werin, not only stopped water ingress damaging the interiors of this famous brutalist building, considered as the “crowning achievement of the Percy Thomas practice’s contribution to the architecture of Higher Education in Wales”, but also provided greater thermal efficiency in line with the University’s ambitious Net Zero Carbon aspirations.
On Tuesday 07 October the project team for 227 Wood Lane celebrated the topping out of the building at a ceremony on site with the clients Womens’ Pioneer Housing and HUB, and wider project team.
On a constrained urban site on Wood Lane in White City, West London, the project provides 60 dual-aspect one-bedroom homes, a raised garden, and the new headquarters for Women’s Pioneer Homes, an innovative joint venture between Woman’s Pioneering Housing, Bridges Fund Management, CDL and HUB. The affordable housing is cross funded by 209 co-living studios, including extensive amenity areas on three floors.
The project demonstrates how inner-city sites can support increased density and a genuine mix of uses, including alternative forms of housing, as well as deliver strong urban outcomes in terms of permeability and active frontage.
The project is expected to complete in Autumn 2026.
Last night, Wednesday 1 October, Arthur Stanley House received a Camden Design Award. The awards celebrate and reward excellent design that is being delivered in projects across all sectors of the built environment in the London Borough of Camden.
Located in the Charlotte Street Conservation Area, Arthur Stanley House has reinvented a decaying 1960s block in Fitzrovia, London to provide ten floors of modern office accommodation and a new residential building along Tottenham Mews.
More than 70% of the existing fabric has been retained, brickwork refurbished, windows replaced with new triple glazing meeting modern standards and depth added to the façade through generous stone reveals. New and old is left exposed within the floorplates to represent the building’s development over a 60-year period, repurposing it for a new generation by creating a design led space for the next 60 years. Additionally, the characterful floorplates give a uniqueness not normally found in commercial floor space.
Keeping and working with the existing building also gave a rich palette of materials including London stock bricks, terracotta pots and dense aggregate concrete to work with and complement new additions.
Recently AHMM’s scheme for Cricklewood Lane B&Q received reserved matters planning permission under Barnet Council’s Delegated Powers.
The site, currently occupied by B&Q and its expansive car park, was granted outline permission in 2023 for a comprehensive redevelopment into a mixed-use quarter weaving together four residential buildings, flexible commercial space, community spaces and a layered landscape strategy.
Developed for Urban Cricklewood Developments, the scheme will deliver 1,059 new homes, across a series of four distinct buildings set within new residential gardens and public realm.
The design proposals contribute to the evolving character of Cricklewood, enhancing legibility around the district centre and railway station while respectfully engaging with the historic fabric that surrounds them.
Last Thursday, 25 September, Treyarch received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Central States Excellence in Design Awards in the Excellence in Interiors category.
Treyarch sees the reimagining of a 1960s warehouse building in Los Angeles into a dynamic gaming studio as the new headquarters of Treyarch Corporation, a division of video game and interactive entertainment company Activision Blizzard.
The building is designed to impress, with a carefully designed double height entrance greeting visitors and expansive open-plan spaces tailored for diverse departments, encouraging social interaction and testing and cultivating a dynamic environment where creativity and innovation thrive. At the core of the building lie specialized spaces designed for cutting-edge video game development, including state-of-the-art audio editing suites, a screening room, and a photogrammetry room.
Last night, Thursday 25 September, AHMM’s Laura Stephenson and Claire Pollock attended the prize giving for Clarion Housing Group’s new scholarship programme as part of the prestigious William Sutton Prize.
To mark the organisation’s 125th anniversary, the William Sutton Prize Scholarships in partnership with the London Neighbourhood Scholarship Trust have been developed to increase diversity in architecture and sustainability, providing funding to support students from low-income households and social housing backgrounds through their degree courses.
During the evening Laura and Claire met the six scholarship winners including AHMM scholarship winner, Aisha Suleiman who is pursuing architecture at UCL, The Bartlett. In addition to help funding Aisha’s education, AHMM’s sponsorship will also offer a tailored package of career support, including mentorship and work experience opportunities.
AHMM hopes that by sponsoring one of these scholarships the new programme will help increase diversity and level the playing field for young people entering the profession.
AHMM is working with Latimer, the development arm of Clarion Housing Group to deliver new homes at Twyford Abbey and the former London Chest Hospital.
A full planning and listed building application has been submitted for the former Cole Brothers store, a Grade II listed building in Sheffield City Centre.
Developed for Urban Splash and in close consultation with Sheffield City Council, AHMM’s proposals mark a significant step in bringing the former department store back to life, fostering economic growth and creating a vibrant hub for local residents, workers and visitors. The scheme will transform the building into a mixed-use space, integrating leisure, entertainment and retail space on the lower and ground floors, with office workspace areas on the upper floors and reopening substantial areas of the building for the public.
The redevelopment of this historic and beloved former department store will complement and expand on the success of the Council’s Heart of the City regeneration project, designed to enhance the vitality and attraction of the city centre, driving a thriving and modern urban environment.
Urban Splash Regeneration Director, Mark Latham, said ‘The planning submission for Cole Brothers reflects our commitment to reviving this cherished building, honouring the past while developing both an inspiring and functional space to meet, connect, innovate and thrive within the city centre’s community and urban landscape.’
Founding director of AHMM Simon Allford said “The reworking of the Cole Brothers building is a key project in the ongoing reinvigoration of Sheffield's city centre. My own connections with Sheffield, and this building, run deep and far back – So, I am looking forward to working with Urban Splash to take forward the reinvention of this Sheffield icon"
1 Broadgate in the City of London has reached Practical Completion after four years of construction.
The scheme, developed for British Land, provides flexible accommodation for a mix of uses including 50,000 square feet of retail space arranged around a new retail arcade over two levels, and 500,000 square feet of new office space above.
The building frames the public space around Broadgate Circle, formally addressing the southern edge of Finsbury Avenue Square, and clearly defines the north-south pedestrian axis along Finsbury Avenue.
The colours of the elevations are taken from the earthy and autumnal colours of the buildings in the surrounding area; the metal fins are coloured to express the building’s stacked volumes, gradually darkening from the base to the top.
For the first time in over a century, the pedestrian route linking Shepherd Market and Piccadilly in central London has been reopened as part of AHMM's mixed use Carrington Street scheme. The reinstatement of this historic connection in the heart of Mayfair is quietly transformative and underpins the project as a whole.
Formerly an inward-facing, inner-block site largely enclosed by neighbouring party walls, the scheme replaces three separate buildings, including the Carrington Street NCP car park, with an eight-storey premium office building on one side of the public realm and a seven-storey carefully designed residential building on the other. Together they deliver not only a new pedestrian connection but a place that celebrates architectural complexity and craftsmanship. The residential building is arranged around a landscaped residents’ courtyard, glimpsed from the public realm. Beneath the buildings and new street runs a three-storey basement housing a gym, a swimming pool and spa, bike storage and car parking.
Developed with landscape architects BBUK, the new connection focuses the project around a renewed public link and buildings that blend heritage with contemporary design. Subtle public art by Acrylize punctuates the route, drawing out the site’s history.
This year for Open House the public can come and visit AHMM’s Tower Hamlets Town Hall. On Saturday 20 September, come and celebrate the official plaque unveiling for the building, a new photography exhibition celebrating 60 years of Tower Hamlets as a borough and hourly building tours plus other free activities. On Sunday 21 September come and visit for hourly building tours.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, consolidating several of the council’s offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel.
During the building tours you will hear more about the design of the building’s public spaces and also have the chance to see parts of the building not normally open to the public, including an old operating theatre that is now a meeting space.
Open House Festival is a London-wide festival that opens up and celebrates the city’s architecture, special places and neighbourhoods. Run by Open City, an educational charity empowering communities to learn about, experience and have a role in shaping places where they live, the festival will take place from Saturday 13 September to Sunday 21 September with a number of free open days, events and guided tours taking place across all 33 London Boroughs.
Find out more about Tower Hamlets Town Hall and the Open House 2025 festival here.
On Sunday, 14 September, eight enthusiastic cyclists from AHMM’s London office hit the roads taking on the London to Brighton cycle ride to raise money for one of our charities of the year, The Bike Project.
The Bike Project takes secondhand bikes, fixes them up and donates them to refugees and people seeking asylum in London and Birmingham.
To help them collect, refurbish and provide more bikes please head over to our fundraising page.
Recently the project team successfully secured Gateway 2 approval from the Building Safety Regulator for a new student housing scheme located in the centre of Bristol which will comprehensively redevelop an industrial site on the banks of the River Avon, providing much needed accommodation for the adjacent University of Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC).
Developed for Avon Capital Estates, 40-46 Albert Road will provide 454 student bedrooms within a distinctive 16 storey building utilising a novel cruciform plan that is a response to the site and the surrounding townscape, distributing the external amenity to four quadrants, each zone with its own distinctive role in the improved landscape.
Shared communal amenity spaces, located on the first floor and connected to the single shared reception via a double height entrance, provide for various activities that benefit the student experience; including social, collaborative and private study areas. Two new public squares provide generous external amenity and enhance the existing green river corridor.
The project seeks to positively redevelop the site to provide highly sustainable, carefully designed student accommodation in a well-connected central location while protecting and enhancing the ecology, biodiversity, connectivity and public realm of the surrounding River Avon and Albert Road Area.
Norton Folgate has been longlisted in this year's Dezeen Awards. Organised by Dezeen, this international awards programme identifies the world’s best, architecture, interiors, design and sustainability projects as well as studios producing the most outstanding work.
Longlisted in the workplace (large category), Norton Folgate is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and architect team led by AHMM and including Stanton Williams, Morris + Co, DSDHA and East. Comprising three urban blocks, the project regenerates a derelict, unsafe group of sites to create modern workspaces in Shoreditch, London, retaining a significant number of historic buildings, creating six new buildings and delivering new public realm.
Rather than applying a blanket strategy the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention to breathe new life into the architecture with sensitively designed new buildings. It sets new standards for retrofit, refurbishment and redevelopment in London, acting as a blueprint for reusing building fabric.
All shortlisted projects will be announced in October.
On Sunday, 07 September, fifteen enthusiastic runners from AHMM’s Bristol office hit the trails at Westonbirt Arboretum Run, taking on either the half marathon, 10k, or 5k challenges to raise money for one of our charities of the Year, Avon Needs Trees.
