Microscope

Branch Place in Hackney has won a 2020 Civic Trust Award. We're proud that our pieces of the Colville Estate are falling into place, a highlight of which is the Branch Place podium garden; its green, well made and children seem to have hours of fun in it.

We are pleased to become members of the Green Building Council. We believe that the GBC offers the right balance of strategic policy guidance and practical knowledge sharing to help Periscope transition to a net zero carbon built environment.

Periscope reached the final shortlist of the Smithfield Market competition with finalists Eric Parry Architects, Haworth Tompkins, and WilkinsonEyre the competition was won by Studio Egret West.

Excellent news to start the week, Future Fossil has been granted planning consent. Start on site due next spring.

Find our more about the project here.

On 12th December 2019 James and Dan will be joining Jonathan Smales of Human + Nature at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius, Lithuania for the 26th Architecture Fund lecture series.

The event will feature a dialogue between Architect, Landscape Architect and client on the topics of urbanism, landscape and value.

Find our more in this link.

We've been working up plans for Birmingham Central Bus Garage with HUB Residential and Shed KM. The buses are moving out and the site, with its 150m long canal frontage, will be reclaimed for new employment and residential uses. A planning application will be submitted in the new year.

We've all been in Cologne for a couple of days, experiencing some wonderful places.... Highlights included Kolumba museum, Insel Hombroich and Landschaftspark Duisburg-nord. We also enjoyed jägerschnitzel and beer.

Our project for Enfield Council and Network Rail at Meridian Water Station has reached practical completion.

The east and west squares and temporary routes allow access to the station which also forms a new public bridge over the railway connecting the communities of Upper Edmonton to the Lee Valley. For more information about the project click here.

As part of the Meridian Water Phase 2 and Strategic Infrastructure Works planning applications the two parks we have been working on for 18 months have been submitted for detailed planning approval. Together these parks offer over eight hectares of recovered habitats for the Lea Valley and will in future provide recreation and amenity space for some of the 10,000 people that will eventually call Meridian Water home.

Our winning proposal for Dover Midtown is featured in the RIBA Journal this month. Our work focused on four place making themes focusing on resilience, connectivity, localness and greening. Exploring the re-purposing of existing buildings, consolidation and mixing of uses and the naturalisation of the River Dour. Our proposal looks to a future experiential town centre where people live, work and learn and was praised by judge Gary Wilburn as ‘it creates a joyful place’.

Here is our proposal for a flexible housing typology which can grow from a 1 bedroom house into a three bedroom house over time. The masterplan arrangement has been informed by the local vernacular (in the Lake District village of Burneside) as have the houses. Low dry stone walls create front gardens which open onto a shared landscape of allotment gardens and wilderness play - the houses are built using a repeatable CLT frame, and feature open hung staircases and pop-out bay windows which overlook the hills to the west.

We're delighted to be shortlisted for the Croydon Fair Field competition, working with West 8, Expedition Engineering, Donald Hyslop and Michael Grubb Studio. See the AJ article here.

Here are some photos from our work with Park Primary School in Stratford. We have spent the last six weeks working with Year 4 to imagine a High Street of the Future as part of the RIBA Architecture Ambassadors programme. Together we explored model making techniques, key ideas about making buildings and landscapes and the possibilities of creating different types of space. Our work culminated in the assembly of all of the models into a giant High Street model in the main assembly hall. Many thanks to everyone at Park Primary School and at RIBA Architecture Ambassadors.

The first hard copy edition of our Place Vision book for Meridian Water has just been published.

We’ve been working with Enfield Council to capture the core elements of Meridian Water, past, present and future. The Place Vision book is the master vision document for the project and will be accompanied by ten ‘Place Briefs’ for the various neighbourhoods. The Place briefs contain more detail on how the Place Vision is interpreted and delivered to create robust, sustainable, healthy and distinctive places for current and future Enfield communities.

Volker Fitzpatrick have commenced work on the new public realm for Meridian Water Station. Designed in the later part of 2018, our project provides temporary access routes across the Willoughby Lane development site to the west of the station and a new public square to the east. Works include a new pedestrian crossing, lighting, cycle parking, over 300 linear metres of rain gardens and enabling utilities works for future Meanwhile Uses.

The next phase of our work for Barking Riverside has been submitted for detailed planning approval. Working alongside Karakusevic Carson Architects, Elliot Wood and Max Fordham we have developed the design for the neighbourhood park, streets and podium courtyards following our earlier work on the landscape strategy for Stage 2 North. For more information on the project click here.

Thank you to all those who came to see our proposals for Little Haldens in the Gomm Valley at the weekend, where we are working with Mae and Kjellander Sjöberg architects. The exhibition showed the illustrative masterplan, an overview of the key features of the project and the ecology, energy and landscape strategies.The plans will now be finalised and drawn together in an outline planning application for submission to Wycombe District Council in December.

Concrete contractors Togher have been working hard through the summer heat to finish the structural concrete on the Colville Phase 2 Building F courtyard garden. Waterproofing commences next week with brickwork following in August.

Colville 2 is a collaboration with Karakusevic Carson Architects and MUF for contractors Higgins. Our thanks to Dave, Tony and the team at Higgins for their care and attention over the setting out.

We're just about back in action after a mammoth consultation event in High Wycombe. We had over 200 people through the tent doors over two days and gained some really insighfull feedback on the emerging masterplan for Little Haldens, Gomm Valley.

Find our more at the project website: www.gommvalley.com

We have moved into our new space in Dalston. The marker pens still elude us, but we've found the tea and coffee so please do come and visit! You can find the new office at 2-4 Tottenham Road, London, N1 4BZ.