JLA’s The Mill development in musical light show

This weekend JLAs recently completed residential development ‘The Mill’ in Ipswich became a huge art installation by lighting designer Phil Supple – check out this amazing video (and the sychronised audio if you can!):

The art project marked the start of the Ipswich Arts Festival:  Ip-Art 2010

The Mill comprises a family of buildings centred on a courtyard and includes the 23 storey tower (the tallest building in East Anglia.) The scheme is a mixture of 327 residential apartments, a major dance house and theatre (Dance East) bars, restaurants and shops. The project won two big awards at the recent RICS awards – Project of the Year and the Best Regeneration award.

Stills from the video:

(Video courtesy and copyright of Ipswich Arts Festival 2010)



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Helsinki Horizon 2030

JLA’s Laura Brax was invited recently to the private view of a new LFA exhibition and a reception at the Finnish Ambassador’s residence:

Helsinki Horizon 2030

‘Helsinki Horizon 2030′ is part of the London Festival of Architecture, International Showcase. Organized by the Helsinki City Planning Department, the exhibition features future plans for Helsinki shoreline in the decades to come. Vast industrial port and harbour areas are being freed-up in the city centre and will be developed into three new city districts. The old ports release 20 km of new shore line for public paths and bicycle routes, beaches, yacht clubs, cafes, parks and other recreational areas for the citizens to enjoy. The new districts will also create 50 000 new homes, the majority of which come with a sea view and are located within a short tram ride from the old city centre. This being the largest urban redevelopment project in Europe, Helsinki finds it self in a unique position.

Helsinki Horizon - exterior

Helsinki Horizon - interior

The  grand visions, plans and ideas have been packed into a ‘tardis-like’ sea container and shipped off to tour the world. A small showcase of a big idea, the sea container on it’s timber podium has potential to be developed into a platform for discussion, debate and exchange of ideas on an international level.

Laura will be writing a full review shortly, to appear in Finnish design magazine Arkkitehti Uutiset and the UKs Architects Journal.

For further information head to:

http://www.finemb.org.uk/Public/default.aspx?contentid=194649&nodeid=35864&culture=en-GB

http://www.lfa2010.org/event.php?id=121&name=finland_helsinki_horizon_2030

Or go to see the exhibition! Open 12-6pm till 4th of July.

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To read more about John Lyall Architects waterside urban regeneration projects, click here.

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JLA at the 50 Years of London Architecture 1960-2010 exhibition

JLA had two buildings feature in the recent 50 Years of London Architecture 1960-2010 exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London.

JLAs Pudding Mill Lane Pumping Station (completed 2010) was selected to sit alongside an extensive display of buildings from across London and over the last 50 years…

Our North Greenwich Tube Station (from 1997) was also part of the exhibition.

Opening night speeches - Photograph by Richard Bryant

click here to see Our full photo panels:

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Deanes Nursery granted Planning Permission

John Lyall Architects have been successful in gaining planning permission for Deanes Nursery. The new 43-place nursery replaces an existing nursery, currently housed in a 1960′s building on the site of the Deanes School in Essex. Features include purpose-built classrooms, all with natural light and ventilation, and high ceilings. Each of the four classrooms enjoy direct access to external age-appropriate play areas. Hard and soft landscaping to the nursery will include a tricycle track and child-friendly vegetable beds. The nursery will also house a soft play area and a provision for a before and after school club to meet the needs of the local community.

The nursery is due to start on site in the summer with completion schedules for March 2011.

John Lyall Architects have been successful in gaining planning permission for Deanes Nursery.  The new 43-place nursery replaces an existing nursery, currently housed in a 1960s building on the site of the Deanes School in Essex.  Features include purpose-built classrooms, all with natural light and ventilation, and high ceilings.  Each of the four classrooms enjoy direct access to external age-appropriate play areas.  Hard and soft landscaping to the nursery will include a tricycle track and child-friendly vegetable beds.  The nursery will also house a Soft Play area and provision for a Before and After School club to meet the needs of the local community.

The nursery is due to start on site in the summer with completion scheduled for March 2011.

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John Lyall Architects Infrastructure work

With the Olympic Pumping station now complete and with news of some of our new infrastructure work released to the public realm, we’ve updated our Infrastructure Brochure:

We’ve still got plenty of similar projects on the drawing board which at this time remain top secret… we’ll post details as soon as we can!

To open a PDF version of this brochure please click here (3Mb file)

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John Lyall Architects at the Royal Academy Summer Show

JLA are proud to have photographs and etchings of Pudding Mill Lane Pumping Station exhibited as part of the Royal Academy Summer Show!

John Lyall Architects at the Royal Academy

The pumping station, operational since January, is one of the essential utility facilities for the London Olympics 2012 (more details and images).

As of next week JLA will feature in 3 exhibitions across London at the same time – The Royal Academy Summer Show, 50 years of London Architecture 1960-2010 and Architects at Le Cafe Anglais: a new perspective.

The Royal Academy Summer Show

The Royal Academy Summer Show

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The Thames Tunnel

John Lyall Architects have prepared a series of quick sketch visualisations for Thames Water for their proposed Thames Tunnel project – a massive engineering undertaking to make the river Thames cleaner. The project – due to start construction in 2013 – involves a new tunnel 20 miles long at a depth of 75m below central London.

These sketch designs were produced to help Thames Water select the team for their marketing and visualisation work. JLA is on the shortlist to provide the architectural design when the project begins… planning applications are due to be submitted in 2012.

Thames Water – Tideway Tunnels information

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Collaboration in practice

Two architecture practices working together on the design of a new school:

Tom Ebdon presenting the scheme

John Lyall Architects are working in collaboration with Sarah Wigglesworth Architects on the design of a new school in East London: the local authority need to build a totally new primary school by September 2011. This deadline is challenging;  so too is the compact  site – a small clearing at the heart of a large new housing development.

The two practices both have a wealth of design experience in their own right – but in collaboration can offer the client the resources of a bigger team, while still retaining consistently high quality and flexibility. These are the core qualities of the consortium Architects4Education, of which more later.

As the school designs are really starting to take shape this was a great opportunity to hold a cross-office design review: where the plans could be subjected to peer review. So Rob Scott left JLA’s offices in The City and cycled over to SWA’s base in North London, co-presenting the scheme with fellow architect Tom Ebdon of SWA to the rest of the office.

The process was really refreshing, and helped to progress the scheme. While we are used to discussing our work with colleagues, this broadened the debate to a wider audience and to architects with a different set of experiences, but who all share the same drive for design quality.

After much discussion, lots of sketches and one big pot of tea Rob and Tom came away with confirmation of the positives, as well as new avenues to explore, and relevant precedents to research.

This is cross-practice collaboration in action: we are all learning from one another’s methods, and the design improves through the peer review process.

In many ways it was just like being back at university, except instead of heading to the pub for post review drinks, it was back to the office!

Toby making a suggestion!

John Lyall Architects and Sarah Wigglesworth Architects are part of the Education-specific consortium Architects4Education – Along with Greenhill Jenner, Stanley Braggs, and Chris French.

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