The London Festival of Architecture and Wandsworth Council launched a competition to transform the tunnel beneath Falcon Road Bridge into a creative and vibrant landmark for the local community and visitors.
Sharing a unified commitment to empowering people through community-driven design, GPAD has partnered with POoR, MRG Studio and Sutton-Vane Associates.
“We are delighted to have been shortlisted for the Falcon Road Bridge competition. We know the area very well as the team have worked with local schools and has co-designed installations nearby. We are super excited to potentially co-design another project in Wandsworth and include local young people and residents throughout the process. This project gives opportunity for meaningful community engagement that will help shape the design. It is a fantastic opportunity to enrich the local environment for residents and visitors alike.”
The team is currently working up on their shortlisted design which will be published for public voting in November with the winning design announced in December 2024.
How do you deliver quality family housing – and what does it look like?
GPAD Director Gareth Bansor and Nicholas Hugh Goddard from Arup sit down and discuss what it means to deliver family housing and how we should be exploring a variety of typologies to deliver essential family housing in our city centres. Should we be looking further afield for inspiration on successful family housing in city centres?
As part of the Homes England Framework – we have worked collaboratively alongside Sheffiled City Council, Homes England & ARUP to develop a masterplan for Furnace Hill and Neepsend within the former industrial heart of Sheffield.
As part of our work, GPAD has developed a suite of innovative residential typologies that could provide a variety of densities, mix and tenure whilst still set within the retained intimate historic streets and celebrated heritage assets. Working with our in-house passivhaus designer they were designed to deliver the highest residential quality and have the potential to be operational net zero.
Watch the full video interview here: https://vimeo.com/944131404
Matt and Farrah from GPAD discuss the key design moves for Golden Lane, a sensitive refurbishment and contemporary extension of a locally listed Board School.
“What I’ve particularly enjoyed about the project is being able to think about the design on more of an urban scale, and how it interacts with the wider city. The building has lost its identity, because of the post-war development to the south, and the various new buildings that have appeared in the last few years have hidden what used to be a prominent entrance sequence.”- Matt Iliffe, Project Architect
Located in Islington bordering the City of London, the proposals for Golden Lane breathe new life into the historical building to provide unique office and educational space. A new extension inspired by the original buildings intricate brick detailing and metalwork is introduced to the former playground, whilst a new entrance fronting Baltic Street, unites old and new, to provide an enhanced and more legible sense of arrival.
Watch the video interview here: https://vimeo.com/944019541
In 2020 we received planning permission from Islington Council for the construction of a new 30,000sqft office building in the Clerkenwell Green Conservation Area on a site fronting Clerkenwell Green. Like many projects over the last few years, the economic climate meant the possibility of constructing the building looked limited.
We have worked hard with a top consultant team to optimise the scheme, targeting an efficient design and construction approach that drives down cost and a building that maximises efficiency and value through quality.
The planning approval for key changes to the original consent, which include the core location; extent of terracing and entrance sequence, unlocking value and rebalancing the viability. We are looking forward to getting into more detail and (hopefully) building this scheme.
We’ve received planning approval for the remodelling of the façade at 149 – 151 Oxford Street. The design will enhance the retail frontage and improve the street presence, while concurrently working towards decarbonising the retail space.
We’re excited to move on to the next phase of the project, testing material samples for the faience finishes where we will be using a custom mould based on the column profile with different colour combinations. Working with the same colour input, we are experimenting with the order in which they are applied, which causes different reactions between the pigments.
The first round of colour samples showed the importance of testing before ordering, we value this hands-on approach, carefully fine-tuning our designs to ensure every detail is carefully considered. Looking forward to sharing more on this process over the coming months.
The site is situated just outside Ramsden Conservation Area, near the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The new four-bedroom family home includes a garage workshop and garden barn to provide additional flexible living. The new home, set on a sloped topography, takes advantage of stunning views across the adjacent mature landscape and sensitively nestles itself within the landscape to omit impact from Ramsden High Street. The family of buildings descend away from the entrance to further add to the seclusion of the site.
