Old Ford and Stratford Box – latest site photos!

These are the latest site photos of our innovative infrastructure work on and around the Olympic Park; three separate facilities, each recovering water which would otherwise be wasted!

Old Ford Pumping Station: the photo above shows one of the four cubes of Corten steel which cluster around the central well head – itself also clad in Corten Steel but with a laser-cut pattern, inspired by the trees of the surrounding nature reserve.

This new pumping station sits above an existing Victorian well, and recovers raw groundwater, pumping it to North London for treatment as drinking water. This facility sits next to another of our new buildings – the Old Ford Water Treatment plant:

This groundbreaking water treatment plant uses the latest technology to treat foul water from the Northern Outfall Sewer, processing it and pumping it into the Olympic Park for use as grey water – watering landscape and pitches.

Our third and final pumping station on site – Stratford Box – is situated on the other side of the Olympic stadium:

The Stratford Box project is a dewatering facility – pumping millions of litres of water from the ground below the nearby Stratford Box railway cutting, route of high speed trains heading from Kings Cross and on towards France.
Clad in variously sized and subtly coloured bricks, the building’s interlocking volumes sit low within another area of natural beauty, in the very centre of the Olympic park.

Keep an eye out for all three buildings (and our completed Pudding Mill Lane Pumping Station) on the telly next summer! (maybe!)

To see how these buildings will look when complete, and for more of our award winning Infrastructure projects - Click here !

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Raising the bar to deliver sustainable civil engineering

 

John Lyall will be speaking at this Thursdays CIRIA seminar in London entitled  ’Raising the bar to deliver sustainable civil engineering’.

The event will discuss the future of sustainability in the infrastructure sector,  looking in depth at a number of best practice projects – including JLAs Pudding Mill Lane Pumping station, which recently won a CEEQUAL Outstanding Achievement Award for excellence in sustainability.

For more information and to register to attend click here 

 

Pudding Mill is just one of our award winning Infrastructure projects - Click here to read more!

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Deanes Nursery On site!

Another of our projects currently on site is the Deanes Nursery:

The construction of this new nursery is progressing well, with the slab finished and the brickwork commenced. It is due to be completed  end of August 2011.

The new building will provide modern nursery facilities for 43 children, replacing the aging nursery in the existing school .

The project provides a variety of stimulating spaces for the children. Large windows open out to the courtyard, providing high levels of natural light and ”box windows” create cosy places to play in.

The exterior will be finished in carefully balanced untreated timber and cladding panels in shades of green with red highlights.

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Old Ford Water Treatment Facility – Site photos

Also under construction is our Old Ford Water Treatment facility:

The large volumes of the building are taking shape, and the partly recessed tanks can easily be seen in the latest site photos:

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The  Old Ford Water Treatment facility will take mixed storm and foul water from the Northern Outfall sewer and by a state-of-the-art process of filtration produce ‘grey water’. This groundbreaking facility will supply non-potable water to a number of buildings and venues throughout the Olympics – providing a sustainable water source for Thames Water and The Games.

The simple form and modest materials of this building reflect its function and the fact that it lies within a protected woodland. Another important design factor is that it is one of a family of new engineering structures for the Olympic Park – Old Ford Pumping Station – also designed by John Lyall Architects – sits nearby.

The choice of timber cladding, stone gabions and extensive green roof will enhance the biodiversity of the site by extending habitats. The materials are also inherently sustainable themselves.

Old Ford is a small protected woodland situated just 150m from the Olympic Stadium. As with all of the buildings designed by John Lyall Architects around the Olympic site, the scheme has a simple modesty appropriate to its location, which does not try to compete with its more famous architectural neighbours.

Click here to download a project datasheet (6.5Mb PDF)

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Eagle Court Progressing Well on site!

Eagle Court – the new training centre for The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths – is progressing well on site.  Marked by the traditional topping out ceremony, the uppermost structural point of the building has now been completed (by contractors Balfour Beatty), and the internal spaces are really starting to take shape – including those within the existing Victorian school building:

 

The facility – due to open in Autumn 2011 – will 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.

To read about the topping out ceremony on the Goldsmiths website, click here.

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

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CHATHAM WATERFRONT Development receives planning permission!

“Chatham is on the way back up!”

John Lyall Architects ‘ regeneration scheme for Chatham’s waterfront has been awarded Planning Permission this week at public committee.