Named for the River, Avon Needs Trees is a registered charity creating new, permanent woodlands throughout the Bristol-Avon River catchment to tackle the climate and nature emergencies.
To help them create woodlands around Bristol and Bath please head over to our fundraising page.
Mason & Fifth, Westbourne Park, a new mixed-use development transforming a brownfield site that was formerly home to the Licenced Taxi Drivers’ Association Headquarters, has opened its doors to guests.
A vibrant new waterfront destination along the Grand Union Canal, this new 332-key flexible living development for Cheyne Capital operated by Mason & Fifth will attract a new community of young creatives, entrepreneurs, artists, and professionals to west London.
Formed of a family of buildings of varying scales, ranging in height from three to ten storeys above ground, wrapping around a new urban courtyard that opens up on to the canal, the scheme includes an extensive amenity offering of social and work lounges, a communal dining space, listening lounge, cinema room, and a wellness suite with a swimming pool, gym and movement studio. The scheme also provides amenities for the wider community, including creative, affordable workspaces, a waterfront restaurant, and improvements to the public realm and canal-side setting.
Hazel Joseph, Director at AHMM, said: “Redeveloping this site has created a unique place in the city, where people can come together and build a community. Our approach is informed by the local area, and the site’s unique character, where the city’s intensive use interacts with nature, from the creation of repaired frontages to the north using contextual forms and materials, to the unexpected yet dynamic urban courtyard at the heart of the scheme which opens up to the south and connects the development to the waterfront.”
Last week, Bristol City Council granted consent for 434 new homes at Plots 2-3 Silverthorne Lane in Bristol’s city centre.
The proposals, developed for Studio Hive, reinvent a significant site of post-industrial land directly to the east of Bristol Temple Meads station to provide a well connected and characterful mixed-use neighbourhood, including generous residents’ facilities, residents’ gardens, and commercial and retail space that activate the ground floor.
The accommodation is arranged over a series of brick blocks ranging from ten to fourteen stories, with new permeable public realm created within the spaces between the buildings. Fragments of the site’s rich industrial history are retained and preserved, including a series of listed walls flanking the Feeder Canal, which is opened up for public access from the north for the first time.
The project is expected to complete in 2029.
Recently, AHMM held its annual summer school in our London office. Aimed at young people aged 16-18 years old, the Summer School is an important part of our Partnerships work to support the future architecture profession and help to ensure it is diverse.
The brief for this year’s Summer School was entitled ‘INCLUSIV[CITY]’, with students working with the aim of activating multi-generational and gender-inclusive use of public spaces within the Barbican Centre, local to the AHMM London office. Their task was to re-imagine the Barbican Centre as part of an ‘Inclusive City’, a place where people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds, and cultures can live, play, learn, and feel welcome.
Over the week nineteen young people participated in workshops including architectural drawing; understanding CDM; modelmaking including clay modelling with architecture and design collective Earthworks; routes into architecture; site visits; sustainability; an exploration of AHMM’s materials library; collaborative creativity; and daily mentoring.
To support the development of the students' work and ideas, the young people took inspiration from ongoing pro bono projects AHMM has progressed with charities such as The Bike Project and Migrateful, specifically investigating the design of spaces for migrants and exploring ideas for interventions through a lens of social inclusion.
Last week a group of young people, aged between 16-18, from the RIBA Youth Forum visited the AHMM office in Morelands, London.
They were given a tour around the office, with the chance to meet some of AHMM’s architects and architectural assistants to discuss some of the practice’s key projects, as well as discussing different pathways into architecture. They where also given an introduction into the work experience week AHMM runs and how they could apply.
The RIBA Youth Forum is a program that caters to students and young people who are thinking about studying architecture, giving them ongoing opportunities to learn about the pathways into the profession.
This year three AHMM projects have been shortlisted in the AJ Architecture Awards. Run by the Architects Journal these annual awards celebrate and reward design excellence in UK architecture.
Assembly, Bristol, shortlisted in the Workplace project (£10 million and over) category, transforms a long vacant site adjacent to the city’s inner circuit road and William Jessop’s Floating Harbour. Anchored around a watefront park, the commercial campus creates a new urban place that positively engages with the city, bringing colour to the skyline and linking the waterside with a restored historic street, Cheese Lane. A hierarchy of three buildings shape the space and frame a connecting vista from Pip and Jay Church to the water’s edge, with permeable routes and gardens that allows the public to move through the site.
Norton Folgate, shortlisted in the Mixed-use project category, comprises of three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station. Delivered by British Land and architect team led by AHMM and including DSDHA, East, Morris + Company and Stanton Williams, the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention to breath new life into the architecture.
Urbanest Battersea, shortlisted in the Housing project (£50 million and over) category, is a new highly sustainable development led by private student accommodation provider Urbanest, providing modern accommodation for 852 students and is the first major Passivhaus student housing development in London. Comprising of three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building, ranging in height from 11 to 19 storeys, the buildings step in height and twist to open to key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens, creating a varied silhouette.
All shortlisted projects will now be visited by a panel of judges with the winners announced at a celebratory dinner in November.
Four AHMM projects have been shortlisted for a New London Architecture (NLA) Award.
Norton Folgate, shortlisted in the Retrofit category, occupies a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station and is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and the architect team led by AHMM and including DSDHA, East, Morris + Company and Stanton Williams. The project comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm.
76 Southbank, shortlisted in the Conservation & Heritage category, was designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and completed in 1983 as the office and client marketing building for IBM. Delivered with developer Stanhope, AHMM has carefully refurbished and extended the building to deliver an additional 11,000 square metres of flexible and highly sustainable office space. The scheme has preserved this important building for the long-term future while greatly improving and enhancing its setting within the South Bank conservation area.
Developed for Latimer, the development arm of Clarion Housing Group, The redevelopment of the London Chest Hospital, shortlisted in the Housing category, aims to transform this disused site in Bethnal Green into a successful community of 274 new homes of which 50% will be affordable housing (by habitable home), with a significant proportion (70%) allocated for Social Rent. The Hospital’s historic grounds will be opened to the public for the first time in nearly a decade and the veteran Mulberry tree on site, which is reputed to be the oldest tree in the East End, will remain in its original location, aligning with community and environmental policies.
Urbanest Battersea, shortlisted in the Housing category, comprises three student accommodation buildings and a dedicated commercial building and is the first major Passivhaus student housing development in London. Led by private student accommodation provider Urbanest, the buildings which range in height from 11 to 19 storeys, step in height and twist to open key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens. Bold colours and glazed terracotta facades draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood.
Winners will be announced at the annual NLA Awards Lunch at the Great Hall in the Guildhall in November.
The TQEC Research Hub has been named a Finalist in this year’s Structural Timber Awards in the Education Project of the Year category.
The first completed building within the wider emerging Innovation Campus for the University of Bristol, the project revitalises two former gas sheds into a dedicated state-of-the-art research facility for the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and Myworld.
The high-performance technical and research spaces required an innovative approach to ensure the stringent conditions were met. New fabric was utilised to create a timber ‘box-in-box’ structure to house the Production Studio and Instrumented Auditorium as these required acoustic and physical isolation from the surrounding context.
Under the architectural guidance of AHMM and supported by timber engineers Milner Associates, advanced timber specialists Xylotek and the main contractor Aztech, timber was selected for the new internal structure, not only for its carbon credentials but also structural capability, acoustic mass, damping properties and for disassembly ability, to be reused or recycled in the future.
Xylotek utilised modern methods of construction, leading the timber design, fabrication and installation of a mass Douglas Fir Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) and glulam structure that houses a mezzanine level, conference rooms along with a large auditorium. The use of a CLT and glulam structure is a novel material application for a ‘box-in-box’ volume and is a first of its kind.
Winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony at the National Conference Centre, Birmingham, in October.
Recently members from Haringey Council joined the project team and client, Related Argent, to celebrate the topping out of the Ferry Island Development in Tottenham Hale.
Located in the heart of the emerging Hale Square, Ferry Island will deliver 484 new homes across two buildings alongside retail at ground floor, shared social spaces at mezzanine and roof levels and a two screen Cinema in the shared basement.
As the final phase of the Heart of Hale Masterplan, this moment signals the exciting progress being made as a new town centre, designed with the community in mind, begins to take shape.
The development is due to complete in December 2026.
This year two AHMM projects have been shortlisted for a Plan Award.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall, shortlisted in the Renovation category, encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, consolidating several of the council’s offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel. The restoration strategy was founded on the principle that repairs and additions would form the next chapter in the building’s story with alterations celebrating rather than rectifying and contemporary interventions designed to enhance that which exists.
The Citizen, shortlisted in the Mixed-use category, is a mid-rise development situated opposite the Oklahoma City National Memorial, accommodating a diverse mix of uses and fostering civic life and community exchange. The generous ground floor volume is set back to extend the urban realm deep into the building, and a banking hall and restaurant engage with the building foyer to activate and enliven the entrance. Above, a diverse blend of functions intends to support and stimulate meeting and engagement, with co-working space, a members’ club, a hotel and a tech start-up incubator, culminating with offices at the upper levels.
Recognising excellence in architecture, interior design, and urban planning, all shortlisted projects will be judged by an international jury made up of leading figures in the architecture, design, real estate, and academic fields.
Urbanest Battersea, a carefully designed, highly sustainable development comprising three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building, has been shortlisted for a British Homes Award in the Best Community Living category.
Led by private student accommodation provider urbanest, the development provides modern accommodation for 852 students in the heart of London and is the first major Passivhaus student housing development in London.
The buildings, ranging in height from 11 to 19 storeys, step in height and twist to open to key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens, creating a varied silhouette. Bold colours and glaze terracotta facades draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood.
Significant improvements to the surrounding public realm and an improved connection and accessibility to Battersea Park will draw people into the site, becoming a catalyst for the regeneration of the wider area.
Launched in 1999, the British Homes Awards celebrate projects that are committed to improving the quality of life of the people living in them, as well as the wider community. All award winners will be announced in November at the annual awards lunch.
Palomar, a new family justice centre adjacent to the current Palomar building west of North Hudson Avenue in Oklahoma City, has officially broken ground with The Mayor of Oklahoma City, City Council members, design team and interested citizens attending a ceremony held on site.
This new three-story multi-use building has been purposefully designed and developed as part of MAPS 4 regeneration projects as a new Family Justice Centre that is integrated into the community as a place to support individuals seeking help and refuge from domestic violence and abuse through a collaborative support system. It will serve to co-locate and expand comprehensive services including a therapy and trauma treatment, acute medical services, comprehensive child services, educational services, food pantry and other related wrap-around services to local and surrounding communities.
