A rewarding and busy end to 2021 with a successful DRP and PreApps and Stage 3a design freeze on our Aylesbury Estate Regeneration project for Notting Hill Genesis. The project proposes a step-change in the system built existing character, instead approaching placemaking through active, leafy, picturesque streets, with individual family homes the feel safer and more welcoming.

Stage 3a and a glowing PreApp completed for our mixed-use scheme comprising 6 social rent homes, a Women’s Outreach Centre and a community café. The highly constrained estate infill site addresses the Stirling prize-winning ‘new’ Peckham Library. In collaboration with our friends, Studio Gil.

Stage 2 work begins on redesigning a whole new district of London in what was previously industrial brownfield land. As part of a collaborative team including Karakusevic Carson, Maccreanor Lavington and Mary Duggan Architects.

Our ‘Public Life’ strategy for Meridian Water 5 contributes a co-produced sustainable façade system which activates both meanwhile uses and public realm; using a circular economy structural frame engineered to achieve 2030 carbon reduction standards of 300kgCO2e/m2 embodied carbon today! We are part of a collaborative team led by Assael and including Bell Phillips and Aecom. It supports a range of measurable social value outcomes and self-sustaining economic and commercial activity, employment & training.

Great to be working with Stepping Stones to help them configure temporary ‘move-on’ accommodation aimed at progressing rough sleepers back from the streets into more stable and secure accommodation where they feel safe and have some control.

After a couple of months of pause we are excited that Lexden & Steynes Estate infill is moving ahead again. This is one of our earlier studies exploring fronts and backs in order to overlook neglected public realm and provide passive security. The units are perched on a new podium carparking deck.

The pandemic has naturally made it challenging to engage with residents of the Pitsea Estate face to face. As such, we are excited to be able to get back involved with the local community to update them on what we have been up to since we last had in-person consultations in March 2020. We have also made material available online for those not able to join us.

We are delighted to have been shortlisted through OJEU process by the BFI Southbank for their refurbishment programme 2021/22. We’ve put together a fantastic team with a wealth of arts know-how including Jackson Coles, cinema consultant Stefanie Fischer of Phillip Meadowcroft Architects, SGA Consulting, Sweco, Tisserin, Centre for Accessible Environments, Studio ZNA and Studio Christopher Victor to help us work on a fabulous project of national cultural significance.

It was a rare honour to be invited to take part in the panel discussion launching Manijeh Verghese and Madeleine Kessler of Unscene Architecture’s “The Garden of Privatised Delights” at the British Pavilion for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The talk was called “Experiments for New Spatial Contracts”. The exhibition runs from 22 May – 21 November 2021. (David)

I grew up on the Aylesbury Estate and my mum still lives there after 35 years, so it's gratifying to be part of the regeneration team for phase 2B for Notting Hill Genesis. The architect team consists of masterplanner & lead architect Maccreanor Lavington, along with plot architects Haworth Tompkins, Sergison Bates, East, and ourselves. Architecture Doing Place is designing 34 units for social rent to accommodate existing and returning residents. Space standards are at Parker Morris plus 10%. The landscape design is also by East. (David)

We have been exploring design options for new rammed earth homes with repeating undulating forms and a split-level typology. In collaboration with KCA, Resolve Collective, Studio ONB we have been working to sensitively integrate our proposals into the rolling topography, public realm improvements and new housing proposed within an existing estate. The provision of aesthetically rich, secure, welcome and integrated homes is the intent, delivered with minimal use of carbon and subsequent impact on the environment.

Through our immersion in the arts, we were proud to be invited to be part of the British Council’s inaugural UK-China Contemporary Culture Festival last month. the festival has reached 11.9 million online impressions so far.

We are pleased to have been appointed in collaboration with our friends Studio Gil as architects for the Old Peckham library infill site. The project comprises a community centre with new social housing above. The existing community space currently runs as a food bank and vital community hub for PECAN, part of the London Community Resource Network. It is on a highly constrained but prominent site facing the Stirling prize winning new Peckham library.  We are collaborating with a diverse wider consultant team.

We have enjoyed spending the last month collaborating with Assael Architecture on their competition winning ‘Rightsizer’ older people’s living proposal utilising Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) to address important issues of ageing / care / future proofing/ resilience / sustainability / circular economy principles. Our appointment is part of wider team including AECOM,  Exterior Architecture Ltd, Knight Frank, Dr Kelly Watson, Jo Wilson, and Origin Active Lifestyles.

David was grateful to learn and share with colleagues while contributing to the ‘Housing Design Recovery Roundtable’ in August. This touched on issues including covid-resilience, temporary accommodation for homeless families and Post-occupancy evaluations, in the light of the Mayor’s ‘Good Quality Homes for all Londoners’ draft SPG.

We are enormously proud to have been selected among 25 Architects’ Journal ‘AJ100 Disruptor’ practices. In a progressively redistributive way, the selected ‘disruptors’ highlight smaller practices and networks who are challenging the norms of traditional practice in their drive to work in a more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable manner.

During an exciting competitions' season, we are happy to have been shortlisted with 4 other talented teams for Enfield Council & Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing's 'Intergenerational Living' competition. It’s also exciting to be joining forces with our collaborators, Studio Gil. The contest looks for proto-type designs for a nominal site in the Merdian Water development area.

We were delighted to be invited in August as one of 3 teams competing to design a new messaging marker for Argent’s Brent Cross South development. The proposed structure is also intended to house the development’s new primary sub-station. The marker is located at the Staples Corner gyratory, the point of arrival into London from the M1 motorway. As such our brief was for the marker to have a presence analogous to that of Anthony Gormley’s ‘Angel of the north’. The approach of our proposal was for a hollow decorative ‘Trinocle’, with a honeycomb backed stone veneer rain-screen, encasing large programmable screens displaying curated digital art; local/atmospheric information; and, commercial messaging at high and low levels. Below the substantial transfer structure at the base is the bomb-proof sub-station enclosure. While we didn’t win this time, it was a pleasure to be involved with two other really strong teams and a really encouraging client.

We are really proud of our team’s hard work having managed to issue our ‘remote consultation’ material for this project yesterday, in the middle of a few important competition deadlines. This is for a local authority client who has always supported us. This estate infill explores a deck-access mansion block typology based on Richard Norman Shaw’s Albert Hall Mansions, with decorative motifs, like reclaimed timber ‘dwarf’ columns and polychromatic terracotta and faience. The site is highly constrained by an existing refuse store, a sub-station, a main sewer and a mechanic’s yard  between it and the DLR viaduct. Here’s one of our emerging views.

We are pleased to be shortlisted by Brick by Brick / Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust for their Croydon housing competition. Our conceptual proposal highlights the direct economic impact of equity in supply-chains, when funded by diverse taxpayers. We believe there’s plenty of hard work and creative talent to go around.