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Archive for January, 2011

Last week the three practices of Architects4Education came together for one of our regular peer review sessions, to discuss our recently completed projects, and to talk about what we have currently on the drawing board. This unique collaborative approach allows us to share our experiences of best practice, and to review our designs to take on a ‘second opinion’ – ensuring that our clients get the best possible quality design.

In the following (3 minute) video John Lyall introduces a few video clips from the evening:

We are passionate about schools achieving the best possible quality in school design, and an evening like this allows us to discuss in depth the lessons that we have learned in our wide experience of schools work to date. Architects rarely get this opportunity – the closest one often gets is reading about a new school in the architectural press, or of course visiting a completed school. Both of these methods miss so many of the rich lessons a design team learns during the design process – the decisions made; the views of the teachers, school head and local community; the options not progressed - and the reasons why – and many more.

This video gives just a flavour of the projects discussed – we also talked about several more confidential projects – including a new primary school for Barking in East London, and our work as Client Design Advisor for Northamptonshire Academies – which could not be included online – but which also helped to further our collective knowledge.

The evening was also a great opportunity to get together and share a glass of wine!

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Work is fast progressing on our Eagle Court project for the Goldsmiths:

The primary function of the Centre is to provide post-graduate education, business start-up studio space, business skills tuition and support for young goldsmiths, plus craft skills training to pre-apprentice silversmiths close to Hatton Garden, the traditional home of the trade in London. The development comprises a new building – predominantly clad in limestone with  panels of patinated brass – and an adapted Grade Listed II Victorian School. The two distinct elements are linked by a glazed atrium. As well as the core educational facilities, the centre provides commercial workshop space, a large exhibition area, seminar space, a cafe and offices.

For more information and to see earlier sketches and design development models, click here.

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John Lyall will be speaking at the forthcoming NLA conference Recovering Energy from Waste: New technologies and infrastructure for the capital – a half day event which will discuss “the massive economic and environmental opportunities for energy from waste (EfW) technologies in the capital, as the Mayor, along with the waste and building industries, work to meet ambitious targets to send zero municipal waste to landfill by 2025.”

John will talk in detail about two of our recent infrastructure buildings:

  • Old Ford Water Treatment Plant, and
  • Crossness Advanced Digestion plant

Both are innovative schemes in their own right: Old Ford (above and top) recovers usable grey water from sewage for the nearby Olympic Park, while Crossness (below) processes sewage sludge to produce fertiliser ‘cake’, to be distributed to fields as fertiliser. Like all of our infrastructure projects, Old Ford and Crossness have been designed not only as functional buildings, but are also designed to enhance their environment.  Any large scale infrastructure should aspire to do this, especially within urban areas, or regions of special interest.

The conference Recovering Energy from Waste: New technologies and infrastructure for the capital takes place on Tuesday 8 February 2010, 8.30am-1.00pm, at the The Building Centre, London WC1E 7BT.  Click here for more details of the event and to register.

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Read more about Old ford water treatment (PDF brochure)

Read more about Crossness Advanced digestion plant (PDF brochure)

Open the full JLA infrastructure brochure (PDF brochure)

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JLAs Pudding Mill Lane Pumping Station for the Olympics has been published in the latest Water and Wastewater Treatment magazine - the leading water industry publication.

In the article Claire Smith talks to various people about how the pumping station is designed very much with ‘legacy’ in mind: it will operate at high capacity during the games, but then switch to a more economical mode in the years afterwards, gradually increasing capacity again as a new community is built around it. As Ron Smith of Thames Water says in the article,  ”The Victorians did build fantastic sewers and many great buildings. This is a modern version of that. There is no reason why this pumping station shouldn’t be working in 150 years’ time. These things have been built with history in mind – where the site is coming from and where it is going to.”

The thought that this building had to last for many decades was part of our design process – durability of the building was key, but we wanted it to also enhance its surroundings, and ‘give something back’ to the public realm.

Pudding Mill Lane, copyright ODA 2010

Click here to read the WWT article as a PDF or Click here to read the full December issue of Water and Wastewater Treatment magazine

To see the JLA infrastructure brochure head to: http://tinyurl.com/JLA-infrastructure

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