Architype wins major healthcare award

Architype’s Sydenham Garden Centre has just won the Best Mental Health Design Award at the Building Better Healthcare Awards. The centre, designed to Passivhaus standards, is home to this innovative charity running therapeutic gardening and creative activities that complement statutory mental health services. The judges commented, “it is a very difficult site and the way the building responds is wonderful. It flows very well”, and, “the design has been grounded in the needs of the people who use the building and it is clearly a therapy space as well as a building.”

Architype at the UK Passivhaus conference

We’ve just got back from the 2011 UK Passivhaus Conference, where Jonathan Hines presented Architype’s new Passivhaus Primary Schools in Wolverhampton - two of the first in the UK. Alongside Matt Wisdom from Thomas Vale Construction, Jonathan outlined the challenge of achieving the standard whilst keeping the highest design quality, and the teamwork required to achieve Passivhaus on site. You can see his presentation here: View pdf

Ben Humphries and Wendy Bishop were asked by 2 Degrees to blog about the conference – you can read their thoughts here: Link

And AJ Footprint's comments too: Link

Architype now has 3 in-house certified
Passivhaus designers

Congratulations to Wendy Bishop, George Mikurcik, and Tom Mason,
who have all just qualified as certified Passivhaus designers, taking our expertise in the most rigorous energy standard in Europe to the next
level - well done!

www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/

Multiple win for Architype at the BCSE Awards

Architype has triumphed at the annual British Council for School Environments ceremony. We were named School Architect of the Year, along with scooping first prize for Best Special Educational Needs School and Best Independent School, and a high commendation for Sustainable School of the Year. Ty Goddard, the director and judge of the BCSE awards, said that Architype “demonstrates, in their approach to school design, the kind of excellence we hope to achieve across the industry.”

BSCE Award short-listing

Architype is delighted to be shortlisted for four awards at the upcoming BCSE Best of British School Awards. We’re up for Excellence in Design For Teaching & Learning: SEN; Excellence in Design For Teaching & Learning: Independent; Designing Britain: School Architect of the Year; and Sustainable School of the Year. Awards night is on June 22nd. 

Architype wins first ever Cut the Carbon Award

Architype has won the first ever ‘Cut the Carbon’ award, in the prestigious Building Awards.  Building magazine said that our entry ‘blew the judges away’. Cut the Carbon is the latest in a long line of environmental awards which over the last four years includes the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy, BCSE Sustainable School of the Year Award, Sustainable Architect of the Year Award, and the National RIBA Sustainability Award. 

Architype wins RIBA Sorrell Schools Award

St Luke's Primary School has won the RIBA Sorrell Foundation Schools Award, beating the two Stirling Prize shortlisted schools. The Sorrell Schools Award is awarded to the architects of the best RIBA Award-winning school. Speaking about St Luke’s, Lady Sorrell said: "St Luke’s is an inspiration. Anyone involved in building a new primary school should go and see this school before doing anything else.”

Funding win for Post Occupancy Evaluation

We have just won funding to carry out full Post Occupancy Evaluation on Bessemer Grange Primary School, following a successful application to the Technology Strategy Board’s Building Performance Evaluation competition. We are running POEs as part of our in-house Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Our Researcher, Lisa Pasquale, is working with the school, using a Soft Landings approach, to ensure smooth handover, and will be evaluating and monitoring the school's environmental performance over the next two years.

2011 promotions

We are delighted to announce that Ben Humphries and Mark Lumley are now Associate Directors of Architype. Mark Barry, Elrond Burrell, and Lee Fordham in the Hereford office, and Richard Asbury, Wendy Bishop, and James Todd in the London office have been made Associates.

St Luke's School wins at BCSE

Amongst stiff competition St Luke's Primary School last night scooped the BCSE Sustainable School of the Year Award. On the same night St Luke's also won Project of the Year under £10m and Environmental Project of the Year at the Quality in Construction Awards.

Challenging carbon policy

Jonathan Hines challenged current Zero-carbon policy in a presentation of Eco-minimalism, at 'M&E - The Building Services Event' at Olympia, in October. Jonathan was a keynote speaker at a conference in Istanbul, organised by the Turkish Green Building Council, where he presented Eco-minimalism. Jonathan also presented Architype's work at the launch of the 2010 'Inspired Design' Competition in Bucharest, for which he is also on the architectural jury.

Sunnyhill Children's Centre opens

Sunnyhill Children's Centre was formally opened on the 25th March, with a morning of celebrations including a samba band and children's activities. John Parr, Headteacher of Sunnyhill School, Phyllis Dunipace, Director of Children and Young People's Services in  Lambeth, and Keith Hill MP all gave great speeches, and the event ended with a balloon launch.

St Luke's Primary School wins RIBA Award

It has just been announced that St Luke's Primary School has won a RIBA Award - one of only two buildings to win in the West Midlands region.