Construction has officially started with the project due for completion March 2027.
Urbanest Battersea has been shortlisted for the Sustainability Prize in this year’s World Architecture Festival Awards, celebrating completed buildings that demonstrate new ways in which sustainable materials are deployed in projects of any scale including the brief, design, materials, construction, and longevity.
Developed for private student accommodation provider Urbanest, Urbanest Battersea is a new carefully designed, highly sustainable development comprising of three student buildings, a dedicated commercial building, public house, café and Enterprise Business Unit. It is the first Passivhaus student housing development in London and the largest Passivhaus certified building in the UK providing 852 student rooms.
Passivhaus buildings have high insulation, high airtightness and ventilation with heat recovery to significantly reduce operational carbon and improve occupant comfort and health. The new commercial building achieves BREEAM Outstanding and features Mace’s Low Carbon Cassette (LCC) construction system. The technology uses a Cemfree concrete and low energy, Electric Arc Furnace steel in cement-free concrete cassettes which reduces carbon and waste using prefabrication.
Ranging in height from 11 to 19 storeys, the four blocks step in height and twist to open key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens, creating a varied silhouette. Their glazed terracotta facades in a vibrant colour palette of red, green and blue draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood. Opened to students last September, Urbanest Battersea features ensuite and studio accommodation and communal areas designed to bring students together. Other amenities include a cinema room, gym, and roof terraces offering breathtaking views across the city.
All shortlisted projects will now be presented live to a panel of judges at the World Architecture Festival in November, a three-day event in Miami bringing together the global architectural community to celebrate and share, with overall winners and special prize winners announced at a gala dinner.
Kentish Town Health Centre is a Finalist in this year’s Architecture Today (AT) Awards, in the Healthcare category. The AT Awards recognise, celebrate, and learn from the performance of buildings that have stood the test of time, with all submitted projects having been in use for at least three years. The awards acknowledge buildings that can demonstrate a strong track record for delivering on their environmental, functional, community and cultural ambitions.
The original Kentish Town Centre brief called for a new health building to house a large GP practice and a wide range of health facilities. The project champion, Dr MacGregor’s, vision was to create a building where not only medicine, but health and art came together for the community. The design team, inspired by a game of Jenga, embraced ideas of transparency and connectivity, and worked collaboratively to create a building that expresses this holistic approach to healthcare.
In Dr MacGregor’s view the building has performed exceptionally well and, in his words, ‘With our new building we were trying to achieve an integrated and uplifting place where not just medicine, but health and art could come together for the community – the building delivers exactly that. In the main waiting room and wherever you are in the building everything is connected. The wonderful play of light and views to different spaces makes everyone aware of what is going on and where it is located. The whole team have worked tirelessly to provide the outcomes we sought in the original brief – it is a joy to now inhabit these delightful spaces.”
All winners will be announced at an awards celebration in November.
AHMM’s Barbora Vanek features in Architecture Today's Reinventing Practice, a series of portraits of architects by photographer Timothy Soar as part of the Regenerative Architecture Index (RAI).
Generated by Architecture Today and UK Architects Declare, the RAI sets out to benchmark practices’ progress in the move to regenerative working and projects. Sixty-eight organisations, mostly architectural practices but also engineers, charities and clients, including AHMM, participated in the Index, giving detailed information about their efforts to address the challenges posed by climate change and accelerate the transition to a regenerative, more equitable future.
Barbora is one of AHMM’s five Building Performance Specialists as part of the AHMM Sustainability and Building Performance Team who support and influence the sustainability aspirations of our projects. Based in our Bristol office she spoke to Architecture Today about the privilege of working across such a broad architectural portfolio; from challenges to triumphs, and how she believes that regenerative architecture must be the framing paradigm of future practice.
Timothy Soar’s career mirrors the broader shift in architectural photography, from the slow deliberate process of film to the quick, clean immediacy of digital, as his work has always been about exploring the language and practice of architecture rather than just merely documenting buildings. His portraits of architects, from the early 2000s through to the post-COVID era, offer a glimpse into a profession that is constantly evolving, capturing the human side of the built environment.
On Wednesday 16 July, AHMM’s Director Laura Stephenson attended the launch of NLA’s latest report, Adaptive London: Reusing Existing Buildings, which brings together the best in practice in the art of adaptive reuse across the capital, demonstrating a wealth of skills and talent through exemplary schemes, thought leadership and research, focusing on London’s unique story in adapting and transforming existing buildings for modern uses, which places London as a global leader in this field.
For the report Laura was interviewed about Norton Folgate, in which she provided detailed information about the project, forming one of the reports key studies. It is also one of the in-depth case studies available to view online.
Adaptive London: Reusing Existing Buildings is also part of a wider dedicated exhibition at The London Centre, in which AHMM’s Norton Folgate model will be on display along with photographs of AHMM’s Tower Hamlets Town Hall and 76 Southbank which are also included in the report along with Arthur Stanley House, London Square Bermondsey, One Great Cumberland Place, and Cornerstone, Beech Street. These projects are prime examples of where, through smart adaptations and intelligent additions, we are able to transform buildings into attractive, efficient, and future-proofed places. Demonstrating how reuse and retrofit extends the useful life of buildings and reasserts their place in the city, while improving energy performance and reducing significant amounts of embodied carbon and resources.
Please see here for more information about the report and wider events programme including the exhibition and digital publication.
Proposals for the regeneration of the West Kentish Town Estate and construction of up to 856 homes have been submitted to the London Borough of Camden.
Built in 1964, the existing West Kentish Town Estate was a response to the post war housing need in the London Borough of Camden, and consists of 316 homes across three to four storey blocks which now fall short of modern-day standards of living in their ability to provide suitably sized, energy efficient, safe and accessible homes that support the residents’ wellbeing.
AHMM’s masterplan proposals for the regeneration of the estate are landscape-led, setting out a clear framework with an emphasis on connectivity to the immediate surrounding context, which is defined by a series of routes and thoroughfares.
The development’s eight phased strategy for demolition of all the existing buildings and the construction of 856 new homes including 326 new council homes is designed to minimise disruption, with new residential blocks built for existing residents before the old ones are demolished. Key routes and a series of public spaces converge on a generous central open space, strategically located at the heart of the development, fostering diverse amenity spaces and cultivating a strong sense of community.
Central to the development is a commitment to sustainability, addressing key areas such as water management, smart technology, materials, occupant health, biodiversity enhancement, and green mobility initiatives. The energy strategy prioritises minimising carbon emissions through passive design and the integration of energy-efficient systems including heat pumps and photovoltaic panels.
Project team
Client: London Borough of Camden / Project Manager: Airey Miller / Masterplan Architect: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris / Phase 1 Architect: Mae / Town Planning: Newmark / Structure & Civil: Elliott Wood / MEP Services & Sustainability: Atelier Ten / Landscape Architect: BBUK / Architect: Burd Haward Architects / Architect: Coffey Architects / Architect: HNNA Architects / Construction Logistics: MACE / Consultation & Planning: London Communications Agency / Acoustic: Scotch Partners / Transport: SLR / Daylight Rights: Point 2 / Environmental Assessment: Trium / Townscape Views: Miller Hare / Arboriculture: Indigo / Biodiversity & Ecology: Ecology by Design / Archaeology: RSK / Heritage: Turley
This year three AHMM projects have been shortlisted in the AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards, which celebrate architectural expertise and ingenuity in the physical and environmental adaptation and upgrade of buildings, and the reuse of building materials and structure in response to the climate emergency and changing requirements of use.
The Angel Building, shortlisted in the Retrofit Revisited category, took a once unloved 1980s office building facing demolition and turned it into a hub of activity, redefining workplace with a mix of public atrium, café, bespoke works of art and rooftop terraces. Through re-using the existing frame the project has saved 7,400 tonnes of embodied carbon while providing 40% more functional area than previously.
The TQEC Research Hub, shortlisted in the Adaptive Reuse into Other category, is the first completed building in the wider emerging Innovation Campus for the University of Bristol. The project revitalises two former gas sheds into a dedicated state-of-the-art research facility for the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and Myworld, focusing on a light touch approach that makes the most of the buildings’ idiosyncrasies while also delivering a high-quality academic building.
Norton Folgate, shortlisted in the Adaptive Reuse into Mixed-use category, occupies a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station and is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and the architect team led by AHMM and including DSDHA, East, Morris + Company and Stanton Williams. The project comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm.
All the shortlisted projects will now be presented in depth to the judges with the winners announced at the awards ceremony in September.
We’re very pleased to announce promotions to Associate and Associate Director.
Our new Associates are Ana Perez-Bustamante, Dan Cook, Eleonora Gallenzi, Francesca Molteni, Jason Ramlugon, Kirsten Whiteley, Nick Lambert, Nuria Llorens Costa, Rosa Moreno Acedo and Ummar Rashid.
Meanwhile, Alex Russell, Craig Robertson, Dermot Reynolds, Flora Genel, Joao Sousa, Marta Galiana, Nisha Patel, Paul Jones, Ryan McCrudden and Stefan Rust have been promoted to Associate Director.
These latest promotions are an important step in the ongoing development of AHMM, supporting and strengthening our leadership, and recognising each person’s capability and contribution to the continuing success of our practice.
This year three AHMM projects have been named Finalists for the Building Awards: the TQEC Research Hub, Urbanest Battersea and 76 Southbank. AHMM has also been named as a Finalist for Architectural Practice of the Year.
The TQEC Research Hub, finalist in the Retrofit Project of the Year – Traditional & Historic category, is the first completed building within the wider emerging Innovation Campus for the University of Bristol. The project revitalises two former gas sheds into a dedicated state-of-the-art research facility for the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and Myworld, focusing on a light touch approach that makes the most of the buildings’ idiosyncrasies while also delivering a high-quality academic building that suits the needs of its users.
Urbanest Battersea, finalist in the Housing Project of the Year category, comprises of three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building and is the first major Passivhaus student housing development in London. Led by private student accommodation provider Urbanest, the buildings, which range in height from 11 to 19 storeys, step in height and twist to open key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens. Bold colours and glazed terracotta facades draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood.
