Building Community with Design

As a design practice we are inherently interested in the idea of using architecture for positive change, we understand buildings and places can be specifically designed to support communities and improve a wider social context. As a practice we have had the pleasure of working on several schemes which have renovated existing properties, adapted buildings to fit changing needs and reimagined areas to create welcoming community spaces.

 Designing for Community Projects  

A thriving cafe is one of the new community focused offerings at St Margaret’s Church.

With regular attendance to Church falling steadily in the UK, according to the latest ‘Statistics for Mission 2022’ report by The Church of England the average weekly attendance has dropped from 854,000 people in 2019 to just 654,000 in 2022, we are finding that many church buildings are now facing a funding crisis. Many dioceses are now looking at new funding steams to help with the upkeep of these magnificent properties. As a practice we have been working with several churches to review their current property portfolio, to use architecture as a way to unlock the potential of the sites, to better suit the local needs and to once again make these buildings the cornerstone of their community.

We transformed St Margaret’s Church in Portsmouth, without having to undergo extensive and expensive building work to create a vibrant heart of the neighbourhood once again. The church building had been condemned before we were approached to review the possibility of reimagining the building, to use our design knowledge to increase congregation numbers and deliver support for all sectors of society of the local community.

Our key strategy was to introduce ‘meanwhile architecture’, a methodology through which an innovative strategy can be delivered incrementally, proactively getting the building used again as and when chunks of funding was available. Much of the ‘meanwhile’ fit out was created as flexible and movable pieces of furniture including cost effective plywood furniture units built on wheels to gives the interior layout endless flexibility, allowing the layout to easily be adapted to support all the community’s needs. Within the church us now has a busy café, well used food bank, soft play centre and cycle repair shop alongside the traditional church services, making the reinvigorated church is now thriving once again and used by all sectors of society across all seven days a week.

‘We took the decision to appoint the Studio BAD collective team rather than a more traditional church architect because we enjoyed the studio’s community focus & collaborative method of design. The team took the time to understand our vision, contributed to that vision & really engaged with all our activities. We particularly enjoyed the mix of practical, theoretical & hands on engagement, bringing life to plans & sections.’

– Fran Carabott, Lay Pioneer Minister

Sustainable Reuse of a Property

The old bank has been reimagined as a community bookshop.

The traditional high street has seen many changes, as more retail and banking services are moving online. As designers we are seeing a rise in the need to reimagine urban centres and the commercial buildings, to offer properties a new lease of life. We believe that reusing the existing is the most sustainable approach, also reimagined structures can be more engaging that deliver richer schemes by offering a sense of history into a project.

Our October Books project redeveloped a beautifully grand Neo-Classical Victorian bank building in the Portswood area of Southampton. The established, independent bookshop set up a collaborative consortium with the homeless charity ‘The Society of St James’, to create a base for these two community focused ventures.

We reimagined the space to reactivate the old bank, for the good of the community. The design converted the ground floor of the former bank into a new book shop and community space, with the first and second floors converted to residential units for the homeless charity. We kept in quirky details from its former use to add a richness to the design, for example we keep the existing cash machine steel vault and encapsulated it within the shop counter.

Maximising an Existing Building

Concept designs to reimagine the plot, to deliver a new church and social housing scheme.

Occasionally reusing a property just doesn’t make financial sense and we need to look at how to maximise the potential of a site or building to support the community in a different way. We listen intently to determine exactly what our clients are looking to achieve, then put forward alternative suggestions that can maximise the site for the good of all.

 

At St Columba Church we hosted several focus community workshops and quickly understood it would be difficult to adapt the current building with the budget available to meet the expectations of the community, they needed the church to offer flexible space to host events, had a kitchen and washing facilities, is low energy to reduce the running costs and offers a welcoming and safe space to all.

By interrogating the site, it soon became apparent that there was space available to build a new, purpose-built church with modern methods of construction to deliver a low energy building that had the flexibility to meet the current needs and future needs of the local audience.

To raise the funds needed for this modern building, the funding would be unlocked by selling the existing church building which has been redesigned to create nine residential flats, with a shared internal communal space and a warden’s room to offer on-going support to the residence.

Community Design Workshop

Part of the community group who shaped and delivered the Bedford Place project.

As a design practice we understand the importance of hosting design workshops from an early stage with the local audience, to be inclusive in our design approach to deliver schemes which support social change and also create designs that celebrate the essence of a place.

 

When working on the pedestrianised area of Bedford Place in Southampton we worked with the whole community, business owners and local residence, hosting weekly meetings from the initial design concept stages, through the activation of the project to completion. This inclusive approach helped to shape the design by giving all those involved a voice, it also offered live feedback throughout to enhance the design. The project used low-cost temporary solutions, such as decorated concrete barriers, planters, outdoor seating and paint the road surfaces to enhance the closed roads to transform the space into a friendlier place for people in the community.

The project was originally only intended as a temporary solution to last a few months over the summer, but due to the success much of it has been kept in place, creating a vibrant backdrop to the artisan area of Southampton.

 

Get in touch to see how we can help you reimagine your community building or space.

New Forest House site progress

Last week we went to site to see the fantastic progress on our deep retrofit project, reimagining the existing Brockenhurst House dwelling in the heart of the New Forest National Park.

Our work has reimagined the distinctive 1970’s chalet house, adding an extension to reconfiguring the property alongside a full thermal upgrade to the property. The contractor has nearly finished on the main construction to a very high standard, leaving the smaller finishing touches to be completed by the owners. We are really looking forward to seeing this project complete very soon.

Site visits are really important for us in the design journey, they give us an opportunity to check in with the contractor and owner to help with any design issues that may have arisen, to ensure the finished project reflects the original design intention and is finished with the attention to detail our clients expect.

