THE TRINITY CENTRE

AHMM has supported the Trinity Centre in Bristol since 2019, making donations to finance a music group, and pay for much needed garden improvements. In 2020 volunteers helped to clear the gardens and rebuild a damaged polytunnel, which is used for education and community groups. We continue to work with the Trinity Centre and look forward to new and exciting projects.

ST LUKE'S JOB CLUB

We have supported St. Luke’s Community Centre since 2017. One of the ways in which we help is by supporting their Job Club programme, providing one-to-one support to people in our local community who are searching for work. Our volunteers give straightforward employment support including reviewing CVs, helping with job applications and general advice – in person, via email, over the phone and online.

  THE SOUP KITCHEN

The Soup Kitchen consultation room is AHMM’s first completed pro bono project. Working closely with long-time client Derwent, AHMM has created a small mental health consultation room beneath an existing stair at The Soup Kitchen’s central London outreach centre on Tottenham Court Road. The Soup Kitchen is a busy and well-supported independent charity in London, providing critical support to homeless and vulnerable people. Read more...

The Magpie Project

Our Charity of the Year in 2019, the Magpie Project supports under-fives in temporary accommodation. As well as fundraising over the year and office collections of items to donate, we also supported an artist-in-residence working with the children to create work that was displayed in the office and made into a set of Christmas cards.

Accumulate - art school for the homeless

During Covid restrictions, our education mentors worked with Accumulate to deliver online creative workshops including drawing, collage and modelmaking with homeless people and also a ‘train the trainer’ session with hostel support workers reaching 325 participants. We also financially supported the Book of Homelessness.

  Migrateful kitchen pro bono

The Migrateful Kitchen is AHMM’s second pro bono project in London, creating a new cookery school for a charity delivering classes lead by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants struggling to integrate and access employment. When Migrateful received £45,000 in funding from the Mayor of London to deliver a cookery school AHMM offered to support the organisation by designing the new school pro bono. Migrateful Kitchen will create a new flexible cookery, teaching, and hosting space, which will act as a venue for events and a home for Migrateful. Read more...

Migrateful cookery classes

We have been working with and supporting Migrateful since 2017, as well as contributing towards first aid training, chef training and cooking equipment, we have taken part in a number of cookery classes. The sessions are a fantastic way for colleagues to get together, socialise and learn about different cultures in a fun environment. So far we have participated in the following cooking classes – Nigerian, Cuban, Ecuadorian, Lebanese, Syrian, Gambian, Sri Lankan, Afghan, Bengali, Ethiopian, Filipino and Iranian.

New Art Studio

New Art Studio is a therapeutic art studio in London for asylum seekers and refugees. We have been supporters since 2018, providing monetary support, drawing workshops and promotional materials for exhibitions the studio has held.

New Art Studio Christmas Cards

Each year the New Art Studio designs a set of Christmas cards to raise money for the charity. Each member of the group is invited to submit an artwork and AHMM (working with Service Graphics) designs the cards and pays for the production.

Calanoa Amazonas

In 2020 we began our support of The Calanoa Amazonas Project in Colombia. Their mission is to contribute to the conservation of the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazonian region. They do this through art, design, architecture, scientific research, communication, education and sustainable and respectful tourism.

Sadhana Village

The AHMM Partnerships Volunteering Prize 2018 was awarded to a staff member to run sketching workshops for people with learning disabilities living in Sadhana Village, India. Since then, we have supported the village including a Covid relief donation helping provide 800 masks, 115 litres of sanitiser and 23 sanitiser stands.

Humanitarian emergencies

We make donations to support emergency relief, to international agencies such as UNICEF, the Red Cross and Architects sans Frontieres but also to smaller, local charities nominated by staff, including Fond 55 which provided earthquake emergency relief in central Croatia, and Partners in Health, a charity providing relief following the Haiti earthquake.

OPEN CITY FAMILIES

Run by Open City every September, Open City Families is designed to be a hands on creative programme for children and their families to explore architecture and their city through play. AHMM has run a number of activities from collaborative drawing sessions to ‘Mini-City Home Inventors’ where children were asked to decorate and model a tiny fun place to live and add it to a miniature city.

  AHMM Summer School

Now in its third year, the aim of the week-long Summer School is to provide access for 15–18-year-olds to the profession. Throughout the week students are introduced a range of disciplines including, digital design, architectural drawing, 3D modelling and model making. A brief is set at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week participants have created work that can be added to their portfolios.

  MINIPLEX

In 2017 AHMM collaborated with the City Centre to bring together young people, architects and engineers to create a temporary installation for Paternoster Square, in the heart of the City of London. Inspired by patterns found in nature, Miniplex – conceived by AHMM architect Vlad Tenu – is made from flexible plastic pieces, each one fitting together to form symmetrical interconnected shapes that gradually increase in size and can be added to infinitely. Read more...