Mayflower Children's Centre opens

The Mayflower Children's Centre opened today, 20th May, with a day packed with children's dances, a huge paella, and giant walking puppet. Headteacher Mickey Kelly and Simon Hughes MP gave speeches. Simon Hughes unveiled the new sign and cut the ribbon. The building contains a creche,  SureStart Centre, and is located on the Rotherhithe Peninsula.

Jonathan Hines is announced 'Green Guru'!

Following the online vote, Jonathan Hines has been selected as Building Magazine's 'Green Guru'! Votes were invited for the architect who is currently most influencial in sustainable architecture.

St Luke's Primary School wins Civic Trust Award

St Luke's Primary School has won a prestigious Civic Trust Award. Assessors said "the level of community involvement in the design process is admirable and this led to a design which responds directly to and expresses the ethos and character of this impressive school".

Gordon Brown visits Hitherfield Children's Centres'

To celebrate reaching the target of 3,500 Sure Start Centres, Gordon Brown visited Hitherfield Children's Centre in Lambeth - Architype's 33rd Children's Centre'.

Jonathan Hines provokes debate about Zero Carbon buildings

Jonathan Hines spoke at an RIBA / Ashden Awards debate chaired by Jonathan Porritt on 23rd October, The subject was “If I were the Government Minister responsible for zero carbon new buildings the key things that I would do to ensure that we are able to meet our targets would be ……". Jonathan gave a provocative speech arguing that zero carbon buildings are the wrong way to achieve national carbon reductions, and proposed an alternative strategy based on radical energy reductions.

Hitherfield Nursery and Children's Centre opens

Architype's new Hitherfield Nursery and Children's Centre was formally opened on Friday the 4th of December, by Lambeth Council's Head of Property Services. The children did a dance routine and sang along with the staff choir to entertain the crowd.

Singleton centre wins awards

Architype's Singleton Environment Centre has won two awards for Innovative Design and Sustainable Design at the Ashford Building Design & Construction Awards. The centre was praised for its seemless integration into the landscape and local ecology; providing an educational and enjoyable atmosphere; and its flexible design with cutting edge sustainable technology at its core.

St Michael's Hospice win

Architype has been chosen as the architect for a major new development at St Michael’s Hospice in Hereford, following a rigorous selection process which included a mini design competition and two interviews. The £8million project includes the design of a new-build 20 bed in-patients wing, and the refurbishment of the existing hospice building to provide expanded out-patients and new integrated support services.

Rainbow School win

Architype has won a project for The Rainbow Charity to create a centre of excellence that will improve and advance the education and health of children with autism and related communication disorders. The current school is located in an existing Victorian villa in Wandsworth. The Rainbow Charity wishes to expand and create a larger school for an additional 48 children and young people from 11-19. We are proposing expressive and tactile new extensions for this specialist project, including a new teaching block and art studio.

Architype celebrates 25 year anniversary!

This year we are celebrating our 25th anniversary. We have grown from 4 people in the beginning, to 32 staff across two offices - our super eco barn renovation in rural Herefordshire, and our Victorian warehouse in the urban heart of London. We are still absolutely driven by our original commitment to social and environmental sustainability. From these founding principles we have developed into one of the UKs leading ecological architects. Directors Bob Hayes and Jonathan Hines continue to lead us into the future...

St Luke's Primary opens

St Luke’s Primary school in Wolverhampton, was formally opened on 23rd October, in a service of celebration led by vicar of St Luke’s church and the Bishop of Wolverhampton.This was followed by the mass release of 400 biodegradable rainbow coloured balloons by the children, and an exciting afternoon carnival.

Streatham URC opens

The new Streatham United Reform Church nursery and community space formally opened on Wednesday 21st of October. Architype refurbished and added a new extension to this Grade ll listed church to provide a nursery and additional spaces for community use. The centre was opened by church minister Revd Richard Goldring, Revd Peter Southcombe and the Moderator of URC Southern Synod. A congregation member thanked our design team for “a wonderful nursery and lovely new spaces for our church”.

Hugh Myddelton School opens

Hugh Myddelton Primary School in Islington was formally opened on the 6th of October, by the new Headteacher and former pupil Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens). Architype showed Julian Sofear, the original architect, around the new school, and he approved our design!

Ben Humphries speaks at Norwegian Conference

Our Associate Ben Humphries was invited to speak at the NAL annual conference in September in Norway. NAL is the largest and the most important conference and meeting place for Norwegian architects, planners and decision makers. All 400 seats of the Drammen Theatre were filled.The conference theme was reuse, rehabilitation and transformation of existing buildings with special focus on energy efficient and sustainable solutions - Ben presented the Creative Media Centre and Upper Twyford Barn.

Post occupancy research commenced

Architype’s has established a ‘Knowledge Transfer Partnership’ (KTP) with Oxford Brookes University, which commenced on 1st October 2009. We have employed a research associate, Lisa Pasquale, and she will be undertaking a two year research programme of post occupancy monitoring of our buildings.This will include monitoring of energy and water consumption, temperature, humidity and CO2 performance, and user perception feedback. It will enable us to embed the knowledge gained in our practice to improve the design and performance of future buildings.