76 Southbank, finalist in the Retrofit Project of the Year – Modern category, was designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and completed in 1983 as the office and client marketing building for IBM. Although the building was listed at Grade II in 2020 it did not meet modern standards and presented an opportunity for sensitive improvements. AHMM has carefully refurbished and extended the building to deliver an additional 11,000 square metres of flexible and highly sustainable office space. The scheme has preserved this important building for the long-term future while greatly improving and enhancing its setting within the South Bank conservation area.
Award winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony in November
This year the Victor Kite Award for Design Technology has been awarded to Judith Brown and John Ogunyiluka at The Bartlett School of Architecture’s annual summer show opening ceremony. This award for students at the school recognises the best work in Design Technology (year 2).
The award was established in 2013 by former AHMM staff member and Bartlett tutor, Scott Batty, in memory of architect Victor Kite. Victor was a mentor to AHMM’s founding members, Simon, Jonathan, Paul and Peter, as Part III students, and later to many others at AHMM, playing a significant role in the practice and its work.
The Summer Show is The Bartlett’s flagship exhibition, and one of the largest student architecture shows in the world. This year’s exciting show, which has also been sponsored by AHMM, is one of the school’s largest with over 1,000 current and graduating students sharing their dynamic and innovative projects, filling six floors of the school’s Bloomsbury home. Alongside the physical exhibition the show is available to explore digitally in The Bartlett’s virtual exhibition space.
This year five AHMM projects have been shortlisted for a World Architecture Festival (WAF) Award.
The Arc, shortlisted in the mixed-use category, is a new mixed-use building in east London delivering new retail opportunities, office floorspace, 100 new homes, landscaped roof terraces and a new area of public realm onto City Road.
Urbanest Battersea, shortlisted in the completed housing category, provides modern accommodation for 852 students in the heart of London for private student accommodation provider Urbanest along with a dedicated commercial building, and is the first major PassivHaus student housing development in London.
Treyarch, shortlisted in the interiors workplace category, is an interior office fit out for the new headquarters of Treyarch Corporation, a division of video game and interactive entertainment company Activision Blizzard, in Los Angeles.
1 Victoria Street, shortlisted in the future office category, is the redevelopment of the 1960s former headquarters of the Department for Business and Trade office building into a sustainable, commercial building offering carefully designed office accommodation, with active retail on the ground floor along Victoria Street.
The redevelopment of the London Chest Hospital, shortlisted in the future residential category, aims to transform this disused site in Bethnal Green into a successful community of 274 new homes and re-open the Hospital’s grounds to the public for the first time in nearly a decade.
All shortlisted projects will now be presented live to a panel of judges at the World Architecture Festival in November, a three-day event in Miami bringing together the global architectural community to celebrate and share, with overall winners and special prize winners announced at a gala dinner.
Yesterday afternoon, Thursday 03 July, celebrated the topping out of the building at a ceremony on site at King’s Cross followed by an evening of celebrations with the client, Precis Advisory, contractors, Mace and wider project team.
Belgrove House is an innovative laboratory and office building for the life sciences sector. The proposed building will serve as a sustainability exemplar and a new landmark on this prominent site opposite the civic frontage of Kings Cross railway station.
The new building allows views into the laboratories at lower floors with a glazed ‘shop-window’ facing Kings Cross, flanked by a pair of monolithic vertical risers which provide efficient distribution of large volumes of air to the lab floors. This arrangement of solid and glazed elements repeats on the two sides of the building, leading to the southern end of the site, where the building steps down to 4 storeys and includes a landscaped roof terrace facing the tree canopy of Argyle Square.
The public realm surrounding all sides of the building will be transformed, including the integration of a new underground entrance in Belgrove House and a publicly accessible ground floor designed to encourage interaction with the local community and organisations within the Knowledge Quarter.
The building is expected to be complete and ready for fit-out in spring 2026
AHMM has been shortlisted in three categories in this year’s BD Architect of the Year Awards: Office Architect of the Year, Refurbishment and Reinvention Architect of the Year, and One-off Major Project of the Year for Norton Folgate.
Our submission for the 2025 BD Office Architect of the Year includes Assembly Bristol, One Broadgate, Angel Square and Belgrove House, all of which demonstrate our belief that offices should provide different kinds of space that are particular to their location and possess inherent architectural quality. Our office experience ranges from city scale masterplans and urban interventions, to bespoke fit-outs and furniture design.
Reusing existing buildings with distinctive design features brings the added advantages of economy and sustainability, and our submission for the 2025 BD Refurbishment and Reinvention Architect of the Year includes Norton Folgate, TQEC Research Hub, Metropolis and the London Chest Hospital. These projects are examples of where, through smart adaptations and intelligent additions, we are able to transform buildings into attractive, efficient, and future-proofed places. Reuse and retrofit extends the useful life of buildings and reasserts their place in the city, while improving energy performance and reducing significant amounts of embodied carbon and resources.
Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station, Norton Folgate is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and the architect team led by AHMM and including DSDHA, East, Morris + Company and Stanton Williams. The project comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm. Rather than applying a blanket strategy, the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained buildings, utilising restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention.
On Thursday, 26 June, 76 Southbank and Tower Hamlets Town Hall both received Schüco Excellence Awards, in the Major Project and Health, Culture and Leisure categories respectively, with 76 Southbank being named overall winner.
Designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and completed in 1983, 76 Southbank started life as the office and client marketing building for IBM. Although the building was listed at Grade II in 2020 it did not meet modern standards and presented an opportunity for sensitive improvements. AHMM has carefully refurbished and extended the building to deliver an additional 11,000 square metres of flexible and highly sustainable office space. The scheme has preserved this important building for the long-term future while greatly improving and enhancing its setting within the South Bank conservation area.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall, the new headquarters for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building, and the addition of a new build extension. The move to the former hospital site consolidates a number of the council’s offices into one location and offers a broad range of public services to the borough’s residents, in a more accessible location in Whitechapel. The design responds to key eras of the existing building’s development, between 1757 and 1906, utilising the architectural character inherent in each extension to enrich the new internal environment.
Organised in association with Architecture Today, the Schüco Excellence Awards champion the design and delivery of exemplary facades, focusing on criteria of creativity, innovation, technical skills and creative collaboration.
This year two AHMM projects have been shortlisted for a British Construction and Infrastructure (BCI) Award.
2 Ruskin Square, shortlisted in the Commercial Property of the Year category, is a ten-storey office development in East Croydon, part of the Stanhope and Schroders masterplan which connects East Croydon station to the town centre. As the new HQ for the Home Office, the building brings together three offices currently spread across Croydon to one location. The project has achieved ambitious environmental and social goals which are being collaboratively addressed with the tenants. It has been designed for adaptability and re-use, and sought to minimise embodied carbon and resource use both in construction and operational energy as a Design for Performance (NABERS UK) pioneer project.
Urbanest Battersea, shortlisted in the Housing & Residential Project of the Year category, comprises of three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building and is the first major PassivHaus student housing development in London. Led by private student accommodation provider, Urbanest, the buildings, ranging in height from 11 to 19 storeys step in height and twist to open to key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens. Bold colours and glazed terracotta facades draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood. Significant improvements to the surrounding public realm and an improved connect and accessibility to Battersea Park will draw people into the site, becoming a catalyst for the regeneration of the wider area.
Award winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony in October.
Last night, Wednesday 18 June, The Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC) Research Hub received a Bristol Civic Society Design Award.
The TQEC Research Hub is the first completed building in the wider emerging Innovation Campus for the University of Bristol. The project revitalises two unlisted Victorian gas sheds into a dedicated state-of-the-art research facility for the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and Myworld, balancing the level of structural intervention with the demanding, highly bespoke client brief.
The design principles focus on a light touch approach, making the most of the buildings’ idiosyncrasies while also delivering a high-quality academic building that suits the needs of its users.
The refurbished building now holds several high-performance technical spaces such as the Immersive CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), the Production Studio and a Smart Cinema, along with ancillary support spaces, workspaces, collaboration areas and training and meetings rooms for 250 staff, researchers, partners and collaborators.
This research hub is in Bristol’s original innovation district and the project honours the industrial history of the site while looking forward to help define a new future.
Camden Council has given Listed Building Consent for the addition of two plant enclosures to the roof of Sir Denys Lasdun’s Grade II* listed Institute of Education (IoE) building at 20 Bedford Way.
Developed for the University of London (UoL), the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and University College London (UCL), known collectively as The Bloomsbury Heat and Power Consortium, the project is central to the Consortium’s initiative to decarbonise its southern campus.
The Consortium’s buildings are currently supplied by 20-year-old gas CHP engines, 50-year-old gas and oil-fired boilers and distribution pipework – some of which are over 80 years old. The primary driver of the project is to upgrade, enhance and extend the Consortium’s decarbonisation initiative through replacing the life-expired gas and oil-fired heat generation plant, to deliver a highly flexible and efficient low carbon scheme capable of delivering significant fuel cost and carbon savings to its customers through real time optimisation of system performance.
AHMM’s brief was to create two plant enclosures for IoE’s roof which would sit comfortably within the architecture of the Grade II* listed building. The enclosure will minimise the visibility of sixteen chillers and four compressors plus transformer and switch rooms distributed along the two central roof areas of the building, from street level.
The primary goal of the proposed upgrade is to significantly decarbonise the university’s heating, with the eventual aim of complete decarbonisation of the UoL’s southern campus within the next decade, enabling consortium members and the broader estate to meet their Net Zero Carbon targets.
Planning consent has been granted for a major design enhancement to Lansdowne House, incorporating a striking double-height auditorium, for lead tenant Blackstone, providing a new 250-person space which will serve as a dynamic hub for events and collaboration.
Located at the southern end of Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London, the landmark Lansdowne House site is being transformed with a new high quality and sustainable commercial building providing 10 storeys of premium office space with retail and restaurants on the ground floor.
The revised scheme includes a forward extension of two storeys to the façade and a lengthened top canopy, seamlessly integrating the new auditorium with the main office building and defines two new generous outdoor rooms. The increased transparency of the central bays will showcase unrivalled views across Berkeley Square.
The new building is designed to last for generations to come, and to achieve the highest possible standards for sustainability and wellbeing, targeting BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum.
Our Fit Out // Rip Out report has been shortlisted for the AJ100 Sustainability Initiative of the Year Award.
Examining the wasteful nature of Cat A fit out within the design, construction and marketing of speculative office the report quantifies the carbon impacts of the current approach and interrogates the significance of tenant churn, a process currently overlooked by existing accounting methods.
