Venice image credit – Bash Khan

Penicuik + Venice

Scotland + Venice: The Happenstance – Collateral Event at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (Venice) –establishes a Freespace in the garden at the heart of Palazzo Zenobio in Venice and opens to the public this week.

Promoted by the Scotland and Venice Partnership and curated by Glasgow-based artists/curators WAVEparticle (who regularly collaborate with Austin-Smith:Lord) a team of artists and architects are encouraging everyone into a vital relationship with the built environment, using play as an active agent within the process of rethinking and reclaiming Freespace.

Austin-Smith:Lord are contributing to the Happenstance, which features their A Town Hall for All project in Penicuik, Midlothian.

Penicuik Town Hall has been identified as a priority for the Penicuik Heritage Regeneration Project; a partnership with Midlothian Council, Penicuik Community Development Trust and Penicuik First. Applications have recently been made to Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Environment Scotland for a Townscape Initiative (TI) and Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS) for Penicuik town centre.

As part of the Happenstance project for Scotland + Venice and the Year of Young People, every primary school pupil in Penicuik has been invited to share their ideas for A Town Hall for All.

Given Penicuik’s heritage as a Papermaking Town ideas have been captured on 1,329 Paper People – one for every pupil in the town. Their Paper Chain of Ideas will be exhibited in the Town Hall on 13 June (from 11.30am to 6pm), to start a whole-town debate about what A Town Hall for All ages should be like. It is intended to inform future plans for Penicuik Town Hall, to create a Freespace for Penicuik.

Whilst Scotland + Venice : The Happenstance opens this weekend at the Venice Biennale, Austin-Smith:Lord are participating in Penicuik’s annual Hunter and Lass gala to celebrate the work of the town’s school pupils, and raise awareness of the A Town Hall for All project and invite wider participation. A stall at Penicuik in the Park on Saturday 26 May will showcase the work to date.

Meanwhile, in the garden of Palazzo Zenobio in Venice, visitors can explore the previous work of the artists and architects of The Happenstance, make their mark on the Armature built by Baxendale Architects, make a costume or sit back in our deckchairs to watch a film from Scotland or Venice.

Come and play!

Take a chance, make a stance…see what happens
– This is the art of The Happenstance

To celebrate Scotland’s Year of Young People (YOYP), The Happenstance brings together artists and architects to work with young people in Scotland to discover what Freespace means to them and their communities, before bringing a ‘living library of ideas’ to Venice in May, 2018. The Happenstance activities will be based at Palazzo Zenobio from 26 May – 25 November 2018 (Collegio Armeno Moorat Raphael, Dorsoduro 2596, Venezia 30123).

Their proposal is supported and promoted by the Scotland + Venice partnership: Scottish Government, Architecture and Design Scotland, Creative Scotland, British Council and the Year of Young People/Young Scot.

Graham Ross, Partner at Austin-Smith:Lord said:
“We’re relishing the prospect of participating in Penicuik’s annual Hunter and Lass festivities whilst, simultaneously, the A Town Hall for All project is showcased at the internationally prestigious Venice Biennale. We’ve been inspired by the energy and ideas coming through from Penicuik’s primary school pupils and hope that this kick starts a whole-town debate about the Town Hall. Having grown up in Penicuik is been a privilege to work with young people in the town to help them shape their future place and Freespace in Penicuik. We look forward to sharing their ideas with young Venetians in the coming weeks.”

Peter McCaughey of WAVEparticle, said, “Scotland +Venice offers a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and tools from Scottish culture around open space and Freespace, both in the format of an exhibition but, more importantly, in the format of live workshops and discussions. The Happenstance will be focussed on the event nature of live situations where things happen – like the tradition of Speakers’ Corner, it is a place to take a stance, to present a proposition, to articulate an idea on the theme of Freespace.”

Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs said:
“The Scottish Government is pleased to support Scotland’s participation as a Collateral Event in the Biennale Architettura 2018. Our presence at this year’s Biennale Architettura offers a special opportunity during Scotland’s Year of Young People to demonstrate how our country’s young people can contribute to ideas at the most prestigious architecture event in the world.
The Happenstance project will present fine examples of creativity in Scotland’s built environment and how the public has benefited. It will also show the value that Scotland places upon the ideas of our children and young people to an international audience.”

