Ecology of Communities lecture for PASS Portsmouth

I was delighted to take part in the PASS (Portsmouth Architecture School Society) series of lectures around the ‘Ecology of Communities’ last month. As a part time academic I feel it is important to continue to engage the next generation and to inspire those coming through. Others who have been part of this lecture series have included Piers Taylor, James Dale, Jo Hagan and Spark Architects. The whole series can be found on YouTube

 

‘In this time of uncertainty, we need more tolerance, compassion, and trust for each other since we all are one. Otherwise, humanity will face an even bigger crisis’

Ai Weiwei, Humanity

 

As a practice we have been fortunate to work on several community based projects, such as October Books, Bedford Place and St Margaret’s church, each quite different, with their distinct set of design aims, but all with driver to engage with their local community.

Recently we have been working on a feasibility for a mini masterplan of the Bedford Place district of Southampton. The area is set at the opposite end of town to the large shopping malls and has a reputation for being an independent district, with handsome Grade II listed buildings and with boutique retail offering and local restaurants. Due to the Covid outbreak many of the streets were closed to cars earlier this summer to allow for extra social distancing and additional outdoor seating. Initially this was a temporary measure by the council, done in haste and without much thought to the aesthetics, we were brought onboard to look at on-going street activation and animation.

Our recommendations included painting the concrete bollards, originally quite bleak but now bright and colourful, even acting as a draw to bring people to the area to see and engage with it. Our street activation plans have gone further to address the signage, put up street bunting, paint the road, increase planting and set up a series of events throughout the year to use this space. We see this as a huge opportunity for Southampton to create a distinctive district, with a unique sense of place which will draw people in, helping to improve the local economy.

This type of project is highly emotive, whenever there are discussions regarding reducing car access it makes people very passionate as we are a nation addicted to our cars. This is not a new thing, it is easy to find videos from Amsterdam in the 1970’s of locals getting violent at the new pedestrian streets, an area we now look at so positively.

It is however important to listen to the community and their concerns, to really hear what they are saying and reflect on their fears. As an architect it is important to not bring your ego or believe you know the solution from the start, I believe you can learn a great deal through listening and responding to issues, not only will you gain better community engagement in the project but it often makes for a far richer project.

Take a listen to the whole webinar here, it covers a lot more including an interesting Q&A session at the end which covers politics, dyslexia, collaboration, sustainability and even imposter syndrome.

The lecture can be seen here on YouTube. 

PASS lecture

The benefits of reusing and repurposing existing buildings

Recently I was invited to take part in the MESH energy webinar series where I talked about the benefits of upgrading and repurposing existing buildings. At a time where the conversation around the environment and climate change is happening across society as a whole, I am always surprised that the design sector is not discussing this issue in more detail and facing it head on with positive solutions.

We have been working on several varied projects that are reusing a current building. Just by looking at the statistics from Historic England, it is astonishing how damaging it is to build a new building when there is an alternative and environmentally better solution.

‘Compared to a refurbishing a traditional Victorian terrace, a new building of the same size produces up to 13 times more embodied carbon. This equates to around 16.4 tonnes of CO2 which is the equivalent of the emissions released by driving 60,000km’

The design approach to repurposing a building is quite different, each project will bring its own challenges and a successful refurbishment is able to turn these into opportunities. Within our ‘October Books’ project, which has repurposed an old high street bank into a community book store, it was not possible to remove the old walk in vault from the building so this was integrated into the interior design and is now used as the storage room with the old door kept in place as a feature behind the service counter.

Our St Margaret’s church project in Southsea, Portsmouth, is nearing completion of Phase 1 of their refurbishment, thermal upgrade, extension and repurpose to deliver a church that could meet the needs of its congregation. The building had no central heating installed, to retrofit this we decided the best solution was an air sourced heat pump and trench underfloor heating, laid in zones across the building. This solution gave us full flexibility across the floor space which was essential for this building. In keeping with the need for internal flexibility we have designed ‘mean-while’ solutions such as seating, screens and even a café on wheels, this allows the interior of the church to be configured and used as the community needs, with future proofing the design and also reducing the costs.

As we had to remove the old parquet flooring, to allow for the underfloor heating and a polished concrete floor, we were delighted that we were able to repurpose it and sell it on. Not only is this environmentally positive but it also raised much needed funds for the church building project.

In each project we believe the key to success has been achieved through two way communications, through deep listening we are able to really understand what people are saying which often unlocks the potential to a space.