AHMM explored the potential carbon impacts by examining four of our own commercial buildings; each representing a different model of BCO verifiable Cat A fit out. Late-stage model data was used to quantify the elements within each fit-out model, with upfront carbon emissions calculated for each scenario.
The report highlights the considerable discrepancy between typical whole life carbon models and the reality of speculative office space. So, while acknowledging the complexity of the commercial real estate ecosystem, Fit Out // Rip Out calls for stakeholders to challenge the current system and proposes steps to drive an industry wide movement towards a more provident status quo.
On Thursday 29 May the team for No1 Blackhorse Lane celebrated the topping out of the building at a ceremony on site with the client Morro, and wider project team.
The redevelopment of the site, previously home to The Standard public house, located opposite Blackhorse Lane station will deliver innovative co-living accommodation for 321 residential apartments with a series of shared residential amenity spaces, ground floor public café, ground floor retail unit and a purpose-built music and comedy venue.
The new building presents a different urban approach to a key junction in the area with a series of stepped planted terraces that seeks to mediate between the established low rise residential buildings along Forest Road to the east and the newer taller buildings of the Blackhorse Lane Masterplan to the west.
The project is due to complete at the end of 2025.
AHMM is organising four events for London Festival of Architecture (LFA), the month-long celebration of architecture taking place every June. This year’s theme is ‘Voices’
On 05 June AHMM is organising an Open Studio afternoon for 80+ young people aged 15-18 interested in studying architecture, complete with explorations of AHMM’s home a sustainability mini-lecture, modelshop tours and opportunity to meet architects and find out about their routes into the profession. Young people are key to the future of the city, and this year’s programme includes activity to celebrate emerging voices and creativity, alongside opportunities to support the next generation to upskill, learn and feel empowered.
On the same day, AHMM is also joining other practices across Clerkenwell and opening our doors to the public as part of the Clerkenwell and Shoreditch Studio Late programme. Our Studio Late celebrates our activities supporting young people, including our Summer School, young people from Chickenshed inclusive theatre, mentoring sessions with Narrative Practice, ‘Stepping Stones’ an exhibition of work from the new RIBA EDI national work experience programme and an appearance from the Creative Dimension Trust’s ‘Human Tassel’. For more information and to book please visit here.
On 11 June there will be an exploration of Tower Hamlets Town Hall with AHMM’s Sam Scott and Ben Leach joined by community heritage practitioner Rav Singh and members of the Tower Hamlets Council team. Recently awarded RIBA London Building of the Year, Tower Hamlets Town Hall encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets council, consolidating several of the council’s offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel. On this tour visitors will get the opportunity to see behind the scenes of the town hall and hear about the building’s history, conservation and transformation, adding their own voice to the historic site and neighbourhood. For more information and to book onto the tour please visit here.
AHMM will also be part of the Norton Folgate ‘Building by Building’ tour on the 24 June as one of the five architecture firms who collaborated on the masterplan. Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, this office led development comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm. This tour is fully booked.
Claire Pollock, AHMM’s Partnerships Lead is an LFA mentor this year and she has selected her highlights within the festival programme Claire Pollock - London Festival of Architecture
Last week Bristol City Council approved the first part of a masterplan vision that re-imagines an area known as Quakers Friars in central Bristol as a new cultural destination.
Emerging from the original masterplan vision, this project, developed for Bristol Alliance Partnerships, regenerates the ground and first floor of the Philadelphia Street city block which is made up of 4 residential buildings sitting atop a podium of retail, leisure and car parking, converting the existing retail units into a new diverse mix of uses including shops and flexible workspace, supporting the new vision objectives for Quakers Friars.
AHMM’s design proposals have been developed iteratively, taking into account requirements of prospective commercial tenants at first floor level and retail tenants at street level. The materials and finishes have been carefully selected, recognising that a variety of components make up the existing elevation.
Last Friday afternoon, 16 May, the St Luke’s Multicultural Women’s Group visited AHMM’s Morelands office to meet some of our architect team and find out more about how the practice works. The group went for a tour around our modelshop followed by some mindfulness sketching on our rooftop and participated in a Virtual Reality demonstration.
The Women’s Multicultural club at St Luke’s welcomes women of all ages and backgrounds to come together to de-stress and connect with like-minded women from the area.
AHMM’s Partnerships group has been a corporate supporter of St Luke’s for more than nine years providing financial support as well as workshops, food bank donations and supporting their Job Club programme, providing one-to-one support to people in the local community who are searching for work.
Norton Folgate, Arthur Stanley House and Tower Hamlets Town Hall are all finalists in this year’s Building London Planning Awards in the Best Retrofit, Best New Place to Work and Best Borough-Led Project categories respectively.
Norton Folgate sits within the Elder Street Conservation Area and occupies a prominent position between the City of London and Shoreditch. Rather than applying a blanket strategy, the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained buildings, utilising restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention. The project provides for different office types and floor plate sizes, including work ready spaces, to attract a range of tenants from more established law and creative firms to tenants from the emerging TMT sector and local SMEs. Going beyond delivering commercial office space, the project also creates a network of spaces which give amenity and allow spatial choices for people to walk, meet, sit and experience this layered and rich part of London. New routes encourage links to the City and the emerging scheme at the Bishopsgate Goods Yard.
Located within the Charlotte Street Conservation Area, Arthur Stanley House reinvents a decaying 1960s block originally designed by TP Bennett Architects in Fitzrovia, London, to provide 10 floors of modern office accommodation and a new residential building. The new scheme, which retains more than 70% of the existing fabric, has refurbished the brickwork, added depth to the façade with generous stone reveals, and replaced the existing windows with new high quality triple glazing meeting modern standards while maintaining slim profiles typical of the Fitzrovia character. The design of Arthur Stanley House celebrates the original building alongside its 21st century additions and complements the conversation area. New and old are left exposed within the floorplates giving a uniqueness not normally found in commercial floor space.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, consolidating several of the council's offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel. Responding to key eras of the existing building's development, between 1757 and 1906, the design utilises architectural characteristics inherent in each to enrich the new internal environment. The Georgian formality of the external facades has been retained, the restored brickwork creating a backdrop to the council's activities within the new extension.
All finalist projects will be visited by the judges with the winners announced at the annual awards ceremony in October.
City of London Corporation has approved the sustainability-led transformation of 1 Moor Lane into 300,000 square feet of new grade-A offices set in a revitalised public realm.
The AHMM designed redevelopment of the building formerly known as Milton Gate for developer Brookfield Properties will increase the amount of office space by around 50% and appeal to modern occupiers looking for large, efficient floorplates and out-standing ESG credentials. Extensive landscaped terraces will provide flexible outdoor amenity across all floors with impressive City views, while cycle storage, changing and wellness facilities support active commuting.
By taking a retrofit-first approach, the project will retain 70% of the original structure, significantly reducing its embodied carbon and environment impact. The all-electric building will be net zero in operation and is expected to achieve EPC A, BREEAM Outstanding and NABERS 5* certification upon completion.
Dan Scanlon, President of Brookfield Properties, UK commented “We appreciate the support and positive feedback from the City of London and neighbouring occupiers which have shaped our proposals at 1 Moor Lane. We expect the transformation of 1 Moor Lane to create a new destination office of wide appeal.”
Simon Allford, Founding Director of AHMM added “1 Moor Lane is the result of Brookfield Properties and AHMM’s shared ambition to create an innovative, low carbon reinvention of an existing building. The activated ground floor engages with the historic streetscape, whilst the generous office volumes above open onto cascading balconies and verdant terraces, delivering a new green edge to the city’s historic skyline.”
Last week North Somerset Council approved proposals for the regeneration of the Uphill Grange Estate located on the edge of Uphill village close to Weston-Super-Mare.
With a rich history, the Estate has stood vacant for several years, becoming dilapidated and in urgent need of a new use to secure its repair and long-term maintenance. The new proposals, developed for Ferrer Projects, will comprehensively restore and convert the Grade II listed Mansion into 15 luxury apartments, provide 10 new residential homes to the north of the walled garden, re-using, where possible, material from the existing wall to reinstate the historic garden boundary and refurbish the existing Coach House and Bothy into a new single residential dwelling.
The landscape proposals conserve the unregistered park and garden, committing to protecting the existing woodland and enhancing the ecological value of the estate for the long-term through careful landscaping and new planting.
Last night, Tuesday 13 May, Soho Place and Tower Hamlets Town Hall both won RIBA London Awards, with Tower Hamlets Town Hall being named London Building of the Year.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, consolidating several of the council’s offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel. Responding to key eras of the existing building’s development, between 1757 and 1906, the design utilises architectural characteristics inherent in each to enrich the new internal environment. The Georgian formality of the external facades has been retained, the restored brickwork creating a backdrop to the council’s activities within the new extension.
Judges commented “The scheme boldly reinvents the dilapidated and derelict Grade II listed former hospital buildings, satisfying the brief by overlaying it on the existing spaces and adding a substantial new extension. The approach is at once sensitive and brave, creating a modern, civic home for council administration, local services and democracy.”
Soho Place is a vast urban jigsaw that builds on the arrival of the Elizabeth Line to bolster the regeneration of Oxford Street. It comprises two mixed-use buildings framing a new civic plaza, Soho Place. The north building, 1 Soho Place, is a ten-storey, two tier building housing 33,000 sqft of retail space across three floors and 192,000 sqft of office accommodation across ten floors. The south building, 2 & 4 Soho Place, is a nine-storey building, the lower volume containing the first new-build West End theatre to open in 50 years, with 18,000 sqft of independent office space.
Both projects will now be considered for an RIBA National Award.
Last night, Thursday 8 May, One Portwall Square received an RIBA South West Award.
One Portwall Square is a simple yet sophisticated, highly energy-efficient office development that sets a new benchmark for commercial offices in Bristol. The scheme replaces a disused building, originally part of 100 Temple Street designed by John Wells-Thorpe, with a new six storey freestanding office set back from Portwall Lane by a lively pocket square.
The building delivers new levels of innovation, sustainability and office design, combining modern and flexible floorplates with generous light and space, and maximising occupant comfort and amenity for staff attraction and retention.
The judges commented “The bold design – with south facing balconies, striking use of colour, a robust and serviceable material palette of concrete, glass, galvanised ducts and sharp timber panelling, and generous spaces – is delightful, distinctive and functional. The building is also finely detailed throughout, with very well-considered use of building systems, materials and finishes, such as the carpet that is woven from recycled synthetic materials.”
The project will now be considered for an RIBA National Award.