The V&A has appointed Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), with Austin-Smith:Lord, to lead the design of a pioneering new Collection and Research Centre planned for Here East in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

This new centre will transform access to thousands of objects from the V&A’s unparalleled collections of art, design and performance not currently on display, and forms part of the expanded V&A East project alongside a new museum planned for Stratford Waterfront, designed by the Dublin-based practice O’Donnell + Tuomey.

The international design competition drew an excellent response from a wide range of practices, with five shortlisted. DS+R’s proposal was selected for its clarity, ambition and originality, communicating a vision that will transform engagement with, and access to, the V&A’s collections. Their proposals will give visitors, researchers and staff new ways to interact with the richness and potential the V&A’s national collections and archives.

V&A Deputy Director and COO Tim Reeve said:

“The field for this design competition was incredibly strong, featuring many of the best architecture practices from the UK, Europe and around the world. The five shortlisted teams were all outstanding, presenting an exciting and high-quality range of proposals that tackled the brief with ingenuity, imagination and vision. We are delighted to announce Diller Scofidio + Renfro as the lead designers for the V&A’s proposed new Collection and Research Centre at Here East. They clearly demonstrated their creativity and skill not only as transformative designers in the arts and museums world, but also as thought leaders in how audiences engage with objects and how collections can be made more publicly accessible. We are all looking forward to working closely with DS+R in the months ahead, to develop their winning concept in to a place that will provide creative inspiration and opportunity for generations to come.”

 DS+R Partner Elizabeth Diller said:

“It is thrilling to contribute to a new wave of rethinking how London’s cultural institutions can reconnect to the city – from the Cultural Mile to the developments emerging in Queen Elizabeth Park. We’re excited to start experimenting with the V&A on this new model for collection storage and public display at Here East. Planned from the inside-out, V&A East will be like stepping into an immersive cabinet of curiosities—a three-dimensional sampling of the eclectic collection of artefacts, programmed with diverse spaces for research, object study, workshops, and back-of-house functions. We aspire to design an institution that invites the public to unpack and explore the depths of an otherwise hidden collection of remarkable things.”

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is a New York-based design studio whose practice spans the fields of architecture, urban design, installation, and multimedia art. Founded in 1981, DS+R is led by four partners—Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin. DS+R is responsible for two of the largest recent architecture and planning initiatives in New York City:the High Line and the transformation of Lincoln Center’s performing arts campus. Recently completed projects include Zaryadye Park in Moscow and The Broad in Los Angeles. DS+R is currently engaged in two more projects significant to New York: The Shed, the first multi-arts center designed to commission, produce, and present all types of performing arts, visual arts, and popular culture, and the renovation and expansion of MoMA. DS+R was also selected to design the Centre for Music, a permanent home for the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Simon Rattle.

The other shortlisted practices were:

• 6a
• Gareth Hoskins Architects
• Haworth Tompkins and AOC
• Robbrecht en Daem and DRDH

The V&A’s new Collection and Research Centre will be part of the museum’s expanded V&A East project, where it is set to complement the new museum planned for Stratford Waterfront – ten minutes’ walk across the Park. The creation of the centre follows the government’s 2015 decision to sell Blythe House, where a vast array of objects from the V&A’s world-leading collections of art, design, and performance are currently held. Both sites will be open to the public, and united through their displays, research and learning activities, and public programmes, and form part of an Olympic legacy collaboration with other world-leading institutions across culture and education.

Delancey Managing Director, Paul Goswell, said:

“We have been excited to watch the V&A’s plans unfold over the past few years, and we are delighted to have Diller Scofidio + Renfro on board for this next chapter in Here East’s development. Here East, which is designed to spark collaboration and innovation, provides the perfect place for the V&A’s expansion, and having such an icon for UK culture on site will be an exciting addition to the campus. The new Collection and Research Centre will bring the very best of culture, design, and technology to the exciting community of innovators at Here East and we’re looking forward to seeing how the designs take shape.”

