community – Studio : B.A.D. Architects

Planning success

We are pleased to have secured planning for a new Girl Guides Hall for the Portswood area of Southampton, Hampshire. Our sensitive design will create a new hub for the local Guides Association, to enable them to promote outdoor based actives for young people in the city, on the site of a previously demolished hall.

We now look forward to working with the client to secure funding and deliver this wonderful building in the heart of the City, you can read full details about the project here.

RIBA MacEwen Award longlisted

We are so proud to have our St Lukes project included in this years longlist for the RIBA MacEwen Award, the annual awards that recognise architecture for the common good.

The project has redevelopment the tired church hall to create The Host Café, a community cafe and multi-functional space which has become a vibrant local focal point, hosting events throughout the day and evening.

In total 30 projects have been longlisted in the MacEwen Awards, you can see the full list here, the shortlist will be annouced in early 2025.

Celebrating Six Years

In celebration of our six years in business, and as a reflection of how the business has evolved, we have written and published a new practice profile which we launched last week at an evening with clients, collaborators and friends.

We set up Studio BAD to deliver architecture without ego, to use our design skills as a vehicle of positive change. The idea of re-use has always been central to our ethos, in an era where climate change defines our lives it is important to us to reduce unnecessary waste and promote low energy solutions as much as possible.

Whilst these points are still core to the business, the business has evolved since it was originally established. Recently we took some time out to reflect on how the business has developed over these last six years to review what we, as a design collective stands, now stand for. This work uncovered what we see as six essential aspects, which we think of as our Design Commitment:

To Listen
To Reflect
To Understand
To Imagine
To Act
To Realise

You can read more about our Design Commitment here, or get in touch to request a practice profile.

Host Café opens at St Luke’s, Portsmouth

We were delighted to see the first phase of our St Luke’s Church redevelopment completed, with the opening of the new Host Café last week. The redevelopment is inline with the Church’s vision ‘To become a church with visible connection and meaning to those who live, work, or study, in this community: one that is open throughout the week for everyone, whether you express a faith or not.’

The church had approached Studio BAD following the success of our St Margaret’s Church redevelopment, to help enhance the church building with the aim of transforming it into a vibrant hub for the community. As part of the wider project, we looked at major repair work to the church roof, gutters and windows and also looked at improving the engagement between the church and the community at all levels, make the physical space more welcoming and restful.

In this first phase the courtyard space, between the street and the front entrance, has been upgraded with a cost effective overhaul to deliver a vibrant and inviting space to encourage the community into, during the warmer months this space will also be used for alfresco dining for the café.

The new café is located in the church hall, offering great coffee, comfortable chairs and a warm welcome to all. The vicar, the Rev Annie McCabe, said: “Our customers include those who work in the church, students living in the blocks of flats around us, congregation members, and people from the local community. Various groups, such as the police and city council want to use the café as a base to discuss issues with local residents.” All profits raised from the café will be re-invested into the local community.

We are delighted to have helped breath new life into the building, creating a space for the whole community to enjoy and engage with. You can find out more details about Host Cafe here.

Winning Design for Art Commission

We are absolutely thrilled to have won the commission by the charity Allegra’s Ambition and SPUD to deliver a new piece of public art, to be located outside the Winchester Sports Centre which opened in 2021.

The brief was to design a new sculpture as a place for people to gather and sit, adjacent to the playing fields at the new recreation centre. The piece needed to versatile, to be interesting visually, create a natural gathering point, but also to offer some form of seating, and to ideally incorporate the charity within the design, all within a budget of £50,000.

Our answer was the ‘Tactile Seating Structure’ crafted from hardwood timber fins. Each fin could be a different hardwood to offer a variation on tone, positioned at a slightly different angle to create an organic ripple, reflective of the ribbons within the charity logo. The shape of the wooden structure creates a welcoming enclosure for people to gather, encouraging people to sit or lounge within, or climb and crawl over the undulating surface. Conceived out of reclaimed natural timbers, sourced locally, to create a robust, warm and durable structure which can sustain the public interaction with minimal on-going maintenance. The structure will be integrated with landscaping and outdoor apparatus, offering everyone an opportunity to participate in physical activity and activating an underused public area outside of the leisure centre. Public consultation workshops will be carried out to ensure that the structure incorporates a wide variety of uses for all ages and abilities.

The Allegra’s Ambition charity aims to encourage and empower young and disadvantaged people to fulfil their potential through participation in sport, the charity was set up in memory of Allegra, a keen sports person who died suddenly at the age of 16. SPUD is an arts and education charity located in the New Forest, they aim to create opportunities for people to engage with art, architecture, design and the environment.