October Practice News

As autumn begins, we’ve seen exciting progress across several projects. There have been dramatic changes on site in the New Forest, we’ve once again supported the Homebuilding & Renovating Awards, and our Allegra’s Ambition public art commission has now been installed in Winchester.

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Courtyard House, SIPs Structure

It was fantastic to see the significant progress at Courtyard House during our recent site visit. This exciting project is delivering a striking contemporary home near Burley, in the heart of the New Forest National Park.

The property is being constructed using Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), a high-performance composite building system that offers a modern alternative to traditional construction methods. Fabricated off-site, these panels greatly reduce on-site construction time. For this project, it has meant that all walls and the majority of the roofing structure has been erected in under a month!

Judging Industry Awards

Darren was once again invited to join the judging panel for the prestigious Homebuilding & Renovating Awards, held in partnership with The Times and The Sunday Times.

The panel of eight expert judges had the enjoyable, but challenging, task of reviewing all the entries and narrowing them down to a shortlist of just 25 outstanding properties. From this shortlist, the panel will now work together to select the winners for each category.

Have your say! You can also get involved by voting for your favourite project in the Readers’ Choice Award – just click here to vote. 

Allegras Ambition Public Artwork Installed

We’re very proud to see the public art we designed for Allegras Ambition now installed outside Winchester Sports Centre.

Our team won the public art competition last year with a well concieved design that incorporates the charity’s logo into a beautifully tactile wooden seat sculpture. The shape of the structure forms a welcoming enclosure, inviting people to gather, sit, lounge, or even climb and crawl across its undulating surface.

Professional photos coming soon!

South Coast Property Roundtable

Following on from our win of Architectural Practice of the Year at this years South Coast Property Awards, Darren was invited to participate in a round table discussion last week, with the other winners from this year’s awards.

The open discussion looked at opportunities and challenges we all face within the vibrant property sector across the south coast, including changes to the planning process, opportunities within the commercial sector to encourage staff back into the office, and how to make full use of technology to increase efficiency.

The organisers are looking to write a full report on the discussions, which we hope to share soon.

Planning secured on second phase at St Margarets

Full planning has been secured for the second phase at St Margarets Church, adding a new entrance to the church in Southsea, Portsmouth.

We had previously worked on the church, helping to transform the almost derelict building into a vibrant community hub, this second phase focuses on installing a new entrance porch to help to further reinvigorate the building with the community. Our design adds a contemporary copper clad porch, creating a striking, visual statement that will activate the front of the church with the public realm.

Having worked closely with the church, planners and community over the last few years, we are so pleased to have finally got planning in place for this addition. We look forward to sharing updates of the work as it starts on site later this year.

Get in touch to discover how we can help tranform your community project.

Supporting Fare Share

We were pleased to support the Fare Share South West Christmas Pledge campaign, which raised over £100,000 to support their on-going work to redistribute food waste to those in need.

 

The mission of the charity is to join the dots between hunger and food waste, creating a solution for the broken food system to create positive social change. By being able to rescue quality surplus food, that would otherwise go to waste, they are able to share it with charities and schools across the south west, to bring health, dignity and joy to people in need.Their misson resonates with our own company ethos, to be a vehicle for positive social or economic change.

 

You can learn more about the amazing work they do here.

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.