The relationship between local built and natural forms informed the proposed layout by emulating the origins of the settlement of farmsteads within forest clearings typically found alongside the Roman Road. How the articulation relates to the site and interacts within the landscape was fundamental to the design, with particular attention on how the proposal presents itself within distant views.
The considered placement of spaces on site has established and improved the connection between the main house and the landscape. The structures are carefully orientated to address the site and its south-westerly prospect over the village valley. The three buildings coalesce around a small courtyard, open to the garden along the south-eastern side, creating a sheltered sun trap. The arrangement reveals a more intimate scale, glimpsed through mature trees, with a thoughtfully composed domestic garden responding to the needs of everyday family life. The existing mature perimeter trees to the boundary will be preserved alongside the conservation of the meadow on site to enhance the existing gardens and biodiversity.
Project Architect Matt Iliffe adds “I’m really excited to get planning approval for Oakdene. It’s been a pleasure working with a such special site in a beautiful place. We have been able to draw inspiration from a rich local architectural history, the peaceful woodland clearing, and the rolling westerly view over the valley. The placement of forms looks to reengage the landscape and define a variety of external spaces that embrace the house and permeate the sequence of rooms inside. It’s great to get this over the line and we’re looking forward to taking it onto site.”
The approved design pursues a sustainable approach through the incorporation of regional, low carbon building materials and environmentally conscious ideas such as; renewable energy sources, solar shading, robust thermal envelope, and harmonising with its natural surroundings. The proposal will look to reuse as much of the existing deconstructed house materials as achievable.
The palette will be locally sourced where possible, rooted in tradition and true to its Ramsden roots. The main house is built from contextual oolitic limestone, with a traditional stone tiled roof. The front elevation is more defensive and formal, whilst the rear elevation, overlooking the valley, is more open. In contrast, the garden barn is clad in charred timber, offering a more contemporary contrasting material whilst connecting to the landscape.
The ground floor plan is organised with the main living spaces in enfilade along the view over the valley. Smaller enclosed rooms are situated at the front of the house. A double-height entrance space and stairway at the centre of the house culminate in a double-height dining space. Three generous dual-aspect bedrooms plus a master suite are situated one at each corner of the house on the first floor. The master suite enjoys views over the meadow to the valley beyond, with a dedicated dressing area.
The resulting family home is a contemporary interpretation of the local vernacular with the form and materiality directly referencing the local architecture prominent in the Ramsden Village.
Sitting amongst a green belt, the plot is located within existing mature woodland that forms a natural boundary to the neighbouring properties and the main road. The new single villa is configured to sit within the undulating topography and embed sensitively within the protected habitat. The low-carbon proposal features nine generously proportioned family homes that widen the offer available locally and support a community of all ages.
Inspired by the working buildings of the surrounding historic farm estates, the material palette and suite of details were developed to celebrate and reinterpret the use of traditional materials, form, and detailing. The timber frame and timber cladding will be constructed and clad from sustainable sources, dramatically reducing its embodied carbon. The material selection, as far as possible, is environmentally friendly with responsibly specified and robust choices that; make reference to their industrial heritage, are contextually suitable, and offer potential for future repair and reuse.
The pitched asymmetric roofs tier down to respond to the undulating site and culminate with a brick collar, which traditionally would have been the chimney stack but has been reinterpreted as a contemporary roof light. The feature provides an abundance of natural daylight and ventilation to circulation cores and top floor apartments. Internally, the upper floors utilise the roof geometry to create unique and distinct double height spaces whilst lower floors are sunken to further embed within the natural site topography.
Gareth Bansor, Director at GPAD adds “Delighted with the approval for New Road. A housing scheme that is truly sustainable inspired by the rural working buildings that once populated the surrounding historic farm estates. It clearly demonstrates the practice’s focus on whole-life carbon. Designed to passivhaus standards with on-site renewables and a mass timber construction it will deliver nine lowcarbon homes for local people set within an enhanced mature landscape that delivers a 17% increase in biodiversity.”
Featured in Building Design.
Full project information here.
A happy Friday announcement with two GPAD promotions. We’re pleased to share that Graeme Winestone is now Associate Director, Graeme is renowned for his meticulous attention to detail and diligent leadership, consistently achieving key milestones and programme objectives. Enrico Pazzi de del Rio steps up as our Associate Technical Director, leading GPAD’s technical design, ensuring the projects are buildable and achievable.