 Graham Ross, Partner at Austin-Smith:Lord, said;

“We were delighted to accept the invitation to collaborate with Diller Scofidio + Renfro on this extremely exciting project for the V&A. We look forward to working with the V&A and supporting DS+R’s internationally acclaimed design team, drawing upon Austin-Smith:Lord’s experience in delivering high profile UK arts and culture projects.”

Rob Firman, Project Director at Austin-Smith:Lord, said;

“The V&A’s vision for the V&A East is ambitious and pioneering. DS+R’s design concept is a stunning architectural response. Working through the design competition has demonstrated a very positive team collaboration which we look forward to extending through the design and construction of this international cultural landmark.”

Design work will begin immediately, with the new centre expected to open in 2023.

To view Austin-Smith:Lord’s arts and culture projects, click here.

To visit DS+R’s website, click here.

We are delighted to be selected by Coastal Housing Group for inclusion on their Architectural Framework Panel.

2018 marks Coastal’s 10th anniversary having been formed in 2008 after a merger between Swansea Housing Association and Dewi Sant Housing Association with the objective of regenerating older stock and building new houses to improve the local community and provide good quality affordable homes.  They have over 5000 properties for rent and for sale with expertise in supporting older people, those who require adapted homes and people who need help managing their tenancy. To meet the challenges of sustainable growth Coastal has also developed a commercial portfolio through a programme of city/town centre mixed-use regeneration which includes pubs and restaurants to hi-tech office space for startup enterprise.

Austin-Smith:Lord’s inclusion on the Coastal Framework reflects our own expanding portfolio of housing-led regeneration projects and our approach to mixed use urban regeneration.

Places which are successful are durable and adaptable. Our holistic approach to urban regeneration is one which seeks to build upon the positive aspects of a place and enhance these characteristics, whilst addressing its shortcomings to create a vision which will sustain itself socially, economically and environmentally. If the fundamentals of sustainable urban planning are applied then the benefits of this approach can far exceed the value of technical fixes to building construction addressing solely environmental issues. Urban regeneration enables sustainable place-making and we champion a common sense approach which learns lessons from what works and when it should be applied, based on observation, evidence and experience.

Places that are cherished, easy to manage and maintain, flexible and adaptable to change are sustainable. Places which provide a mix of functions as a place to live, work and visit will sustain urban living. Districts and neighbourhoods which enable access to an array of services and activities with ease and without reliance on the car will endure and promote healthy places which are animated and activated by people in the spaces between buildings. Through careful planning and design, resource efficiency can be promoted by creating places with good micro-climates which capture the sun and shelter from the prevailing weather, and minimise energy consumption and running costs whilst supporting ecology and bio-diversity.

We look forward to collaborating with Coastal in the delivery of their vision to provide homes and services that enable their tenants to thrive and the communities they serve to prosper.

We are delighted to announce our recently completed University of the West of England Digital Media Building at the Bower Ashton campus has been chosen as the winner of the LABC Bristol Excellence Awards in 2 categories:

Best Public Service Building 
& 
Best Educational Building

As a result of winning the local award the project has been entered into the regional West of England LABC awards being held in Bristol on the 13th July. Best of luck to all others shortlisted!

We are delighted to see two of our projects shortlisted across a number of categories in the 2018 Constructing Excellence South West Built Environment Awards.

Contractor Midas has been shortlisted in the Digital Construction Project category for the recently completed National College for Nuclear. This new £9.3m ‘BREEAM ’ rated facility in Cannington revolutionises the way in which higher level professional and technical training for the nuclear sector is delivered, utilising innovative technology and virtual reality simulators to replicate a nuclear working environment, whether in nuclear new build/operation/decommissioning, defence or medicine. Our Client for this project, Bridgwater & Taunton College, has also been shortlisted in the Client of the Year category

Willmott Dixon has been shortlisted in three categories (Project of the Year, Sustainability, and Health & Safety) for the University of the West of England Digital Media Building. The new building, located in Bristol, provides a modern, fit-for purpose, digitally-connected environment that will attract and retain students and retain the University’s reputation as a sector leader. This project forms the first phase of the Bower Ashton Masterplan redevelopment, and comprises a specialist film production studio, control rooms, photographic studios, workshops, student hub, animation suites and sound recording and colour grading spaces, as well as a series of edit suites and staff spaces. We are currently working on the next phase of this masterplan, The Physical Making Building, which is due for completion later in the year. The project was delivered to BIM Level 2 and our client, UWE, is also shortlisted in the Innovation category for their development of BIM within the university.

