We have submitted this week a Planning application for the Grade II listed Princess Buildings, in Halifax. The buildings are currently a series of disjointed cellular spaces with difficult access and circulation that don’t offer a good working environment. The proposal aims to reorganise and rearrange the interior spaces of the buildings, exposing the high quality heritage detailing, to rationalise its circulation by introducing a new atrium to the rear courtyard and to rebuild a 1960s extension to the main street, next to the primary facade.

We had the opportunity to enter and be part of the final 6 shortlisted entries, for a New Public Realm RIBA international competition in Rochdale Town Centre. It has given us the opportunity to get to know a really interesting Lancashire town with an amazing past and a bright future. We wish the winning team – Building Design Partnership – and Rochdale Council all the best in delivering a successful and long-lasting project.

In this month’s RIBA Journal, our research project “Climate Change Adaptation Strategy” – commended in the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2013 – was featured in the “Intelligence” section, where Irena describes the impact that the research has had on our practice as well as the new knowledge gained. The article, amongst others, is available online here.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and Good Health for 2014

From all at Bauman Lyons Architects 

(Office will be closed from 25^th December and reopen 6^th January 2014)

This year’s RIBA Research Symposium was convened by Irena Bauman on the subject of “Urban Thresholds – do they help of hinder local resilience”. The event had a fantastic line up of speakers, including Prof. Ann Powers for LSE, Prof. Danny Dorling of Oxford and Jan Gehl of Jan Gehl Architects. A Student Charette was held to explore the thresholds between RIBA Headquarters and Society. The photo here shows students in the RIBA council chamber during the tour of the building.

A candle lit supper for 120 students was organised by Irena Bauman with chef Kim Swan, and a great number of student chef volunteers, at the Victoria Centre in Sheffield at the end of the the 2 day event “Theory Forum: Thinking Resilience” 18-19 November 2013. The proceedings from the forum can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCy91qoZuSoVL2obRqxbRAVaLlzCVU_Rk

The re-making of the Silk Mill museum is in progress. Derby Makers delivered fabulous design ideas at the Half Scale Prototyping workshop on 12th of November but at FULL SCALE! The workshops are supported by the Silk Mill team working with artists-in-residence TILT and with matt Murphy from BLA providing workshop and CNC support. This is the first phase of a very ambitious HLF bid to restore the whole museum.

Our Architectural Assistant Guy has created these visuals to accompany Derby Museum Trust’s exciting HLF application for the redevelopment of Silk Mill – Derby’s first factory in the world! To find out more about Derby Musem see the official website here and their Tumblr blog, which is documenting the museum’s big plans, activities and changes: http://derbysilkmill.tumblr.com/

Last Thursday evening, Irena and Matt attended the launch of Re:Make, the Derby Silk Mill museum project with TILT, our energetic collaborators who will be the project’s makers-in-residence! The room was buzzing with excitment and ideas, and you can read more about it, with further photos, on the Re:Make Tumblr site. Image from Re:Make.

Planning and listed building consent has been granted for the transformation of the Grade II listed former Marble Hall into a community facility incorporating a medical practice, nursery, cafe, training kitchen and start up business units. The building is the only remaining structure from the former Rolls Royce factory, which occupied the site since 1908. The project is planned to start on site in Spring 2014 and be completed by Spring 2015. Congratulations to the client team for their continued efforts to drive this important regeneration project forward.

Since being selected for the re-ordering and new public square for Holy Trinity Church in Hull, we have been supporting the Client with the HLF bid and we hope to be working with them soon to develop the proposal. Images from our winning competition entry, by our talented Part 1 assistant Ross Jordan.

We are looking forward to working with the traders and with the City of York on the makeover of Newgate Market.

We truly enjoyed working on this Treetops Children’s Centre project, in Haworth, and it’s great to seeing it completed and in use. Photography by Cloud9.

We were really pleased to read this article in the Yorkshire Post last week about the Holbeck Viaduct project being resurrected. It was a project that we loved being involved with, back in 2010, but unfortunately it had to be halted due to the economic downturn. We wish the community group all the best and for all their efforts to be successful!

Irena will be chairing this year’s RIBA research symposium: “Urban Thresholds”, held in London on Friday the 29th of November. Irena and the speakers will be addressing the question Do urban thresholds help or hinder local resilience? To book a place visitwww.architecture.com/researchsymposium2013

We have received some fantastic photos of Thompson Brand Partners’ studio fit out we completed recently. Photography by Cloud9

Bauman Lyons are novated to Contractor Willmott Dixon for construction of the new-build Enterprise Centre in Derby city centre. The steel frame and concrete floors are assembled and work on the envelope has commenced (at pace!). The building is designed with a fabric-first approach, low u-values and natural ventilation. And we’re on course for BREEAM Excellent!