Congratulations both!
Located Northwest of Hamstead Heath and adjacent to the Hampstead Garden Suburb Conservation Area in Barnet, the site is occupied by an NHS doctors’ surgery, owned by the doctors who run and work in the facility. The existing building is not inclusive or accessible, nor does it meet modern healthcare standards. Itcannot accommodate the growing patient numbers or the changing approach to providing community care.
“Quite simply, our building is no longer fit for purpose. It isn’t fit for today’s needs and most definitely is not fit for the decades ahead. The community needs a better centre.” – Dr Karen Grossmark, Temple Fortune Health Centre owner.
The scheme proposes a new tiered four-storey building with a 567 sqm medical centre that occupies the ground level. Parking and plant areas have been designed in the basement with 11 residential units on floors 1-3 and a heavily planted communal roof garden above. The site requires the flats to be developed above to help fund the new, much-needed, health centre and ensure that the building maximises the potential of the site.
“The clients wanted a highly functional building, that allows them to continue to care for the community they have worked in for a long time and generate value to pay for the works through residential space. We wanted to meet this dual-use brief, whilst providing a building that recognises the textured and leafy nature of the context and makes a positive contribution to the local community”. Charles Bettes, GPAD Managing Director.
The Architecture
Care has been taken to ensure the proposals respond to the street, setting the building away from the boundary line and introducing a sculpted ground floor façade ensures privacy internally, whilst creating curved pockets along the street. These pockets are filled with planting that greens the area between pavement and building, enhances the street, and provides spaces for the public. An element of craft is introduced at a human scale through the patterned reconstituted stone facade.
The entrance to the health centre has been located to the corner and set in from the building line to provide a legible entry to the centre. The curve on this corner softens the mass and suits the shape of the site. This form is continued on the upper floors, which are set back from the ground floor, providing another opportunity for greening at the first-floor level and further reducing the impact of the building mass. These setbacks provide south-facing amenity space that is shielded from the street and the curved forms providerhythm to the building.
Environmental Impact
The building responds to the heritage of the area, whilst being clearly contemporary. It utilises durable materials such as reconstituted stone and brick paired with robust junctions that will age and weather well, ensuring longevity. Fourteen new trees with many plants are being proposed across the site at various levels pushing biodiversity and urban greening. The combination of planting and materials was selected to ground the scheme within the context and provide interest at the upper levels of the building.
A combination of passive measures, high-efficiency services, utilisation of heat pumps and consideration ofthe fabric have been designed into the scheme and will be developed during detailed design to minimise CO2 emissions.
Project Address: 23 Temple Fortune Lane, London, NW11 7TE
Project Team:
Development Manager: ACRE
Planning Consultant: MJP Planning
Affordable Housing Statement: Turner Morum
Air Quality Assessment: Redmore
Daylight and Sunlight Assessment: Herrington
Drainage Strategy and SUDs report: The PES (EB7)
Ecological Assessment (incl. BNG): Green Shoots
Energy Assessment (incl. BREEAM): MWL
Utilities Assessment: MWL
Fire Statement: CHPK
Heritage Impact Assessment: Heritage Collective
Land Contamination Assessment: Ensafe
Landscaping Scheme (incl. UGF): John Davies Landscaping
Noise Impact Assessment: ALN Acoustics
Statement of Community Involvement: Local Dialogue
Transport Assessment and Construction Logistics Plan: EAS
Tree Survey and Report: Patrick Stileman
ARB’s proposed education reforms offer the perfect opportunity to reimagine the profession, writes Charles Bettes
Full article: www.bdonline.co.uk/opinion/we-must-seize-this-opportunity-to-reform-the-profession
The traditional three-part route to qualifying as an architect in the UK is outdated and exclusive. It doesn’t cater for those who can’t afford it or who learn in different ways; it hasn’t done enough to encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds and nor does it do enough to retain them.
During my education I felt that much of the course was focused on creating the ‘master architect’, which doesn’t relate to the real job done by most architects and is an outdated vision of what the architect should and could be. It also wasn’t what I wanted to be, which meant that I finished my Part 1 unsure about a career in the industry.
