Category: News

The Grade I Listed Llanelly House in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire has opened to the public as a major visitor attraction, after extensive conservation and sensitive adaptation, that has taken a little over three years to complete.

Despite only being open for a few days, the House, which is now a National Centre for Genealogy, has already received praise from visitors and the local community, regarding the quality and standard of the conservation that has been undertaken.

Austin-Smith:Lord was commissioned to undertake the careful conservation of this nationally important Grade I Listed building, which had been at the centre of community life in Llanelli for centuries, before falling into disuse and in grave danger of serious degradation.

The building is a rare Welsh example of an early Georgian Townhouse and contains many exquisite treasures. There are fine overmantle paintings, rare grisaille wall paintings trimmed with gold leaf and lavish oak panelled rooms.

The exciting progress of the project has been captured by the BBC and culminates in a one hour documentary presented by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen which will air on BBC2 Wales on Tuesday 5th November at 7pm.

Austin-Smith:Lord’s conservation team in Glasgow undertook a £2.4m upgrade project at Paisley Town Hall.  The work was required as the Hall will host the opening ceremony for the Royal National Mod.  It is expected that more that 8,000 people will flock to Paisley as it hosts Scotland’s flagship celebration on traditional and Gaelic culture for the first time.

Our upgrade consisted of extensive repairs to masonry features, a radical but restrained makeover of the foyer/reception area incorporating glazing across the loggia frontage and the installation of external entrance ramp and steps.

Photo credit – Keith Hunter

The Barbara Daley Northwestern Halls Salon, for which Austin-Smith:Lord undertook extensive interior and architectural design, has been recognised by the prestigious Leading Salons of the World guide.

The scheme, which was undertaken in 2008, relocated the Salon to a ground floor unit of the Grade II Listed Northwestern Hall in Liverpool. The project aimed to transform the Salon into a dramatic space, to generate interest and increase customer sales through the ‘wow’ factor. This was achieved by reinstating a variety of original features and purposefully withholding others. The character of the space was retained by maintaining the room’s appearance as a ‘magnificent saloon’ with central styling salons and housing all back of house facilities behind an internal wall within the former corridor.

Though primarily a retail project, the work on the Salon required an active working knowledge of Conservation and Architecture, as well as Interior Design.

Congratulations to Barbara and her team on their fantastic achievement!

On the 5th – 15th September Cardiff will host the OISTAT World Stage Design Congress. Held only every four years, World Stage Design is a celebration of international performance design from the world of theatre, opera and dance. This will be the first time it has ever been held in the UK.

As part of the Congress, on the 8th and 9th September, Austin-Smith:Lord Director Rob Firman will host a tour around five of the most significant theatres in South Wales for up to 40 of the world’s leading theatre architects, scenographers and technicians.

The tour will visit the following theatres:

• Park and Dare in Treorchy which was originally paid for by salary sacrafice by mineworkers of the local colliery 100 years ago
• The only Grade I Listed theatre in Wales, Craig-Y-Nos, built by opera diva Adelina Patti to entertain her house guests at her Castle in the Swansea valley
• Ffwrnes in Llanelli, the newest theatre in South Wales which opened in 2013
• The Palace Theatre in Swansea which is the most at risk theatre building in Wales
• The Wales Millennium Centre which opened 10 years ago and is home to eight of Wales’ leading arts organisations and the world-class Donald Gordon Theatre.

On the 9th September Rob will present a seminar on the state of the theatre estate in South Wales and highlight the best of Welsh theatre buildings from the last 150 years at the Architecture Day.

www.wsd2013.com

Roseisle Distillery, designed by Austin-Smith:Lord, has been awarded Renewable Energy Project of the Year at the 2013 BusinessGreen Leaders Awards.

The distillery, designed and built for Diageo, is the first new major distillery to be built in Scotland for 30 years and was designed specifically with sustainability in mind. It uses cutting edge technology to produce 11 million litres of whisky a year and has made substantial contributions towards reducing Diageo’s carbon footprint and increasing the company’s use of renewable energy sources.

