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.
Austin-Smith:Lord’s masterplan for a new community woodland on the Cuningar Loop on the River Clyde, opposite the Commonwealth Games village in Glasgow’s East End has secured planning consent from South Lanarkshire Council. The project, one of the Games legacy projects, will rehabilitate a vacant and derelict site to create a network of natural habitats, paths and trails, events spaces and outdoor activity facilities to encourage active participation in sport and enhance access to nature in an urban setting.
The masterplan for the 14 Ha site includes a path network that links to a new pedestrian bridge being taken forward by Glasgow City Council. The site works are to progress with Robertson Construction via the Scape Framework and are scheduled to be completed in 2014.
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 30th May.
Image Shown: Calman Cancer Care Centre
Hamilton Bus Station, in South Lanarkshire has been officially opened.
The new £5.5m interchange, designed for Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) and South Lanarkshire Council (SLC), provides a much improved passenger experience and an upgraded facility for the local community and the 3 million passengers who use the station annually.
The development included creation of new drive in/reverse out bus apron, fully covered bus stance shelters, new operations building with passenger lounge, ticket office, staff and passenger toilets, crew lounge facilities and a new retail unit, the rerouting of the nearby road network and the reconfiguration of the existing car park.
Glazed canopies provide shelter to the newly created concourse connecting the town centre to the bus and train stations. Illuminated signage is provided at strategic locations to assist customer wayfinding. The extensive use of glass to the building frontage creates passenger waiting areas that are comfortable, light and spacious. Feedback has been positive from passengers, bus operators and our clients.
Image courtesy of Redshift Photography.
Base2stay picked up a commendation at the Civic Trust Awards. The Client, Robert Nadler, said “Congratulations and thank you to all involved and responsible, who had a hand in this achievement.”
Join FACT in celebrating 10 years since the FACT building opened on Wood Street in Liverpool with a family fun day full of party games, birthday cake and arty activities throughout the building.
Celebrations include:
FACT is hacking into the traditional party game to give it a technological twist, so whether it is pass the parcel or pin the tail on the donkey expect the unexpected. Games will be developed by FACT’s young people’s group Freehand.
Artist Will Nash returns to his popular artwork Noisy Table, an interactive ping pong table that makes sounds as people play. The day is host to the final match of our Battle of the Bands ping pong tournament which has seen bands like Afternaut an All We Are compete for the table tennis crown. Liverpool music legends Clinic return to DJ and are premiering a new song using sounds recorded during the tournament.
Artist Ross Dalziel is creating interactive installations including a bouncy castle that responds to people with lights and sound.
Children have been asked to design a special birthday cake for FACT inspired their experiences in the building. The winner will be turned into a real cake and unveiled on the day. For more details visit FACT’s website at https://www.facebook.com/PicturehouseatFACT
Picturehouse at FACT will be showing visitor’s favourite films after an online shout out for suggestions. To add to the list visit: https://www.facebook.com/PicturehouseatFACT
The day will provide a last chance to see Winter Sparks, a light and sound show featuring electric sparks, dramatic charges from Tesla coils and the mysteries of the Wilberforce pendulum.
The landmark FACT building opened on 23 February 2003 marking a major milestone in Liverpool’s cultural renaissance. Designed by architects Austin Smith Lord, the award-winning £10m development was the city’s first purpose-built cultural project for over 60 years and remains a vibrant flagship in the redevelopment of the Ropewalks area of Liverpool. Housing purpose-built gallery spaces and an independent cinema, FACT has welcomed over three million people through its doors and become a crucial part of Liverpool’s cultural life.
The recently completed Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library at the University of Edinburgh’s King’s Buildings campus has been award high commendation at this year’s Low Carbon Building Awards organised by Carbon Trust Scotland. Austin-Smith:Lord’s design incorporates many resource efficient design measures including maximising natural ventilation, glare controlled natural lighting, high thermal insulation, surplus energy from the existing campus CHP and incorporates enhanced biodiversity with a green roof.
Project Partner Graham Ross said, ‘The University, design team and contractors are delighted to have received national recognition for the Library’s low carbon design. The project fuses a resource efficient design ethos with contemporary learning and teaching environments that meet the University’s objectives and have received positive feedback from end users. The University is at the vanguard of commissioning low carbon buildings and the Library project demonstrates the project team shared that ambition and worked collaboratively to deliver a successful outcome.’
Paul Wedgwood, manager, Carbon Trust Scotland, said the Library and other award winners “displayed fantastic results that should be held up as exemplary case studies of best practice to show how a building can become more energy efficient, benefitting both the environment and the organisations’ bottom line. They not only embody low carbon design principles, but also deliver reduced energy demand and emissions, sustainability and a high quality of occupant experience”
Austin-Smith:Lord’s Small Animals Unit at Carmarthenshire College has won a regional Building Excellence Award in the Best Education Building category from Local Authority Building Control Cymru.
This is the practice’s third project for the College and follows our earlier commission for a campus masterplan at the Pibwrlwyd Campus.
The Small Animals Unit provides the College with a new, bespoke facility for both teaching space and specialist small animal accommodation to support their animal and welfare courses.
The project was challenging in terms of budget and timescale with the proposed site also located in proximity to a Listed building. Our solution provided a simple, efficient and cost effective plan, organising flexible teaching and practice spaces, together with specialised accommodation for a range of animal species under a singular roof form.
Following the regional award success, the project will automatically be entered in the Welsh LABCCymru awards.
Thirty new flats in Mamore Street, in Glasgow’s Southside, are now complete and occupied by residents.
The design for Bield Housing and Care is two storey corridor access flats fronting all three sides of the triangular site. The entrance is at the northern apex of the development. Access to first floor is by stair and lift from the apex foyer. Visitors follow the inner curve of the stair enclosure to the first floor foyer. The red curved stair wall terminates the development at the junction of Mamore Street and Glenspean Street.
The flats are all designed to Housing for Varying Needs standards and include facilities such as level access showers, parcel shelf adjacent to the door handle and low level cills to allow residents to see out from a seated position.
The corridor access is single sided and heated providing a buffer zone between the flats and the external air. The single sided corridors allow reference to external spaces allowing residents to orientate themselves avoiding confusion for some residents who have declining faculties.
base2stay Liverpool’s application to the 2013 Civic Trust Awards has been selected as one of their winners and is guaranteed to receive an Award, Commendation or Community Recognition. This will be revealed at the Civic Trust Awards Ceremony at City Hall in Cardiff on Saturday 09 March 2013.