This master architect stereotype and training limits our areas of influence within the built environment and how we can communicate and relate to the rest of the team involved with creating buildings, as well as those who use them. For me, my interest in architecture started when I began working after my Part 1 and got experience on real projects in the city.
The skills I was able to learn and use whilst working felt far more real than what I felt was an overly conceptual environment at university. I was problem solving, building confidence by communicating with people, learning, thinking about the impact on the city and helping to build things.
For me these skills were more relevant and created a passion for the job. I always felt that there should be a different way to become an architect that was focused more on practice-based learning, where skills like problem solving, communication and analytical thinking can be celebrated and developed.
Anyone should have the opportunity to become an architect
During the pandemic, our practice talked about what we could do to support the industry and through discussions with POoR Collective, these conversations focused on how to make the industry more inclusive. Our views on education helped shape these conversations.
We shared the thought that anyone who has the passion and interest should have the opportunity to become an architect and that this should be achievable whilst earning a salary and learning in practice. Build The Way internship was our response to this and is focused on providing a real opportunity for someone with the right energy, drive, and passion to learn about and contribute to the built environment, but who had no architectural experience.
The intern would gain exposure to the industry and learn whilst contributing to live projects. They would develop office-based skills as well as architectural – computer modelling, CAD, etc. Whilst doing this they would earn a salary to ensure the opportunity was open to as many people as possible.
This was hard to make work from a business perspective; we are a small practice navigating a difficult market, but we felt that the internship had value and the interns could also add value back. That said it’s been one of the topics that has been hard to balance as we need to make sure Build The Way has longevity and can be expanded to other small practices.
It’s not just about alternative routes but new entry points too, which can help remove the financial barriers and help the profession be more inclusive.
The profession needs to be more responsive to learning styles, individual skills and the changing global context
A lot can change in seven years. Policies have changed and continue to do so, especially with tragic incidents such as Grenfell. As architects we have a responsibility to continue to learn and adapt the way we work to be able to create safe and responsible architecture.
Therefore the work place should already be a learning environment. That said, there feels like a large disconnect between the two and an opportunity to work together to strive for well-rounded architects with the skills to continuously learn and adapt to meet society’s needs and operate effectively within the industry.
There’s an opportunity for more learning to take place in practice, not only easing the financial burden on students who can earn while they learn, but also to provide a feedback loop between education and practice.
Being a partner practice at the London School of Architecture (LSA) over the past few years has opened our eyes to the change that can happen with a more collaborative approach. And the internship has also shown us that there are some areas that practice is not set up to teach. We’ve also learned that some people may still benefit from full time education, but there needs to be a choice.
The emergence of new training options, such as the RIBA’s Level 6 & 7 apprenticeship and LSA’s Part 4 modular learning, represents a great step forward. There’s an appetite for change and it excites us when we’re thinking about how to expand Build The Way and how we can partner with other internship/learning programmes.
Changing the perception of an architect
Architects have a varied reputation amongst society, often being seen as too egotistical, too expensive, too male, too white. The ARB reviewing their current accreditation system offers an opportunity to reframe what an architect is and does in relation to society and other areas of the built environment. Practice can support this change.
It feel like an opportunity to broaden the concept, celebrate the diversity of skills, approaches and backgrounds that an architect possesses, as well as reassessing how we participate in the built environment. It is also a chance to broaden who plays this role as a designer, making the profession more relevant, adaptable and equitable.
We need to ensure that practice and education supports the growth of these individuals
Architects have a range of skills and play a range of roles in the shaping of our built environment. We need to ensure that practice and education supports the growth of these individuals in a way that ensures high quality training, but allows for specialism and individualism.
We hope Build The Way will play a part in breaking down the stereotype of who an architect is by supporting and encouraging underrepresented groups and providing a more affordable route into the profession. Our aim with this programme is to inspire more people to explore a career in architecture and create a blueprint to support smaller organisations hire entry level positions for longer periods.
This isn’t ground-breaking or wildly innovative – it’s about creating options and opportunities, and creating an industry which is progressive and accepts change is necessary.