Last night, Wednesday 7 May, Norton Folgate received an American Institute of Architects UK Excellence in Design Award in the Outstanding Adaptive Reuse category at their annual awards ceremony.
Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, this office led development comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm.
The architect team led by AHMM and including DSDHA, East, Morris + Company and Stanton Williams, employed a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention to breathe new life into the architecture with sensitively designed new buildings.
Norton Folgate is a unique destination whose character the team has worked hard to preserve, and provides a sense of history within a modern sustainable workplace for businesses of all sectors and sizes.
AHMM’s Fit Out // Rip Out report has been shortlisted in the Sustainability Initiative category of this year’s Property Week Awards.
The Fit Out // Rip Out report challenges the industry standard approach to the development, marketing and management of speculative office space, while proposing an ambitious new approach to evaluating the whole life carbon impacts of office buildings. The significance of tenant churn is also interrogated as a contributor to whole life building carbon emissions which is currently missed by existing accounting methods; this research aims to disrupt the current model.
Ella Smith, Building Performance Analyst at AHMM, was the lead researcher, and co-authored the report with Dr Craig Robertson, AHMM’s Head of Sustainability. The research is a continuation of AHMM’s commitment to developing a viable model for delivering Net Zero buildings within a commercial context and uses real-world projects for maximum relevance and impact.
Winners will be announced at the Property Week Awards party on the 1st of July.
Building C at Assembly Bristol has received a South of England and South Wales BCO award in the Innovation category.
Transforming a long vacant site adjacent to the city’s inner circuit road and William Jessop’s Floating Harbour, the Assembly Bristol campus is anchored around a waterfront park, creating a new urban place that positively engages with the city, brings colour to the skyline and links the waterside with a restored historic street, Cheese Lane.
Providing a variety of commercial floorplates, with an assortment of retail, restaurant and flexible units at ground level, a hierarchy of three buildings shapes the space and frame a connecting vista from Pip and Jay Church to the water’s edge.
Building A, now the Bristol headquarters of BT, is long and narrow, holding the street edge and protecting the waterfront park from the clamour of traffic. Building B is the smaller of the trio, enjoying a gentle waterside setting whilst Building C brings sculptural height over the public realm.
All regional award winners will now be considered for a BCO National Award.
Norton Folgate has received a London BCO Award in the Refurbished/Recycled Workplace category.
Occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe, a short walk from Liverpool Street Station, this office led development is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and the architect team led by AHMM and including DSDHA, East, Morris + Company and Stanton Williams. The project comprises three urban blocks with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings and new public realm.
Rather than applying a blanket strategy, the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention to breathe new life into the architecture with sensitively designed new buildings. It sets new standards for retrofit, refurbishment, and redevelopment in central London, and acts as a blueprint for reusing building fabric.
All regional award winners will now be considered for a BCO National Award.
Works are in progress at 40 Argyll Street, the refurbishment of the office element of the redeveloped Dickins and Jones Department store, a Grade II listed building within the Regent Street Conservation Area.
Extensive works, carried out by contractor Mace, include three floors of Cat A fit-out, new end-of-journey facilities, and a rooftop terrace and sky room pavilion, all while the building remains operational.
With a strong commitment to sustainable delivery, 40 Argyll Street is targeting an upfront carbon target of A1 to A5 which is below 200 kgCO2e/m, BREEAM ‘Excellent’, WELL Enabled ‘Gold’ and NABERS rating of 4.5*.
This landmark project will be setting new standards in low-carbon, high-performance workspaces.
The redevelopment of the former London Chest Hospital site in Bethnal Green into a successful community of 274 new homes has been shortlisted for a 2025 Housing Design Award in the unbuilt category alongside Urbanest Battersea, a highly sustainable PassivHaus development providing modern accommodation for 852 students opposite the new Battersea Power Station development, which is shortlisted in the built category.
Developed for Latimer, the development arm of Clarion Housing Group, the refurbishment will include the Grade II listed main hospital building, the Sanitary Tower, and the South Wing, which are all currently on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register. In addition, five new buildings ranging from five to nine storeys will be constructed, providing carefully designed new housing of which 50% will be affordable housing (by habitable home), with a significant proportion (70%) allocated for Social Rent. The Hospital’s historic grounds will be opened to the public for the first time in nearly a decade with 1,140 square metres of open space, and the veteran Mulberry tree on site, which is reputed to be the oldest tree in the East End, will remain in its original location, aligning with community and environmental priorities.
Led by private student accommodation provides Urbanest, Urbanest Battersea comprises of three student buildings and a dedicated commercial building and is the first major PassivHaus student housing development in London. The buildings, ranging in height from 11 to 19 storeys, step in height and twist to open to key views with a unifying base around courtyard gardens, creating a varied silhouette. Bold colours and glazed terracotta facades draw on the industrial heritage of the site and provide a strong marker within the neighbourhood. Significant improvements to the surrounding public realm and an improved connection and accessibility to Battersea Park will draw people into the site, becoming a catalyst for the regeneration of the wider area.
Assessment will take place over the next few months, with judges visiting each built shortlisted project before the announcement of the winners at the annual awards ceremony in early autumn.
Arthur Stanley House has won a 2025 Civic Trust Award.
Located within the Charlotte Street Conservation Area, this project has reinvented a decaying 1960s block in Fitzrovia, London. It was originally designed by TP Bennett Architects, part of the Middlesex Hospital estate, as a centre specialising in physiotherapy with wards and consultation rooms on the upper floors and a hydrotherapy pool in the basement. The hospital trust relocated in 2005 leaving the building vacant and in decline. The project has reinvented it to provide eight floors of modern office accommodation and a new residential building along Tottenham Mews.
The new scheme, which retains more than 70% of the existing fabric, has refurbished the brickwork, added depth to the façade with generous stone reveals, and replaced the existing windows with new high quality triple glazing meeting modern standards while maintaining slim profiles typical of the Fitzrovia character.
The design of Arthur Stanley House celebrates the original building alongside its 21st century additions and complements the conservation area which in parts is fragmented with post-war and recent large-scale developments interspersed with lower scale, historic terraces.
New and old is left exposed within the floorplates to represent the building’s development over a 60-year period, repurposing it for a new generation by creating a design led space for the next 60 years. Additionally, the characterful floorplates give a uniqueness not normally found in commercial floor space.
Last Friday, 21 March, members from St Luke’s Community Centre Multicultural Women’s group and the Men’s Shed over 55s visited AHMM’s 1 Broadgate with Associate Tom Wells for a tour of the building site.
It was a fantastic opportunity to show people living close to our offices one of our buildings – being created in their neighbourhood. It was also the first time that most of the group had had a chance to go onto a building site.
The Women’s Multicultural club at St Luke’s welcomes women of all ages and backgrounds to come together to de-stress and connect with like-minded women from the area. While the Men’s Shed is a relaxing space for men aged 55 and over to share interests, offering a programme of activities and trips out and about.
AHMM’s Partnerships group has been a corporate supporter of St Luke’s for more than nine years providing financial support as well as workshops, food bank donations and supporting their Job Club programme, providing one-to-one support to people in the local community who are searching for work.
AHMM’s Paul Monaghan and Susie Le Good featured in the BBC’s new documentary about Sir Ken Dodd.
Looking back at the life of the private man behind one of Britain’s greatest comic geniuses, Paul and Susie discussed the plans for the Sir Ken Dodd Happiness, which received planning from Liverpool City Council late last year.
A partnership between the Royal Court Liverpool Trust, The Comedy Trust and The Ken Dodd Charitable Foundation, the new building will celebrate all forms of comedy and humour and provide opportunities for all to take part in a wide range of programmes, workshops and sessions with comedy, humour, health and wellbeing at the heart. A main element of The Happiness Centre will be a dedicated, permanent exhibition space to celebrate the life of Liverpool icon Sir Ken Dodd, charting his remarkable career as comedian, singer, actor and entertainer and his enduring impact on the comedy scene.
You can watch the documentary on the BBC website.
Laura Stephenson, Director at AHMM, will be presenting Norton Folgate, the 2024 Brick Award Supreme winner, at Brick Works London on 27 March at Ibstock’s I-Studio in Clerkenwell, London.
Norton Folgate comprises three urban blocks occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings, and new public realm. Delivered by British Land and an architect team led by AHMM, the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and faced retention. It sets new standards for retrofit and refurbishment, and redevelopment in central London, and acts as a blueprint for reusing building fabric.
Brick Works are a series of relaxed and highly informative evenings, which offer practitioners and brick enthusiasts the opportunity to explore examples of contemporary brick architecture and network with peers.
For more information and to purchase tickets please visit here.
AHMM is part of the winning design team appointed to shape a Masterplan Framework for the University of Leeds main campus that will articulate the University’s future vision and drive a long-term programme of transformation.
Led by Prior + Partners, the multi-disciplinary design team brings diverse expertise from across the university and design sector to deliver a Masterplan Framework that will become a crucial tool for future-proofing the University, ensuring the campus environment and experience supports the evolving needs of students, Faculty, Facilities Directorate staff, and visitors for decades to come.
The appointment forms part of the University’s wider Campus Reimagined project, which seeks to look at the campus through the lens of lived experience and not just a set of buildings. As part of this, the University is re-framing how the campus works as a community and introducing a new way of thinking and linking through a new decision-making process. This ties closely with the ongoing engagement programme that will be a core principle throughout the Masterplan Framework process, where the outputs will be closely guided by the evidence and dialogue with the University’s staff and students.
The commission will run for 18 months, with a programme of engagement and an iterative design process running throughout.
The design team led by Prior + Partners is made of nine consultancies, including: AHMM, DNCO, Alan Baxter Ltd, Expedition, Gardiner & Theobald, Evolve Digital Workplaces and Kate McLaren Design, along with Leeds-based practice Re-form Landscape Architecture and Civic Engineers.
On Saturday 15 March the AHMM partnerships education group supported the RIBA Learning X Beyond the Box Festival of the Future at 66 Portland Place.
Held over two days, the festival welcomed more than 2,000 people through the doors and brought together 20+ organisations with the aim to inspire the next generation of city makers through a creative and practical program for all backgrounds.
Children, young people and adults had the opportunity to pick from a range of events including everything from AI in architecture workshops and industry debates to carpentry workshops and ground design tasks to meeting with careers, funding, and work experience support providers to explore different routes to becoming an architect.
The AHMM workshop showcased our annual AHMM summer school inviting festival visitors to contribute to a collaborative drawing exploring play spaces of the future, co-organised with four Summer School Alumni.
