REDBORNE SCHOOL, AMPTHILL

The new hall, sixth form area and classrooms for Redborne School were completed in July 2015.

The building is planned around a ‘street’ with clusters of spaces arranged along it. This allows the project to be phased without impinging on the use of the building. The ‘street’ is lit at the top with a continuous rooflight and at low level with continuous light fittings. The hall is situated as far as possible from an adjacent housing estate in order to reduce visual impact while allowing the massing to create a backdrop for the sports field.

Materials are chosen to accentuate the massing and define the street in a contemporary way. The hall, with its motorised retractable seating, is a versatile space with a high-specification acoustic performance.

For more information relating to this project, please click here. 

STEPHEN GEORGE & PARTNERS CELEBRATE HERMAN MILLER COMPLETION

The new 150,000 sqft production and storage warehouse with 25,000 sqft ancillary offices for Herman Miller reached practical completion in June 2015.

During the 9 month construction period, the most challenging aspect in delivering the project was the CAM area (houses the ancillary offices, canteen and design street), while the warehouse was also custom designed to accommodate all the manufacturing and storage requirements.

The CAM area required creative and intricate detailing due to the nature of the bespoke design and the choice of materials; in particular the Reglit (glazing system) and CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) in conjunction with the steel structure.  These elements are all encapsulated within the Design Street; a double height Atrium space connecting the warehouse with the offices and social areas.

With the many shades of grey present within the scheme’s design street, this provides a canvas for Herman Miller to model their pieces of work; the use of the coloured feature walls breaks this up while enhancing and brightening the environment.  This space is also naturally illuminated by the circular roof lights which pierce the CLT roof, with the double height curtain walling to both ends of the design street, to let light in to the heart of the building.

The additional sports pavilion we have delivered as part of the scheme for the local council was completed in mid-April 2015.

SGP team: Ian Yallop / Marcus Smith
Project team: Marcus Smith, Ming Cheung, Fiona Merriman with support from Abigail Humphreys and Rob Allcoat

SUSTAINABILITY IN ARCHITECTURE

Students at Leeds Beckett University gained real world insight into sustainability in architecture from one of our Directors.

Chris Halligan from our Leeds office lectured on the Specification of Sustainable Building Materials and how he came to co-author the "Stephen George & Partners Guide to Building Materials and the Environment ".

A regular lecturer on the subject of sustainability, Chris delivered this latest workshop as part of Futures Fest, the University’s programme to help students plan their final year of study and develop employability skills.

Future Fest involves activities tailored to students’ area of study – such as Chris’s workshop – as well as more general employability skills such as computing, CV writing and how to make yourself stand out to employers.

STEPHEN GEORGE & PARTNERS AMONG THE TOP 100 ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES IN THE UK

It’s the time of year that practices get rated by the Architects Journal (AJ). 

The AJ Top 100 is an annual event and practices await their position with eagerness to see if they’ve risen through the ratings or gone down. Having spent hours collating data and feeding it into the annual survey, the results have been published and we’re delighted to announce Stephen George & Partners have been placed 76th.

Now, the AJ Top 100 is an industry-wide survey and, one could argue, a good marker for the success of a practice. But, and not to demean the success of any practice in the top 100, it is measured by the number of ARB registered Architects a practice has.

Whilst a broad relationship between the number of Architects and the fee income can be found, what about the massive contribution that technicians and technologists make? Is this a legitimate barometer to rank practices by anymore?

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX AT DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH LIBRARY

Stephen George & Partners are proud to announce that the Department of Health Library resource area is now complete.

As part of the bigger plan to reorganise Quarry House in Leeds with our client Telereal Trillium, Stephen George & Partners have designed the newly-completed library resource and open learning area in what is the largest government building outside London.

The Department of Health needed a new home for its internal technical library along with an opening learning area and space for management. The only available space we had within Quarry House was in a five storey atrium attached to one of the landscaped courtyards. This semi-external area experiences significant heat loss through the single-glazed enclosure and was not originally intended to be used as an occupied workspace.

To combat this, we proposed a secondary ‘pod’ within the atrium. Constructed mainly with glass, the new enclosure allows daylight to reach the internal office areas both within and next to the atrium.

This photograph was taken by Jon Knight of Nifes Consulting Group.

Find out more by reading the full story on our website here.

OUR DESIGN ENTRY FOR THE ART FUND PAVILION COMPETITION

We try not to forget inspiring designs from years gone by, so our Art Fund Pavilion Design entry is still a fantastic example of our innovation and attention to detail. 

Co-ordinated by Tent London and The Lightbox art gallery in Woking, the competition was open internationally. Here are our submissions...

STEPHEN GEORGE & PARTNERS DESIGN NEW HEADQUARTERS FOR EUROPA WORLDWIDE LOGISTICS

Stephen George & Partners are the first choice architects for a global industrial developer, with a build-to-suit agreement of a 262 square foot logistics facility in Dartford.

Partnering with Prologis, the new facilitiy will serve as the new headquarters for Europa Worldwide Logistics, one of the largest privately owned transport and logistics companies in the UK.

The new building has been designed to support the company’s road freight operations, and will achieve a minimum BREAAM 2011 ‘very good’ accreditation and the best EPC rating possible for its size.

Work will start on site in early summer 2014, with Europa moving in in Spring 2015.

Find out more by reading the full story on our website here.