of Sustainable Places
Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Contents 2 3 4 7 31 49 71 85
Designing Beacons not Icons Beacons for Change Beacons of Our Future Beacons of Environment Beacons of Commerce Beacons of Progress Beacons of Space, Light & Sound Highlights 2009
The move towards a more sustainable future could be said to be a step towards and more poetic form of living. This year, with this in mind, we have asked people within BDP to compose a poem on a project, design approach or concept that has inspired them. Each section within this year’s Review has a poem as a foreword related to its thematic direction, accompanied by the name of the author.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Buildings as Beacons
Designing Beacons not Icons By Tony McGuirk Chairman
Our mission in recent years has been to rekindle within the practice its founding ethos of ‘Creating Places for People’. Each year we have dedicated our annual review to key aspects of this credo, giving emphasis to our humanistic and urbanistic approach to design. This year our review takes the theme of Buildings as Beacons of Sustainable Places. This approach is counterpoint to recent trends in the design of buildings as icons, and the resulting superficiality highlighted in recent economic, social and climatic breakdown. It is imperative that, to attain a progressive and sustainable society in its widest sense, we design buildings that contribute to our world, socially and environmentally and economically. Just as with people — it is about what we put in rather than what we take out. The buildings we design form the physical and experiential enclosure to life. They determine our functions and interactions with others. They affect our sense of purpose, spirit and mood. Well designed buildings endear themselves to their communities and these are generally the ones in which people share common experience in their lives. The hospital where they were born, the school where they learn, the firms they work for, the churches where they worship, the clubs in which they participate or the cultural places they
visit all form an important imprint in the experience and assurance people feel from child to adult. During the recent extremes of the consumer society, these values were often set aside as old fashioned, with everything being related to commercial values, image and immediacy of impact. Given our changing economies we now know these not to be old values, but true values. Our evolving technology allows us the potential for buildings to be givers of energy as well as consumers of it. In tandem with this we need to develop a design culture with a sensibility to place and to people. For instance, given today’s global climatic imperatives it can be said that with every building and space we design, we create a new microclimate. Each will contribute to the wider climatic pattern. Therefore, our work must be aimed at improving peoples’ lives environmentally, rather than constraining them by buildings preoccupied with stylistic preference. Recently BDP won the commission to masterplan a sustainable New Town in Seaton, Toronto, Canada. The enlightened brief is for a community of 70,000 people with 35,000 new jobs based in sustainable industries set within an area of natural beauty and working agriculture. The topography of this landscape is veined with gorges, rivers and streams which form the base ecology of the
watershed above Lake Ontario. Within this plan we have the unusual opportunity to integrate a new settlement with a beautiful and purposeful landscape. Recent generations have fallen short in integrating the man made environment with the natural environment and many people do not fully appreciate natural things and their importance to the ecosystem. Here in Seaton our greatest opportunity is to reconnect a new generation in a new community with the natural setting from which it springs. Our intention is to fully integrate this setting with the economic, environmental and social purpose of the people who will live in the town. In this sense I am reminded of the words of the Italian architect, Giancarlo da Carlo who was one of the core members of Team Ten, who railed against stylistic design as a goal in itself, some forty years ago; ‘architecture and urban design must recover its position and not merely remain a commerce in styles, it must be reconnected with its People and its Place’. How true this is today with our new imperatives centred round our environmental and social wellbeing, What better starting point for a future direction than this ‘Beacon Place’, devoted to the purposeful lives of future generations.