Girl Guides project appears in the AJ

Our Girl Guides Hut project was published in the Architects Journal this week; it is always nice to see our project news shared with prestigious industry publications, click here for the full article.

The design for the replacement hut has recently been submitted in for planning. The sustainably designed building will have low running costs, to make it an economical building for the charity to run. Due to the conditions of the site the building has been carefully crafted to maximise the space available, whilst fitting within the mature trees onsite and touching the ground lightly on screw piles. More project details can be found here.

Achieving planning permission within a National Park

Last week we won unanimous approval at planning committee for a replacement dwelling in Burley, right at the heart of the New Forest National Park. This was a brilliant win for our client and for our design, it also got us thinking about the process of achieving permission when your property is located within a UK National Park.

If you are looking to build a new property, make a significant change to a building (like an extension) or make a change of use (for example from agricultural barn to residential house) you will probably need planning permission before you start any construction on site. If you are luck enough to live within a National Park this can sometimes add another layer of complexity to be taken into account.

How to get planning in a National Park

To account for the sensitively of each National Park, they all have their own planning policy document and rather than submitting planning to your local authority (as you would with a standard planning application) you have to submit the planning to the individual National Park Authority.

If your design proposal is relatively straightforward then planning might not be too difficult to achieve, however an experienced architect who understands the local planning policy document can really push your design and maximise the potential of the site.

Successful planning approval

In the instances where the project is slightly more daring, working with an experienced architect can really pay off to help you see your designs come to life. To have the knowledge of articulating design to third parties, can help to enable planners to fully understand the concept behind your project. Often it is a collaborative effort to get tricky planning approvals, a good architect should have a network of specialist and trusted collaborators such as Planning Consultants, Energy Consultants, Landscape Designers and Structural Engineers to name a few. By working together, the expert team can demonstrate how the design preserves the unique, natural beauty of the National Park.

New Forest and South Downs design

The team at Studio BAD have successfully achieved planning permission for schemes within the South Downs National Park and the New Forest National Park, including an extensive extension to a bungalow, a contemporary extension to a Listed building and a new build replacement home.

The concept of National Parks is relatively new, with the government only having established National Parks in 1949 with a purpose to conserve, enhance their natural beauty and provide recreation opportunities for the public. There are now ten National Parks across England, and we are fortunate to be located between the New Forest and the South Downs National Park, both situated on the south coast where our studio is located.

If you have a project you would like to discuss, get in touch with our team today.

 

 

 

 

 

Studio BAD Design Award – University of Brighton

Guest blog by Roger Tyrrell.

‘There are cracks in Everything – that’s how the light gets in.’  Lyric by Leonard Cohen

As Darren and I travelled to Brighton by train, we reflected upon our contemporary world discussing politics, economics and ethics amongst other things. Given these ‘dark matter’ discussions, we each alighted perhaps with heavier baggage than when we each boarded that train.

We were in Brighton to judge the 2024 Studio BAD Design Awards, presented to final year Interior Design Students at the University of Brighton. It proved the ultimate antidote to our mood.

For students had been nominated for their work and we had the great opportunity to talk with three of them. We began with Mia who had designed a mindfulness retreat to enhance female mental health. She articulated beautifully the ambitions of her project and as the narrative unfolded it was clear how she had engaged not only with issues surrounding female mental health, but as importantly, how spatial design holds the potential to heal and provide hope. Of particular note was her focus upon materiality and the sensorial capacity that appropriate material choice holds to enrich our lives. Her drawings were beautiful; evocative, sophisticated images populated with textures and tones that truly reflected the ambitions of the project.

Next, we met Yen, an International Student from Malaysia who designed a project focused upon the needs of ‘new people’, individuals who had relocated and need to integrate into their new home. A place to ‘bloom’ as she explained. Her project was both thoughtful and thought provoking, a design that resonated in sensitivity and sophistication. As with Mia, her drawings exhibited a refinement, entirely appropriate to the project objectives.

Finally, we spoke with Diyanah who presented her project entitled ‘Tapping into the Devine Feminine’ – a woman’s centre located in Brighton. At every level, her design met the objectives of that powerful title. As a space of hope and healing her understanding of the circumstances of her clients was humbling and the design response was focused and inspiring.

Unfortunately we were unable to meet a forth candidate, Lara, who had been called-away for domestic reasons. However, even in her absence, her work resonated with maturity and sophistication. The ‘Hive’ is designed as a retreat for immigrants, it was thoughtful, sensitive and resonated with empathy.

Across each of these conversations our mood incrementally lifted. We left Brighton inspired, uplifted and with a huge sense of hope that the future is safe in the hands of these four young women. Each demonstrated the potential held by spatial design to hold social purpose, provide individual and collective betterment, and improve the world.

Mia, Yen, Diyanah and Lara, thank you. You reminded us of the innate power held by young people to challenge orthodoxies and accepted norms and articulate a socially responsible design paradigm for future generations.

 

Southampton Guides Hall submitted for planning

We have submitted our designs for a new Girl Guide Meeting Hall in the Portswood area of central Southampton, in for planning approval. The scheme will create a new hub for the local Guides Association to promote outdoor based actives for the young people in the city, on the site of a previously demolished hall.

The hall will be built primarily in timber with glazed sliding doors, the simple structure is divided into two key elements – roof and deck. The main hall is placed under an asymmetric butterfly style roof, designed to maximise the feeling of space within whilst sensitively tucking under the existing tree canopy. A floating roof will extend out over a decked area, offering an outdoor space with protection from the elements, you can find more details on the project page here. 

We look forward to a positive outcome from the planning department.