In March four AHMM cyclists took part in this year’s Cycle to MIPIM. This year Rebecca Nixon was Ride Captain and was joined by on the AHMM team by Associates Craig Robertson, Barry Cho and Paul Jones. Leaving London on Thursday 08 March they rode more than 1,400km over seven days to Cannes, where the annual MIPIM property fair took place.
Started in 2006, Cycle to MIPIM is organised by charity and cycling network Club Peloton. As a team challenge, endurance event and networking opportunity, the ride crucially raises money for Tom ap Rhys Pryce Memorial Trust, Cyclists Fighting Cancer and the Multiple System Atrophy Trust. AHMM once again supported the event with sponsorship of snacks and refreshments to keep all cyclists fuelled along the route.
AHMM embarked on an exciting new project with multi-disciplinary artist and poet Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape, our first Poet in Residence. He is one of the first Associate Artists of The Royal Albert Hall in over 150 years, Poet in Residence at 180 The Strand, and the first Poet in Residence at the Saatchi Gallery.
Over the course of a month LionHeart delivered a bespoke residency programme, investigating how spaces and the built environment affect us and how we feel. A sequence of workshops in both our London and Bristol offices focusing on techniques, writing exercises and challenges, prompts and readings as well as a series of 1-1 sessions informed new work created for the practice.
AHMM’s artist in residency programme was initiated by the practice’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Group. This is one of several projects initiated by the group that recognise and celebrate our differences, and the diversity of our practice.
Thirteen AHMM staff from our Bristol office successfully completed the 10k and half marathon distances at the Great Bristol Run on Sunday 14 May in support of Wiggly T, a small not for profit company who gift specially designed t-shirts and baby vests for children in treatment for cancer.
Wiggly T is AHMM’s Bristol charity of the year for 2023.
Three AHMM cyclists Hazel Joseph, Esther Worthington and Ella Smith completed PedElle 2023, a three-day event for women in the construction industry. Organised by Club Peloton, the event, now in its 10th year, raises money for the charities Coram, Cyclists Fighting Cancer, Tom AP Rhys Pryce Memorial Trust and Multiple Atrophy Trust. Starting in the beautiful capital of Ljubljana, the 58 riders covered 396km, a climb of 5,949m, towards the Adriatic Coast and to the final destination, medieval town of Piran.
The team was generously supported by its sponsors Stanhope Plc, Arup, MRG Studio, Heyne Tillett Steel, and Dolphin Solutions Ltd along with colleagues, friends and family.
In April staff from our OKC office successfully completed the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. Starting at the 9:03 Gate of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, runners ran through some of Oklahoma City’s most beautiful neighbourhoods and districts including Downtown, Bricktown, the Oklahoma State Capitol, Nichols Hills, the Village and beautiful city parks.
As the primary fundraiser for the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, the Memorial Marathon creates a spirit of camaraderie that unites the state of Oklahoma.
In May staff from our OKC office helped keep part of Oklahoma City clean by taking part in LitterBlitz.
As part of OKC Beautiful, LitterBlitz provides the opportunity to give back and connect with friends, neighbours, civic clubs, and coworkers as well as the environment in a safe and easy way by picking up litter.
Over a weekend in September (16-17 September) two AHMM projects were open to the public as part of the Open House Festival.
In Whitechapel, visitors popped in to see the transformation of the Grade II listed Royal London Hospital into the new headquarters for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Guided tours led by our project architects and Council members took visitors around the complete refurbishment of the listed structure, parts of which date from the 1700s, and a new build extension which provides six floors of open plan, flexible office space.
Then just down the road the public could take a look around The Rowe, the refurbishment and extension of the former London Metropolitan School of Art, Architecture and Design. Guided tours led by our project architects took visitors through this new office building which takes inspiration from Rachel Whiteread’s Fourth Plinth, adding to the existing six storey building with an equal volume above. A visual break between old and new is highlighted by an inhabited gap, marked out by a playful piece of public art by Yinka Ilori visible from the street to create a visual break.
As part of this year’s Bristol Open Doors festival, AHMM welcomed visitors into our new Bristol office, One Portwall Square, which was named the BCO Commercial Development of the Year. Close to Bristol Temple Meads railway station the site was originally part of 100 Temple Street, a large office building designed by John Wells-Thorpe during the 1970s. The scheme, designed for independent developer Nord, replaces a disused squash court with a six-storey freestanding office that delivers new levels of innovation, sustainability and office design, combining modern flexible floorplates with generous light and space.
We also gave architect guided tours around Assembly Bristol, a mixed-use development in the centre of Bristol which reinvents a cleared site that has lain empty since 2008. Three new buildings provide a variety of flexible commercial floorplates, with an assortment of retail, restaurant and flexible units at ground level. A new pedestrian connection reinstates a historic route through the site, complemented by a new public space that capitalises on the riverside location.
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 ‘Water in Cities’ with the aim of encouraging visitors to think about how water affects our surroundings and the built environment. Our plot was located underwater, where water is the landscape and the townscape and our structure had to be resilient to rising sea levels and safe for our residents.
Our selected plot is the Sea Turtle Heritage Centre formed of seven domes representing the seven species of sea turtle. The domes are designed to withstand drastic environmental changes, providing large spans of programmable space for visitors to take a closer look at the wildlife. The centre’s main goal is to educate visitors about the depleting coral, endangered turtle species and human impact on the marine environment.
Now in its seventh 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 Westfield London, White City until 7th January.
This December staff made Blessing Bags for the homeless in our OKC office.
Produced for Sister BJ’s Pantry, founded by Sister Barbara Joseph in 2006, the Blessing Bags are part of the charities mission to be an immediate and effective service to the homeless in all their needs, material and spiritual, until they can find some others who can help them in a better and more lasting way. Sister BJ’s pantry offers a weekend breakfast program, foodbank, clothing, eye clinic and foot clinic for the area's homeless community.
Each blessing bag was created with the idea that the items in them are there to help the person in need feel blessed. Our OKC team made 40 bags in total which included a bottle of water, non perishable food items and toiletries.