Roseisle is the first malt whisky distillery to generate renewable energy from its co-products making its environmental impact significantly lower than a distillery of an equivalent size. It has an onsite bioenergy and effluent treatment facility and overall 50% of the distillery’s energy consumption is made up from renewable sources processed in the onsite bioenergy plant.

The distillery uses a combination of environmental technologies that was unprecedented in distilling, such as biomass boilers to raise steam from the spent grains, and waste water treatment by anaerobic digestion and membrane filtration.

The project’s other awards include the RICS Scotland Award for Sustainability Project of the Year, RICS Scotland Award for Overall Project of the Year, Scottish Design Award (Commercial Project Category) and a Saltire Award Commendation in the Civil Engineering Category.

Calman Cancer Support Centre has been presented with the 2013 National Lottery Award for Best Heritage Project. The Centre received more public votes than its six fellow finalists, including world famous landmarks the Cutty Sark and the Giant’s Causeway.

The building (formerly Gartnavel Royal Hospital Chapel) has been carefully conserved by the Austin-Smith:Lord team in Glasgow and adapted into a flagship therapy centre for the provision of free counselling and complementary therapies for cancer outpatients.

Actor Ricky Tomlinson surprised staff, patients and volunteers to present the award. Ricky said: “Looking at this building today, it’s difficult to imagine that it was close to ruin a few years ago. It’s fantastic that the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust has restored it and turned it into a sanctuary where cancer patients can take time to relax, away from the pressures of their daily lives. This heritage project is not only about preserving the past but also helping people now and looking to the future.

“More than one in three of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime which is why the work of charities such as Cancer Support Scotland is so important. Gartnavel Chapel – Cancer Support Centre is a brilliant success story and I am delighted it has been recognised as the nation’s favourite heritage project in the National Lottery Awards. National Lottery players should be proud that their money is supporting incredible projects like this.”

Colin Graham, Chief Executive of Cancer Support Scotland said “We are delighted our building has won this National Lottery Award for heritage. It just goes to show what can be done to turn a derelict building into the perfect home for Cancer Support Scotland.”

Mr Graham went on to say “This award means so much to so many people. However, credit must go to Glasgow Building Preservation Trust and Austin-Smith:Lord for their expertise in turning this building into a beautiful cancer centre for patients, families and carers to attend.”

As architects leading the conservation and transformation of the Gartnavel Royal Chapel for GBPT to form the Calman Cancer Centre, Austin-Smith:Lord LLP have been delighted to be associated with the project which has been such a success thanks to the efforts of a considerable number of people over the last seven years or so.

Head of Conservation at Austin-Smith:Lord, David Millar, said, ‘We started work on the options appraisal in 2006 with GBPT and it is so rewarding to now see the planning and designing coming to fruition in such a delightful and enjoyable building result. A derelict building now gives such hope, support and inspiration for a new generation. Well done to all the individuals who had a hand in this success story.”

Liverpool Central Library has picked up another award at the North-West Regional Construction Awards. It has been awarded Regional Project of the Year fo the Liverpool region.

The “Viva Havana!” themed evening was attended by Partners Alistair Sunderland and Chris Pritchett and Client Joyce Little of Liverpool City Council.

Two Austin-Smith:Lord projects, the Calman Cancer Care Centre and the University of Edinburgh Noreen & Kenneth Murray Library, have been nominated for a 2013 Scottish Design Award.

The Calman Cancer Care Centre (formerly Gartnavel Royal Hospital Chapel) has been carefully conserved by the Austin-Smith:Lord team and adapted into a flagship therapy centre for the provision of free counselling and complementary therapies for cancer outpatients. The centre was recently presented with the Gold Award at the Friends of Glasgow West awards ceremony, and has been shortlisted for the 2013 RICS Scotland Awards in the Building Conservation category.

The new build University of Edinburgh Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library was recently awarded a High Commendation at the Low Carbon Building Awards. The library acts as a social hub on the King’s Building Campus and provides enhanced teaching and study environments for the college of Science and Engineering.

We look forward to hearing the results of the Scottish Design Awards at the ceremony on 30^th May.

Image Shown: Calman Cancer Care Centre