The full webinar can be viewed here

‘If you help one person, you help humanity’ Ai Weiwei

RIBA Black History Month

The RIBA, working in collaboration with Paradigm Network, celebrated Black History Month with a special book club held throughout October. I was honoured to be asked to take part in this event, the importance of this movement is inclusion, everyone should be passionate about the accessibility for all to increase diversity and ultimately to drive our industry forward.

 

The month was about us all appreciating and celebrating the achievements from the BAME communities, and championing professionals from all backgrounds in all sectors of society.

 

For the Book Club we were all asked to nominate a book or song that has had a profound effect on us as a way of showcasing the inspirational work from Black and Asian talent. I selected the book ‘The Black Album’ by the hugely talented Hanif Kureishi.

 

This book transports me back to a specific time in my life, of being 23 in my final year of my architectural degree at Portsmouth School of Architecture. It represents a period of awakening for me, I remember it being a wonderfully diverse cultural era in the 1990’s in terms of literature, music, art, architecture, film and of course my education.

 

I find Hanif Kureishi has such a wonderful way of dealing with some complex social issues around race, religion, sexuality and modern culture, painting the world through wonderfully colourful words and descriptions. I think it’s fair to say, his work has played a huge part in my learning and what I do now in practice.

 

There was a free webinar on Thursday 29th October where all the design leaders participating in the book club discussed their selection and how it has affected their practice, an interesting insight into what motivates and inspires design leaders.

 

RIBA Event Details

 

Studio BAD team grows

We have welcomed Tayseer Kardash into the Studio BAD : Architecture team, we are so delighted that she is joining us to assist with the increased portfolio of work we have going forward, also she brings with her a beautiful design aesthetic which fits so well with our ethos.

I was lucky enough to have worked with Tayseer previously, initially when I was teaching her in my third-year studio at the University of Portsmouth and then later when we were both at PAD studio together. I have always been in slight awe of her, she is quite inspirational and I believe she is one of the most courageous and fearless women I have ever met!

Tayseer is an accomplished designer, she has extensive experience working in Sudan and across the UK, having previously worked with PAD studio, Hyde + Hyde Architects and Design Engine Architects she is extremely experienced with forward thinking designs. She has recently completed her Master of Architecture RIBA Part 2 at Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff and is planning to start her Part 3 studies later this year.

GUEST BLOG, ANDREW MALBON : Community Architecture, what does it actually mean in practice?

I’d like to share this photograph of St Margaret’s in Eastney which I feel encapsulates aspects of this growing community & the architecture in it all.

 

The arrow is part of the food bank – absolutely key over lockdown & still providing essential supplies to 200 people a week, staffed by local volunteers. Art on site hoardings isn’t unusual, this piece by Fark (@farkfk on Instagram) has a particular connection to the project. Fark’s up beat & positive style appears all over the city his studio is a few hundred yards away. He’s regularly sourced material to up-cycle from the community shop.

 

So what’s the architect’s role in all this? Get to know you clients, get to know the community, get involved if you can, keep an open mind. I’ve had the privilege of working with Studio BAD as part of the client body for St Margaret’s, the deep engagement has been critical to evolving the proposals to meet the needs of our community & to reinvigorate this part of the City, you may share this communities’ faith or you may not, but working together extraordinary things are happening.

Andrew Malbon

For the technically minded: Leica MP, 35mm Summilux Lee ND0.6 grad ISO 200, F2.8

ST MARGARETS CHURCH SOUTH-SEA PHASE 01 COMMENCES ON SITE

So after 18 months of collaborating and community participation, with the wonderful team at St Margaret’s Church in Southsea Portsmouth  and careful allocation of the budget from the church of England. We have commenced on site with Phase 01, which includes a new underfloor heating system, powered by a renewable heat source in Air Source heat pumps, a beautiful new polished concrete floor, new toilets, with a new community cafe and children’s play zone. This is no ordinary church, this is a community Church looking towards the future and re imagining and questioning, just what is Church for the 21 Century? Well for the team at St Margarets its about serving your community through, listening, assisting, offering friendship, offering food through the food bank or clothes from the community shop. This truly is the church of the future, where many activities services sit carefully curated under the umbrella of faith.

We took a day out with the Client team and took them to London for the day, where we visited the showroom of our concrete floor supplier to choose the floor colour. We also took in a visit to the Garden Museum in Lambeth to look at the former Church and how its been refurbished and re imagined. For us every client is unique and its about forming strong bonds on understanding, what our collective ambition and ultimate goals.

We hope to be opening the doors of the Phase 01 refurbishment in early November. But for now the church are raising funds to complete the works here with their Go Fund page

https://www.gofundme.com/f/httpsbitlystmagsheartbeat?utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link

Here is Fran giving a tour of the Church to Love Southsea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBIfsGg3J0&feature=youtu.be