The SSoA research book, celebrating 5 years of research, will be launched on June the 24th in the Arts Tower, Sheffield.

We are looking forward to attend and be part of the discussion and debate about the value of research in society.

Sheffield Arts Tower, 5.30pm in lecture theatre LT04 – Lower Ground Floor.

We are looking forward to attending the opening of this year’s SSoA students exhibition and to celebrate with them all their achievements.

What are you doing in September??

The Sheffield School of Architecture (SSoA) Summer Programme runs from the 15th to the 20th of September alongside the Festival of the Mind.

During an energetic week, we will examine the fabric of the City Centre of Sheffield and propose solutions to vacant, underused and underdeveloped sites within the city.

Design Team Leaders:
Martin Mayfield – Engineer
Irena Bauman – Architect
David Cottrell – Artist

Visiting practices:
AHMM
Carmody Groarke
Hawkins\Brown
Penoyre & Prasad
Riches Hawley Mikhail
5th Studio

Sheffield academics:
Simon Chadwick
Leo Care
Russel Light
Julian Marsh
Satwinder Samra
Cith Skelcher

It’s just £200 for 6 days tuition.

Each day will be packed with skills sessions, walks, talks and presentations. You will take part in design projects in collaboration with some of the best architects, engineers, architects and academics in the UK.

Contact annabel.smith@sheffield.ac.uk for more details, or call 0114 222 0310

We have started digging and preparing for the build of our office extension!

Foundations are being laid by Maurice, Pete and others in the office for our first digital self build – a garden room extension that will house our conversations and collaborations – a meeting room!

It is the second prototype in our Mass Bespoke Research. We are hoping to follow on with a third prototype – a fully resolved and achievable house but there is some way to go before we resolve all the complexities inherent win the various building systems.

Meanwhile Matt and Pete have learned the limitations and frustrations of CNC cutting and there is little that Matt does not know about plywood grades. They have brought the joy of making back into architecture. We will be ‘raising the garden shed’ in the summer with the help of many volunteers, fueled by good food and many crates of beer for sure!

The new Salvation Army Housing Association homeless hostel in Bolton is now complete and the residents and staff have moved in. Works on the second phase demolition of the former facility continues, which will give way to new gardens and external amenities spaces, scheduled to be completed this summer.

Staff, residents and the whole of the project team expressed delight in the brightness and positive feel of the new facility, we are too!

We are delighted to learn that the planning application submitted for Eldwick Primary School in Bingley, West Yorkshire, has received full planning approval. The design seeks to expand the school from a 2 form entry to 2.5 form entry. The submission involves the construction of a new reception unit, the provision of three new classrooms and expanded administration, kitchen and dining facilities.

The original article wrote by Peter Blundell Jones on Tower Works, in the Architecture Today journal, has been featured and translated in the BioArchitettura Italian journal, Anno XXII n.83. A PDF of it can be read here.

Irena will be attending “We Need To Talk”, a symposium on catalytic climate communication organised by the Danish think tank “Monday Morning“.

Monday Morning initiate many projects to co-create new communications frameworks to overcome the challenge of complexity of issues such as climate change. One of these projects is Sustainia, of which this symposium is part, an innovation platform to enable companies across the world to work together and share ideas and actions that have a tangible approach to sustainability.

“We Need To Talk” will take place on the 7th of April in Copenhagen at the Carlsberg Academy.

On the 26th of March, Irena will be attending the talk “Human City: a place to Change” organised as part of the 4×4 Manchester series of events. She will be one of four speakers, each giving a 15min presentation followed by Q&A with the audience. Irena’s talk is titled “Be the change you want to see in the  world”.The event will start at 6pm, is free to attend and there’s no need to book. Details about the location and about all the other talks in this series can be found here.

Our Part II Architectural Assistant Guy has been modelling Princess Street with great accuracy and attention. Very kindly Platinum Print in Harrogate has allowed us to recycle their offcut cardboard, which has come in really handy!

Tomorrow, 11 February 2014, we will be holding a workshop with students of the Sheffield School of Architecture (SSoA) testing pop-ups designs for market stalls, in collaboration with SKINN andMAAP. The workshop is part of SSoA “Whole School Event” happening throughout the city and the outputs of the students’ efforts will be displayed in store fronts across Sheffield shops.

For the launch of Polish magazine Miasta, Issue #01 discussed topics on Housing and Housing provision in Poland. Irena was invited to discuss the work that we have undertaken in the past 10 years in designing and delivering new and refurbished homeless facilities schemes. Because in Poland homeless provision is under developed, Irena talked about our five projects in this area and our different approaches depending on the client’s requirements and phylosophy. The article is in Polish, the whole issue can be downloaded in PDF here.

This morning Matt and Pete arrived with a van full of our CNC fabricated components for our Garden Room. These are very exciting times, R&D (research & design) in action, we plan to also build it ourselves come spring. We will be sharing our experience via all our various social media channels and hope to be part of a larger conversation about mass bespoke and CNC production.

We spent 3 days over the past weekend getting to understand the complex social, economic, management and physical systems that underpin the workings of the  Newgate Market in York. Many thanks to all the traders and members of the public who shared their knowledge and ideas with us. If you didn’t manage to make it tour stall you can still take part online at:http://www.york.gov.uk/info/200199/markets/253/newgate_market/3 (the consultation is now closed but you can read about the findings here). Please get back to us with your comments as soon as you can and no later than Monday 3rd February 2014. We will also be holding Open Surgeries every Monday from 17.30- 19.00 at 5 Silver Street project room throughout February and March- please come and talk with us.

A big thank-you to the Homes and Communities Agency for nominating Tower Works at the 2013 Leeds Architecture Awards, which received the ‘Best Altered Building’ award last Thursday, 23rd of January. The standard was very high this year, including LILAC – the first UK example of affordable, ecological co-housing – which received a special commendation in the ‘New Building’ category. Congratulations also to Lathams Architects, whose 1991 conversion in central Leeds – the much-visited Victoria Quarter – won the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Architecture & Design in Leeds’ award.

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.