We are privileged to work with clients who value quality and who purposefully pursue excellence and innovation in design to create aspirational buildings. These shortlistings reflect the successful collaboration of the whole client/design/construction team. Congratulations to everyone involved with these projects – we look forward to the awards ceremony in June!

Scotland + Venice: WAVEparticle attracts dynamic mix of collaborators, including Austin-Smith:Lord, to deliver Scotland’s contribution to the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, in 2018.

Scotland will be represented as a collateral event at the 16^th International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia starting in May 2018. To engage with the Biennale Architettura 2018 theme of Freespace, and to celebrate Scotland’s Year of Young People (YOYP), the project The Happenstance (curated by WAVEparticle), begins in Scotland with an exploration of how young people in Scotland respond to Freespace.

The Happenstance brings together artists and architects to work with young people nationwide to discover what Freespace means to them and their communities, before bringing a ‘living library of ideas’ to Venice in May 2018. Austin-Smith:Lord’s contribution to this is the ongoing ‘A Town Hall for All’ project, which is inviting young people in Penicuik to start a whole-town debate about how best to adapt Penicuik Town Hall to future needs.

Penicuik Town Hall has been identified as a priority project in the Penicuik Heritage Regeneration project, and it is intended to involve young people in rejuvenating spaces with the town centre. Midlothian Council is in the process of making funding applications to progress these regeneration projects.

Graham Ross, Partner at Austin-Smith:Lord said, “We are delighted to be involved, working with our regular collaborators at WAVEparticle, who are the lead curators for the Happenstance.

“It is a rare privilege and big responsibility to be encouraging young people in Penicuik to share their ideas for A Town Hall for All. It is also an immense honour to be contributing to Scotland + Venice, to showcase working with young people in planning their place.

In this digital age it is important to discuss the role and purpose of public and community ‘Freespace’ now and in the future. We are hoping to start a whole-town debate and consider what a 21^st Century town hall should be a like; a Town Hall for All ages: young and old!”

The A Town Hall for All project is being facilitated by a team at Austin-Smith:Lord, led by Graham Ross, and was launched in all six of Penicuik’s primary schools in the week before Easter. All 1,500+ primary school pupils in the town, and anybody else with a passion for the Town Hall, are being invited to jot their ideas down on paper in a series of ideas workshops in the town. In celebration of the town’s papermaking heritage ideas are being captured on paper people that will be collated into an enormous paper chain of ideas exhibition in the Town Hall later this year.

A film recording the project, alongside a selection of young peoples’ ideas for Penicuik Town Hall, will be shown at the Biennale Architettura 2018 in Venice It is also intended to workshop ideas for A Town Hall for All with young Venetians during the Biennale and share these ideas with young people in Penicuik as part of a cultural exchange.

Rod Lugg of Midlothian Council and the Penicuik Heritage Regeneration project said: “It is hoped that the best proposals from young Penicuikers can help inform exciting future plans for the Town Hall. We’re progressing funding applications to help adapt the Town Hall to meet the local community’s contemporary and future needs. We want this project to ultimately engage everyone in the area to participate in developing ideas for the Town Hall.”

If you want further information you can download ‘A Town Hall for All’ pack online here.

Follow the project on social media at

Twitter :
@ATownHallForAll
#ATownHallForAll
#happenstance18

 

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Architecture & Design Scotland’s press release can be found here:
https://www.ads.org.uk/news_happenstance18/

The Happenstance collaborators: the team selected by WAVEparticle are experts in the art of building Freespaceand each partner has been asked to select examples of their best practice for exhibition in Venice.