AHMM were also Festival sponsors, providing financial support for the event.
On Wednesday 12 March Tower Hamlets Council approved proposals for a major new life sciences building adjacent to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, London.
Developed for Lateral, the new 10,200 square meter building on Cavell Street will provide market-leading, flexible lab space that aims to be an exemplar for London, with subdivisible, reconfigurable floorplates and generous ceiling heights that will cater for a range of tenants demands and ensure the buildings longevity.
Driven by a contextual response to the lower rise buildings of the Ford Square and Sidney Square Conservation Area and the emerging cluster of taller buildings immediately to the east and west of the site, the building is formed of two volumes, creating varied terraces providing external amenity to upper levels.
An enhanced public realm creates a new public connection through the site, increasing local permeability and linking the public highway on Cavell Street to the west with Red Lion Row the wider Silk District development to the east. This route will also serve as the main entrance to the building, the knowledge centre, and provides a visual connection to the incubator space putting science on display to local residents and visitors.
The project has high ambitions for sustainable design, health and well-being and low carbon design solutions. The building will target BREEAM Excellent and an EPC rating of A as well as significantly reducing embodied and operational carbon through the refinement of key building components.
The building will be occupied by Queen Mary University of London, Barts Life Sciences and Barts Health NHS Trust as the new Queen Mary BioEnterprises Innovation Centre, delivering 40,000 square feet of flagship incubator space as part of the new Whitechapel Life Sciences District.
AHMM are sponsoring one of the scholarships in Clarion Housing Group’s new scholarship programme as part of the William Sutton Prize to mark the organisation’s 125th anniversary.
The new initiative has been developed to increase diversity in architecture and sustainability, providing funding to support students from low-income households and social housing backgrounds through their degree courses.
Working with the London Neighbourhood Scholarship Trust, Clarion will offer three William Sutton Prize Scholarships to students of architecture from underrepresented backgrounds living in London. AHMM hopes that by sponsoring one of these scholarships the new programme will help increase diversity and level the playing field for young people entering the profession.
In addition to funding, scholars will also benefit from a tailored package of career support, including mentorship, internships and work experience opportunities facilitated by jobs and training experts within Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group.
The scholarships sit alongside the prestigious William Sutton Prize which seeks innovative and bold solutions to tackle some of society’s most urgent challenges.
To find out more about The William Sutton Prize or to apply for one of the scholarships please visit here.
AHMM are working with Latimer, the development arm of Clarion Housing Group to deliver new homes at Twyford Abbey and the Former London Chest Hospital.
In February half term secondary students from schools across London came to our Morelands office to take part in three education programmes AHMM supports.
As part of their year-long programme with Open City’s Accelerate, five students attended three days of architecture workshops exploring and developing their own designs for the Smithfield Market site. Run by Open City, a charity which empowers communities to learn about, feel connected to, and have a role in shaping places where they live, the programme spans an academic year and gives an opportunity to students who are keen to explore whether a potential career in the built environment sector would be right for them.
Eight students attended a design development day to progress their ideas for a pavilion to be built this summer in the grounds of the William Morris Galley as part of Beyond the Box’s People’s Pavilion. Beyond the Box is a London based creative practice working with communities across the UK to co-produce creative and cultural experiences, to better understand their needs, and lived experiences, helping them find their voice and actively participate in shaping their future.
We also ran, for the second time, a three-day work experience programme as part of the new RIBA EDI national work experience programme and also attended as social value commitments for our Cricklewood and One Victoria Street projects.
On Wednesday 05 March, Southwark Council approved proposals for the Southwark Over Station Development on the corner of Blackfriars and The Cut in Southwark, London.
Developed for Helical and Places for London, the scheme includes the provision of 429 student bedrooms above the existing Southwark Tube station, and a separate affordable housing building providing 44 affordable apartments, on the other side of Joan Street.
The existing station entrance will be carefully integrated at the base of the new building, flanked by new retail spaces, and improved landscape to the public realm. The two buildings share an architectural language of contrasting horizontal and vertical expression, with a consistent tonal palette and curved corners, which reinforces their connection whilst preserving their individual identities.
The scheme will deliver a significant new building in a landmark location, offering a vibrant and exciting environment for students and local residents to live, learn and socialise.
On Tuesday 04 March Westminster Council granted planning for the redevelopment of One Knightsbridge Green, the site of an underutilised 1950’s modernist office building located on a highly prominent site in The City of Westminster, London.
Developed for Berkeley Estate Asset Management the scheme retains over 50% of the existing post war office structure and offers two types of office spaces, each with its own unique character. The scheme also seeks to re-use over 80% of the existing materials on site in the new development as part of our Circular Economy approach and Westminster’s emerging Sustainability policies.
The Raphael Street office, retrofitted into the existing structure with a new facade, will provide smaller scale, shallow-plan office space suitable for smaller businesses and start -ups. The façade of this building takes inspiration from the mid-century modernist architecture of the existing structure.
A new building facing Knightsbridge Green, built over an existing basement, will offer larger floorplates and flexible open-plan workspace. This building responds more directly to the conservation context of Brompton Road and its neighbour Harrods. The proposals also aim to repair the townscape with the new building creating a continuous street frontage along Brompton Road and a new frontage addressing Knightsbridge Green designed with a hierarchical projecting bay structure, clad in glazed terracotta.
Both buildings will attract a wide variety of occupants, helping to diversify the office market in Knightsbridge and contribute to the wider business and international shopping district.
New retail at ground level will promote a better street front to Brompton Rd whilst a retained public house, restaurant and post office function will enhance and activate Raphael Street. New public realm including a new pocket park sitting between the two offices on Raphael Street will provide a neighbourhood atmosphere for the local community and visitors alike.
On Thursday 27 February the team for the Angel Square celebrated the topping out of the building at a ceremony on site with the client, Tishman Speyer, the contractor, McLaren and the wider project team.
Reinventing a prominent corner site in Islington, the mixed-use office led development incorporates new active frontages, builds over an existing underground station and repositions a public house while retaining 80% of the existing early 90s postmodern concrete structure. The existing internal structural grid also informs the facade design with articulated solid columns and ledges, supplemented by profiled metal spandrel panels and glazed terracotta and pre-cast concrete elements at ground floor.
The scheme is due to complete in November 2025.
Yesterday, Wednesday 26 February, the team for Plot 6, Deptford Landings celebrated the topping out of the scheme at a ceremony on site with the Mayor of Lewisham, the client, Peabody, main contractor Higgins Partnerships and wider project team.
Providing 189 low-energy affordable homes for local people, Plot 6 Deptford Landings is part of the ongoing regeneration of the former industrial site in southeast London, led by Lendlease.
The fully affordable development, designed by AHMM, will include 130 homes for social rent and 59 homes for shared ownership, providing housing opportunities for local people, including those on the council’s waiting list. Residents will enjoy carefully designed living spaces across three eight-storey buildings, complete with private balconies, a landscaped courtyard, and large roof terraces.
The development is AHMM’s first Passivhaus residential project, providing energy-efficient homes for residents, with drastically reduced energy bills, improved comfort, and enhanced air quality.
The scheme is due to complete in summer 2026
One Portwall Square has been shortlisted for an RIBA 2025 South West Award.
A simple yet sophisticated, highly energy-efficient office development, One Portwall Square sets a new benchmark for commercial offices in Bristol. The scheme replaces a disused building, originally part of 100 Temple Street designed by John Wells-Thorpe, with a new six storey freestanding office set back from Portwall Lane by a lively pocket square.
Responding to the latest Grade A office standards, the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to maximise occupant comfort and amenity for staff attraction and retention, the building delivers new levels of innovation, sustainability and office design, combining modern and flexible floorplates with generous light and space.
The outcome is an exemplary commercial building that puts people, place, design and sustainability first. In 2022 it became the new base for the AHMM Bristol office, with the practice letting the ground and first floor of the building.
All shortlisted projects will be visited by the judges over the next month, with regional award winners announced in May. Regional award winners will then be considered for a national award.
Four AHMM projects has been shortlisted for an RIBA 2025 London Award.
Tower Hamlets Town Hall encompasses the restoration of the Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital building with the addition of a new build extension as the new home for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, consolidating several of the council’s offices into one, more accessible location in Whitechapel. Responding to key eras of the existing building’s development, between 1757 and 1906, the design utilises architectural characteristics inherent in each to enrich the new internal environment. The Georgian formality of the external facades has been retained, the restored brickwork creating a backdrop to the council’s activities within the new extension.
10 Lewis Cubitt Square is a mixed-use building and a key piece of King’s Cross Central, completing an area of the developing King’s Cross Central neighbourhood and complementing an established public realm. As such, it has an important role as a civic ‘backdrop’ and sits next to the primary retail offering at Coal Drops Yard and residential neighbours in the Gasholder Triplets. To the north, Handyside Street separates Lewis Cubitt Square which sits against the new building.
Soho Place is a vast urban jigsaw that builds on the arrival of the Elizabeth Line to bolster the regeneration of Oxford Street. It comprises two mixed-use buildings framing a new civic plaza, Soho Place. The north building, 1 Soho Place, is a ten-storey, two tier building housing 33,000 sqft of retail space across three floors and 192,000 sqft of office accommodation across ten floors. The south building, 2 & 4 Soho Place, is a nine-storey building, the lower volume containing the first new-build West End theatre to open in 50 years, with 18,000 sqft of independent office space.
1 Berkeley Street creates a vibrant 210,000 sqft mixed-use development with offices, retail and the first 1 Hotel outside north America. Located opposite The Ritz Hotel on Piccadilly, the project involves reusing two 1970s buildings, retaining 81% of the existing frame and façade elements along the two main elevations while expanding them with three new extensions: a two-storey rooftop extension, a new pavilion at the corner of Dover Street, and an annex building in Dover Yard. The extension at the corner of Piccadilly and Dover Street reinstates the historic building line and provides an identity to this prominent corner while giving the current buildings much-needed enhancements to both the performance and aesthetics.
All shortlisted projects will be visited by the judges over the next month, with regional award winners announced in May. Regional award winners will then be considered for a national award.
Urbanest Battersea, developed for leading central London student accommodation provider urbanest, has successfully achieved Passivhaus standard accreditation. The certification from the Passivhaus institute makes it the largest Passivhaus building in the UK and the eighth largest in the world, which stands as a testament to the exceptional collaboration and combined expertise of the core project team of urbanest, AHMM, Mace and Henriksen Studio.