Social Mobility Foundation

We support high-achieving young people from low income backgrounds interested in studying architecture. We allocated eight places to SMF students on our 2021 Summer School, our education mentors contributed to a career futures event, and founder Paul Monaghan spoke to a group of young people from the north west of England.

National Saturday Club

Francesco Draisci and Rebecca Nixon undertook masterclass with the Norwich University of the Arts Saturday Club, with the young people creating 1:10 scale ‘Mini Mes’ and creating environments for their figures to exist in reflecting personal interests.

  ARCHITECTS DECLARE

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris joined fellow RIBA Stirling Prize winning practices in signing an open letter calling for architects and the wider construction industry to take collective action to address the climate and biodiversity emergency.

Mission Gaia

We contributed to publication of 1,500 copies of an illustrated educational calendar for rural communities in this region of Colombia containing important environmental and cultural celebrations, natural cycles and bioclimatic seasons affecting the planting and harvesting of local products. We also donated to their Mango Jam project and production of non-perishable products, promoting income generation, particularly for women and their families and avoiding food waste.

CLIMATE CRISIS

Although AHMM as a practice endeavours to remain apolitical in choices made on behalf of the practice, the practice has made its commitment to addressing the issue of climate change evident for many years through its project work, its wider influence within the industry, and the management of its business operations. Therefore in 2019, the Board agreed that employees wishing to attend one of the Climate Crisis marches could do so.

Tree Planting in London, Bristol and Oklahoma

As part of our climate change action commitments, we have planted a tree for every AHMM employee in the London and Bristol offices via Trees for Cities to create an urban woodland and the Oklahoma office via The Tree Bank. We have recently supported Islington Clean Air Parents (ICAP) crowdfunding initiative to plant 200 trees in and around Islington.

Supporting students

We support students from a range of schools of architecture each year, including Sheffield, the London School of Architecture, Liverpool, the Bartlett, Loughborough, and Bath. This includes sponsorship of summer shows, student prizes and annual bursaries as well as teaching and mentoring. Image of the Victor Kite Award 2022 winner Marike Jungk by Jonathan Ladd, UCL

Open City

As well as providing annual financial support to help make London more ‘open, accessible and equitable’, AHMM buildings are included within the Open House programme each year. Our education mentors also volunteer for Open City learning programmes including Accelerate into University, Open House Families and Architecture in Schools.

The Architecture Foundation

We are long term supporters of the Architecture Foundation with Simon Allford serving as chair from 2013 to 2020. In partnership with the Architecture Foundation, we are hosting eight free residencies at White Collar Factory supporting young architectural practices after the Covid crisis.

Architects Benevolent Society

AHMM donates annually to the Architects Benevolent Society supporting the charity’s work assisting the architectural community and their families in times of need. AHMM staff also take part in their fundraising activities including the annual #Time2Sketch competition.

Architecture LGBT+

We are supporters of Architecture LGBT+ and a member of our staff has recently joined the Architecture LGBT+ South West steering group. In 2021 we also marked LGBTQ+ History Month for the first time with a series of online events.

Living Wage Foundation

As well as being Living Wage Foundation accredited we highlight living wage good practice through supply chain procurement and our Partnerships lead is a member of the Islington Council Living Place Working Group.

Charity of the Year 2018 - Alder Centre Cycle Classic

As well as our design work for the Alder Centre, we coordinated and took part in fundraising efforts to ensure it is the best possible environment for those using it. Our major fundraising event was the AHMM and Friends Alder Centre Cycle Classic, a charity ride from London to Liverpool over two days raising £46,500 with 33 riders taking part.

AHMM 3030 Challenge

In June 2020, during Covid restrictions, we collectively ran, walked and cycled 30,000km to mark our 30th year. Individual fundraising was matched and we donated £4000 to NHS charities in London and Bristol and to YWCA Covid support in OKC, and to our Charity of the Year, FCV Dorcas.

Staff match funding

We donate to staff fundraising both individual efforts and groups – normally sporting but also bake sales and creative activities.

Christmas market

Each year we organise a Christmas market, with all proceeds donated to our Charity of the Year. We invite as stallholders small creative businesses within the community close to our office, giving them the opportunity to promote themselves and to sell their products to our staff. The market went online in 2020.

Education mentoring

In 2020/21 75 education mentors gave 500 hours of employer supported volunteering with most activities being delivered online during Covid restrictions. The Creative Dimension modelmaking work experience placements for young people were able to be in the office and Shape My City at Design West was a combination of in-person and online activity.

Supporting communities

We partner with charities supporting local communities and undertake a wide range of employer supported volunteering around access to employment, education and health and wellbeing. Staff befriend older isolated older people through our Charity of the Year 2020 FCV Dorcas, and with St Luke’s Community Centre volunteering is one-off and ongoing from the weekly Job Club to helping with Christmas activities each year. At the Trinity Centre in Bristol volunteers regularly undertake gardening work.

  Pro bono

We have used our architecture skills for good causes including the Soup Kitchen, the Migrateful cookery school, and Pivot’s Tiny Homes. Read more...