The mixed-use scheme on land owned by Medway Council and A2Dominion comprises a series of buildings in a pedestrianised landscape for commercial uses, an 80-bed hotel and 111 apartments with both river and town views. The development will re-define the sky-line of Chatham when seen across the river Medway from Rochester, integrate the public waterfront with the town centre and kick start the regeneration of the wider area.

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The project was passed unanimously, having received widespread approval from the planning committee.  Councillors remarked that the scheme  was “fresh and forward looking” and  ”vibrant”, and that it “will assist considerably in the regeneration” of the town - “Chatham is on the way back up!”

Click below to see larger versions of the images:

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Pudding Mill Lane wins prestigious CEEQUAL sustainability award!

Pudding Mill Lane Pumping station won a major sustainability award at this weeks CEEQUAL Outstanding Achievement Awards, at the Institution of Civil Engineers in Westminster.

CEEQUAL Outstanding Achievement awards 2011 © http://www.steveshipmanphotography.com

The Olympic Park Primary Foul Sewer and Pumping Station was earlier this year rated  ’excellent’ under the CEEQUAL sustainability assessment method.

“CEEQUAL is the assessment scheme for civil engineering and the public realm. It assesses how well project and contract teams have dealt with environmental and social issues in their work.”

This prestigious accolade was one of only eight Outstanding Achievement Awards given out this year. Professor Paul Jowitt, chairman of the judging panel and former President of the ICE, said:

“It was clear from the nominations we considered that some genuinely good work is being done but we also felt strongly that the Awards should be about Outstanding Achievement, not what might be called ‘best in show’. We were therefore looking for not just very good practice but for performance that was genuinely exceptional – what CEEQUAL often describes as ‘pinnacle best practice’.

To read more about the assessment of Pudding Mill Lane and the Olympic Park Primary Foul Sewer please click here

Project Team:

Client: Olympic Delivery Authority
Designer: Arup and Barhale Construction / Hyder Consulting / Donaldson Associates / John Lyall Architects
Construction: Barhale Construction

Click here to see more photos from the awards evening!

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John Lyall on the future of building schools

John Lyall was interviewed by Local Government News at BSEC,  and discussed the future of building schools in the UK:

John Lyall:

“Its a myth that good design costs too much money – it doesnt.”

“BSF was overweighed with bureaucracy – thats where the money has gone – Mr Gove – not on Architects Fees! “

“Its not all bad news. People are talking about prefabricated schools – handled right thats not a bad thing, and certainly starting to work for some primary schools… Whether that will work for more complex schools such as secondary schools i don’t know… the architects, contractors, and teachers and school heads will increasingly demand better design. “

“CABE 10 point design criteria has also helped improve design quality…”

“BSF brought architects and contractors together, and we mustn’t lose that…”

“architects must do more research with contractors – what makes good design and what makes good value – not just cutting costs by cutting area…  and we don’t want to go back to the mistakes of the past…”

Click here to see more Local Government News videos from BSEC

 

John Lyall Architects are a founding practice in the consortium Architects4Education – consisting of three award winning practices who have come together to work collaboratively in the field of education design.

Click here to find out more about Architects4Education.

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In the Pink! Pudding Mill Lane in latest RIBA Journal

Our Pudding Mill Lane pumping station features in this months RIBA Journal – in an issue entitled: Power and Production – Architects and Infrastructure.

Quotes from In the Pink article by Eleanor Young:

“The form has great simplicity and a hunkered down sense of power.”

“Lyalls design has most in common with Rogers’ (LDDC pumping station): the circular plan and intense colour. But Pudding Mill Pumping Station is a much more polite and even refined building with its cloak of concrete.”

Click here to open the article as a pdf.

The March issue of RIBA Journal can be viewed online here.

Pudding Mill lane also featured in a 6 page article in the Architects Journal click here to open. It will also appear in the Autumn edition of Concrete Quarterly.

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Early Learning – an article in Building Magazine

“Inspite of the doom and gloom about the new government’s schools programme, I am optimistic that we can still achieve great new schools, and brilliantly transformed existing schools.”

John Lyall writing in this weeks Building magazine – a timely piece: at BSEC many people were talking about design quality, flat pack schools, and the role of architects in the future of school design…

Click here to open the article as a pdf

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