Situated close to the iconic Battersea Power Station, urbanest Battersea provides purpose-built, carefully designed, energy efficient accommodation for 853 students. This achievement also establishes it as the largest student dormitory / university building designed to Passivhaus standards in Europe, and the third largest in the world after UTSC in Canada and the Cornell Tower in New York.
Situated at the northern edge of the Battersea Design and Tech Quarter masterplan, the four-block development steps up in height from 11 to 19 storeys, serving as a gateway into the site. Its glazed terracotta facades in a vibrant colour palette of red, green and blue also reflect the site’s industrial heritage. Opened to students last September, urbanest Battersea features ensuite and studio accommodation and boasts a cinema room, gym and roof terraces with views across the city.
Rendering conventional heating systems unnecessary, the low-energy construction concept makes efficient use of the sun, internal heat sources and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. This allows for space heating and cooling related energy savings of up to 90% compared with typical buildings and over 75% compared to average new builds.
Having undergone stringent airtightness testing, the building was also designed with great attention to all relevant construction detail thus reducing thermal bridges as much as possible. High-performance opaque and transparent façade elements have been used in order to assure a comfortable interior environment. The building was also delivered to BREEAM 2018 Outstanding standard.
A new community building and associated landscape located in Highbridge for Sedgemoor Community Partnerships (SCP) has received planning permission from Burnham-On-Sea & Highbridge Town Council.
The Morland Community Hub comprises a community hall which is used by several community groups including the Food Bank, Luncheon Club, Brownies, Youth clubs, wellbeing clubs and many more for club meetings, events, workshops and various community projects. A separate workshop accommodates the wood working activities of SHED, based on the successful national Men’s Shed model where members come together to socialise and do practical work. The buildings that accommodate these various activities have become in constant need of repair and are no longer fit for purpose. Replacing these decaying structures with a new multi-use building will secure for the community, the long-term benefit that Morland Community Hub provides.
The SCP Trustees have a mission to create an accessible community focal point that provides a comfortable and welcoming venue for all with a much-needed programme of use. The new community building will meet the needs of the current users but will be flexible enough to accommodate a myriad of future user groups.
The building design places emphasis on sustainable design and construction, renewable energy and being contextually responsive. The external appearance of the building is presented as three (connected) buildings, expressed by their pitched roofs, clad in charred timber. Colour and natural timber will be used to accent particular features on the elevations, around window frame and entrance door reveals. To animate the elevations facing the street and approach, spaces for artwork will take the place of window openings.
In support of the Sedgemoor Community Partnership’s vision for the Morland Community Hub, AHMM along with Avalon, Arup, HT Ecology, Advanced Arboriculture and SLR have developed and prepared the planning application pro bono.
Four AHMM projects have been selected as finalists for the 2025 British Council of Offices (BCO) Awards. Providing public recognition for design quality and a benchmark for excellence in workplaces, these awards acknowledge innovation and focus external attention on examples of best practice.
Norton Folgate, a finalist in the Refurbished / Recycled Workplace category, comprises three urban blocks occupying a prominent position on the City Fringe with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings, and new public realm. Delivered by British Land and an architect team led by AHMM, the masterplan employs a building-by-building approach to the retained existing buildings using restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling and façade retention. It sets new standards for retrofit, refurbishment, and redevelopment in central London, and acts as a blueprint for reusing building fabric, which is a necessity in the built environment industry’s approach to tackling the climate crisis.
Assembly Bristol, a finalist in the Commercial Workplace category, transforms a long vacant site adjacent to Bristol city’s inner circuit road and William Jessop’s Floating Harbour. Anchored around a waterfront park, the Assembly Bristol campus creates a new urban place that positively engages with the city, brings colour to the skyline, and links the waterside with a restored historic street, Cheese Lane. Three buildings unify the campus while each possessing a character of its own. Building A, now the Bristol headquarters of BT, is long and narrow, holding the street edge. Building B is the smaller of the trio, enjoying a gentle waterside setting, while Building C brings sculptural height over the public realm.
2 Ruskin Square, a finalist in the Corporate Workplace category, is a ten-storey office development in East Croydon, part of the Stanhope and Schroders masterplan which connects East Croydon station to the town centre. As the new HQ for the Home Office, the building brings together three offices currently spread across Croydon to one location. The project has achieved ambitious environmental and social goals which are being collaboratively addressed with the tenants. It has been designed for adaptability and re-use, and sought to minimise embodied carbon and resource use both in construction and operational energy as a Design for Performance (NABERS UK) pioneer project.
80 Goswell Road, a finalist in the Fit Out category, is a four storey office building set within the creative heart of Clerkenwell, London. As part of this full-service interior refurbishment project, AHMM provided workplace planning strategy, interior architecture, colour, material and finishes design, and FF&E selection. Organising the interior spaces around the idea of an “Architectural Ribbon”, utilitarian functions such as the phonebooths, kitchenette, and printer alcove have been consolidated into a single monolithic volume within the floorplate, resulting in an extraordinary amount of open, flexible floorspace in an otherwise compact site footprint.
Regional judging will take place across January and February with judges visiting the finalist projects, followed by regional award winners being announced during the spring
Proposals to redevelop The Galleries Shopping Centre to create a residential and commercial led mixed-use development received planning permission from Bristol City Council.
Developed for Deeley Freed with La Salle, the scheme has seen the formation of a vibrant mixed set of uses, including retail, leisure, 450 new homes, office space and purpose built student accommodation for up to 750 students, all set against the backdrop of a new and active public realm.
The scheme has been shaped by a number of significant existing physical constraints. These include the retention of the existing basement and structure, through to incorporation and celebration of heritage assets within, and surrounding the site. These factors, together with Bristol City Council policy, and the contextually rich setting of the site, has helped to inform mass and scale to form a diverse masterplan, one that sets a benchmark for future development within the City.
Stephen Taylor, Director at AHMM said “A unanimous vote at planning committee is a fantastic endorsement for The Galleries redevelopment project. This decision illustrates the city’s support for the much-needed redevelopment of the Broadmead area and sends a positive message that Bristol is open for business.
The existing multistorey car park and inward facing shopping centre was inflexibly designed for single use and is therefore unable to support the radical change that is needed to create a new neighbourhood. We have retained the ground floor, basement and sub-structure to make carbon savings where possible, and from that we have created a new, truly mixed-use scheme, that will revitalise the area and bring long term benefits to the city.”
Norton Folgate has been shortlisted in the Creative Retrofit category in this year’s Pineapple Awards.
Comprising three urban blocks, the project sits within the Elder Street Conservation Area and occupies a prominent position within the City Fringe between the City of London and Shoreditch. Rather than applying a blanket strategy, the masterplan employs a building-by- building approach to the retained existing buildings, utilising restoration, refurbishment, extension, remodelling, and façade retention to bring vacant or under used buildings back into use while reconnecting and enhancing the public realm.
Given the variegated character of Norton Folgate, four different architectural practices were brought together to diversify the architectural approach and style. AHMM was appointed as masterplanner and designed three buildings, Blossom Yard and Studios, Nicholls and Clarke, and Loom Court. Stanton Williams, Morris + Company, and DSDHA designed Elder Yard and Studios, 15 Norton Folgate, and 16 Blossom Street respectively, with East leading the public realm strategy.
Across the six buildings, a range of office types have been created with the aim of attracting a wide range of tenants, from start-ups and SMEs to mature organisations, whilst also appealing to the local tech and creative industries. All the buildings provide retail units, again of varying sizes and use classes at ground level to activate the street frontages. The public realm design enhances the tight network of existing streets and creates three new yard spaces that draw on the character of the surrounding historic blocks.
Shortlisted projects will be presented to judges at the Festival of Place at the end of February, with award winners announced in April.
The AHMM OKC office has moved into the 9th office floor in The Citizen, a recently completed mixed-use scheme in downtown Oklahoma City.
From its inception the project has aimed to promote civic discourse by bringing together disparate groups of people together in this modern-day forum. Sitting across the street from the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the generous ground floor volume set back to extend the urban realm deep into the building, and a banking hall and restaurant engage with the building foyer to further activate and enliven the entrance.
Above, a diverse blend of uses includes co-working space, a members’ club, a hotel, and a tech start-up incubator, culminating in offices at the upper levels.
We have taken a look back at another year of practice – AHMM’s 35th. The tentative emergence of a more positive outlook in the construction industry, along with a steady year of consolidation for our practice, has given us a renewed sense of stability and cautious optimism.
We’re pleased to have seen continued progress on key projects in the UK and US, with the completion of several, including Urbanest Battersea, our first PassivHaus building; the final phase of Assembly, a trio of office buildings in central Bristol; and the Temple Quarter Enterprise Research Hub, the home for Bristol University’s Digital Futures Institute.
Eighteen recently completed AHMM buildings have won acclaim and pan-industry awards, including from the British Council for Offices, the Civic Trust, and the Housing Design Awards. Meanwhile, twelve exciting new projects have gained planning approval, many of which involve the reuse or redevelopment of existing buildings, from large complex schemes in high profile or sensitive urban locations to those much smaller in scale but significant in different ways.
Read our Review of 2024 here.
Arthur Stanley House has been selected as a Regional Finalist in the 2025 Civic Trust Awards and will now be considered for a National Award, with winners announced in April 2025.
Located within the Charlotte Street Conservation Area, this project has reinvented a decaying 1960s block in Fitzrovia, London. It was originally designed by TP Bennett Architects, part of the Middlesex Hospital estate, as a centre specialising in physiotherapy with wards and consultation rooms on the upper floors and a hydrotherapy pool in the basement. The hospital trust relocated in 2005 leaving the building vacant and in decline. The project has reinvented it to provide eight floors of modern office accommodation and a new residential building along Tottenham Mews.
The new scheme, which retains more than 70% of the existing fabric, has refurbished the brickwork, added depth to the façade with generous stone reveals, and replaced the existing windows with new high quality triple glazing meeting modern standards while maintaining slim profiles typical of the Fitzrovia character.
The design of Arthur Stanley House celebrates the original building alongside its 21st century additions and complements the conservation area which in parts is fragmented with post-war and recent large-scale developments interspersed with lower scale, historic terraces.
New and old is left exposed within the floorplates to represent the building’s development over a 60-year period, repurposing it for a new generation by creating a design led space for the next 60 years. Additionally, the characterful floorplates give a uniqueness not normally found in commercial floor space.