Each partner will come to Venice to demonstrate these approaches in a series of workshops, talks, outdoor film screenings and live events. The team includes:

Architects: Graham Ross (Austin-Smith:Lord), Fergus Purdie (Fergus Purdie Architects), Lee Ivett & Ambrose Gillick (Baxendale), Paul Stallan & Keri Monaghan (Stallan-Brand)

Artists: Brian Hartley, Ruby Pester & Nadia Rossi, Tassy Thompson, Emily Speed, Francis Thorburn, Daniele Sambo, Hannah Brackston

Designers: Alberto Lago and Neil McGuire

Film-maker: Basharat Khan, Morwenna Kearsley

The project, beginning in Scotland in early 2018, before participating in the Biennale Architettura 2018, will bring back learning to Scotland in the latter half of the year.

A project by Penicuik school pupils with Graham Ross and Austin-Smith:Lord

Part of The Art of Happenstance

Young people in Penicuik are being invited to participate in an exciting opportunity to help plan the future of the place they live by sharing their ideas for ‘A Town Hall for All’. Every school pupil in Penicuik is being asked to contribute to an ambitious programme of events to explore potential future plans for Penicuik Town Hall.

The Penicuik Heritage Regeneration project has identified the Town Hall as a priority project. It is hoped that exciting ideas, canvassed as part of the Year of Young People 2018, can help spark a whole-town debate about what communities need in a 21st Century Town Hall.

Rod Lugg of Midlothian Council and the Penicuik Heritage Regeneration project said, “It is hoped that the best proposals from young Penicuikers can help inform exciting future plans for the Town Hall. We’re progressing funding applications to help adapt the Town Hall to meet the local community’s contemporary and future needs. We want this project to ultimately engage everyone in the area to participate in developing ideas for the Town Hall.”

The project, ‘A Town Hall for All’, is being facilitated by architect and urban planner Graham Ross, who grew up in Penicuik, and a team of his colleagues from design consultants Austin-Smith:Lord.

Graham explained;

“Penicuik was renowned as a papermaking town. The Town Hall was originally the Cowan Institute; a gift to the community by papermill owners  nearly 125 years ago. Given this history it feels apt to ask folk in Penicuik to get their ideas for ‘A Town Hall for All’ down on paper!

“We intend inviting every school pupil in Penicuik, just over 2,500 across the town’s primary and secondary schools, to sketch or jot down their suggestions on a paper chain person. These will be collected and shown in the Town Hall as part a massive Penicuik paper chain of ideas; big and small. It will reveal the number of young folk in the town, and their hopes for the future of their place.

“We hope fresh ideas from young folk in the town can inspire everyone passionate about Penicuik to contribute. What should a Town Hall for today and tomorrow be like? A welcoming place for folk to come together? A building, an open space, a website? Or all of these and more?”

The project is being launched in schools across Penicuik this week. A day of free workshops will take place in Penicuik Town Hall on Wednesday 4 April 2018 from 10am to 5pm with an open invitation to everyone, especially local school pupils, to drop by and have fun sharing creative ideas.

It is intended to exhibit the ideas as part of a massive Penicuik paper chain in the town hall later in the Spring. The outcomes will also support ongoing funding applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund and others.

The ‘A Town Hall for All’ project will be filmed and shown as part of a prestigious international architecture exhibition and open up opportunities for cultural exchange. Plans are being finalised and details will be announced soon.

If you want further information you can download A Town Hall for All pack online at https://www.austinsmithlord.com/wp-content/uploads/A-Town-Hall-For-All-Lesson-Pack.pdf

Follow the project on social media at:

Twitter :
@ATownHallForAll
#ATownHallForAll
#happenstance18

A team led by Austin-Smith:Lord has been appointed to facilitate the Falkland and Newton of Falkland Charrette.

In collaboration with the Falkland and Newton of Falkland Community Council (FNFCC), the team will be working with local communities to develop a shared vision for the area. The event, running through March and concluding in April, is being delivered with funding from the Scottish Government for community-led design charrettes.

The project team also includes WAVEparticle(artists/facilitators), Transport Planning Ltd (transport consultants, and David Keddie (economic consultant).  Together we bring our recent experience of delivering such events in Elgin, Brechin, Arbroath, Montrose, Monifieth, Kirriemuir, Dunoon, Port Glasgow, Clydebank and Greenock.

A charrette is an intensive consultation that includes planning workshops, walk-and-talk events and presentations around the area to engage local people in the design process for their community. The planning and design workshops will be held in the Community Hall and Old Town Hall in the centre of Falkland over a three-day period running from Tuesday 20th March to Thursday 22nd  March with a final exhibition and report back session on 18th April.

Everyone is very welcome and all the events are free.

Rod Crawford, Vice Chair of Falkland and Newton of Falkland Community Council said “In terms of involvement, we don’t want this just to be the ‘usual suspects’. We want to hear Falkland’s and Newton’s unheard voices.  We want to hear the voices of the whole community.”

Making Falkland’s and Newton’s Future will be an exciting and interactive multi-day planning event to discuss, debate and decide the future of the area. If you live, work or have an interest in the future of Falkland and Newton of Falkland make sure you come along, have your say and share your ideas!

You can find out more about the charrette programme at:

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/FalklandsFuture

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FalklandsFuture

Padlet: https://padlet.com/falklandsfuture/2018

#FalklandsFuture

We are delighted to have been awarded the 2018 BREEAM Award in the BREEAM/Ecobuild Champions Award category. This is a brand new category, designed to recognise the work of architectural practices who achieve high performance and positive results working on behalf of BREEAM clients.

Our shortlisting is based on the number of BREEAM certified projects we have been involved in over the last 3 years and the average rating scores attained. Austin-Smith:Lord has an excellent track record in the design of low carbon, energy efficient buildings, with our recently completed BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ buildings including:

Ysgol Ffwrnes Primary School in Llanelli, which was designed and built for Carmarthenshire County Council. This was the first primary school in Wales to achieve a BREEAM Outstanding rating at design stage. It achieved a score of 85.9% and pushed beyond the BREEAM rating of Excellent required by the Welsh Government to become an exemplar for future school buildings.

South Lanarkshire College’s Low Carbon Teaching Building, which was the first project in the UK to achieve a BREEAM Outstanding rating for the design stage under the 2014 standards. The building achieved a score of 90.4% at both design and post-construction stages. In addition to Solar PVs, an energy-efficient external envelope and a ground source heat pump, innovative features include solar chimneys, recycled paper insulation, re-used cycle racks from the Commonwealth Games and an integrated bicycle repair station.

Both these projects were shortlisted in the 2017 BREEAM Awards in the Education & Health category.

Graham Ross, Partner at Austin-Smith:Lord said “We’re thrilled to have received this accolade. Austin-Smith:Lord have long championed low carbon, sustainable design so we’re exceptionally proud to have received the inaugural BREEAM/Ecobuild Champions Award for Architecture.

“This recognises the numerous BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and ‘Outstanding’ rated projects we have delivered for a range of clients throughout the UK. We are privileged to have had the opportunity to work with enlightened clients aspiring to integrate highly sustainable building design solutions and we look forward to applying the lessons we’ve collectively learned to enhance our future environment.”

Austin-Smith:Lord are delighted to be working with Cardiff University on the feasibility study for the expansion of the School of Architecture at the Bute Building. With the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies relocating to a new facility in the city centre, this is a unique opportunity to consolidate the Welsh School of Architecture in a single location and to enhance its already highly regarded reputation within the city and wider architectural academe.

The Bute Building is a Grade II listed building designed by the esteemed welsh architectural practice of Percy Thomas and Ivor Jones, and completed in 1916. It is a key building within the Cathays Park Conservation Area, designed in the classical style, and in keeping with many of the other Edwardian Buildings within Cardiff Civic Centre. The building is formed as a quadrangle, with elegantly restrained elevations, enriched on the east facade with a roman Doric colonnade and Neo-Grecian detailing.

Key objectives for the study are to provide a dedicated zone for the craft and digital fabrication facilities; a new centre for interdisciplinary creative enquiry; a Living Lab to promote innovative forms of collaboration and engagement; and a diversification of the educational offer. The programme is fast-paced and offers a potential alignment with the 100 year centenary of the Welsh School in 2020.

The Austin-Smith:Lord team working on this project are all alumni of the Welsh School and especially proud to be involved with the redevelopment of the building where their architectural careers began.