Beacons for Change The late spring of 2008 seems a long time ago. It was at this time when it became impossible to ignore the warning signs — an intermittent but piercing signal that all was not right in the developed world’s economy with the sub-prime market in the United States beeping the loudest. For most of us, we had no idea that this would spark a near collapse of the global banking system and reveal other major economic weaknesses. Within BDP’s studios, the level of activity continued undeterred. Major city centre regeneration schemes were either completing, such as the seminal Liverpool One project, or progressing well. Public sector spending fuelled a flow of projects in two other of BDP’s marketleading sectors — education and healthcare. And framework agreements to design workplaces for some major public and private institutions such as the BBC and PwC produced an array of
By Peter Drummond Chief Executive
challenging assignments. And our determination to offer our integrated and humanistic design approach internationally was spreading our portfolio of work to over 25 different countries. The result of all of this activity meant that it was clear that BDP was going to achieve a turnover target of £100m for the first time. But the signals were clear. Things were changing. By the late autumn, the beeping became a persistent alarm. Banks had to be propped up by governments. Commercial projects were put on hold, and some public sector programmes began to slow. The design and construction industry began to shrink at an increasing rate. BDP’s sector and geographic diversity, coupled with our financial strength, protected us from the worst excesses of this downturn, but not entirely, and by the spring of 2009 we too had to experience some pain, especially in Ireland. We ended our financial year with a turnover of £104m and a dedicated
and talented team of over 1100 people, and with a series of major project wins in transport, healthcare, regeneration, and education. Diversity and quality have always been guiding lights for BDP. We emerged from the 90s recession stronger and more determined to follow these beams of inspiration. And the same is true today. We have an even stronger platform of leadership, talent and infrastructure across Western Europe. We have advanced plans to extend this further afield, such as India and Abu Dhabi, and are responding to our clients’ invitations to work in Scandinavia, China, Australia, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as throughout Europe. Wherever we are invited to design, our approach is to create places for people — and in this, our people, our clients, and the users of our buildings and spaces are our beacons of change.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Buildings as Beacons
Beacons of our Future
BDP Sustainable Futures 2009 Award
By Richard Buckingham Head of Sustainability
Changes to our climate and dwindling finite natural resources are increasingly playing a role in shaping our buildings. The approach of the previous 70 years or so of designing buildings and urban systems which use large amounts of cheap, seemingly inexhaustible fossil fuel energy is outdated and discredited. We are drawing down on our environmental capital and risk arriving at a situation where the capital can no longer recycle itself. Like the lottery winner who spends, spends, spends or the early inhabitants of Easter Island who squandered their environmental resources to an supportable degree; arguably we are already in overdraft.
Our buildings are a physical response to, and driver for, our behavioural patterns and are therefore fundamental to the delivery of a sustainable future. Buildings can be the catalyst for change; sustainable buildings can facilitate and drive sustainable lifestyles, enhancing our relationship with our environment and each other.
Public policy continues to evolve, increasing the emphasis on resource efficiency, carbon emissions reductions (80% on 1990 levels by 2050) and sustainable outcomes. Indeed, within the next decade it is likely that most new buildings will be designed to zero carbon standards utilising energy efficient solutions and renewable energy generation at micro and macro levels.
The sustainability agenda should be embraced for the opportunities it affords in environmental protection, social wellbeing, value and economic growth. Historically, sustainability has too readily been considered as an additional cost and as a barrier to development rather than as an opportunity. Too many of our existing buildings create unhealthy, impersonal and uninspiring environments with no link to nature and an approach to functionality and occupant behaviour at odds with sustainable outcomes. Appropriately addressing sustainability affords us the opportunity to redress this balance and create better outcomes.
However, in delivering a sustainable future designing buildings to zero carbon standards is unlikely to be enough. Fundamental changes in the way we travel, use water, produce food, create environments and manage our waste will also be necessary. Technology will play a role in the delivery of these solutions but our behaviour, collectively and as individuals, will be of critical importance.
Buildings reflect the thinking of society at a given point in time — they offer a window into our values, personalities and hopes for the future. Designing and delivering sustainable buildings affords us the opportunity to physically manifest sustainable outcomes — to create beacons for our future.
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Winner: Edinburgh Drinking Water Project
In order to best deliver these beacons for our future a shift in thinking is required. Protection of the environment, and by implication resource efficiency, should be foremost in the minds of designers. The environment sustains us and our society and we cannot hope to deliver a sustainable future without due regard to its protection and maintenance. Economic thinking must shift to appropriately account for environmental constraints. Buildings are the critical interface between a variety of sustainability issues — energy use, transport, water use, waste production, biodiversity, health, social interaction and integration and material use to name a few. Therefore, buildings afford us the opportunity to facilitate low carbon lifestyles in a holistic manner. This requires design professionals to operate in integrated teams — the BDP approach will become even more applicable as we move forward. New buildings, in and of themselves, will become more resource efficient. However, most of the buildings currently in existence will still be with us in a low carbon future. Therefore, new buildings must facilitate sustainable lifestyles not just for their occupants but also for the adjacent community. The role of new buildings is crucial and clear; they must be the catalysts for change, facilitating and inspiring our sustainable future — truly Beacons for our Future.
This award, made from sustainable woods, is given to a project still in design which demonstrates innovative thinking that progresses our work in creating sustainable places. Twenty-one projects were entered from around BDP, ranging across many sectors of activity. The projects were judged by an independent jury panel of Martin Spring, freelance journalist and former architectural editor of Building magazine; Peter Hunter, urban design consultant and Adrian Leaman of the Usable Buildings Trust. The winner and runners up were announced at a Board meeting earlier in the year. In first place was Edinburgh Drinking Water project, in second The Portal, Frome and in third The Missing Link, Rhenen.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Buildings as Beacons
Beacons of Environment
Liyfrgell Ganolog Caerdydd Cardiff Central Libray David Paterson
What voices here? The gleam from ‘spin-drift pages’ represented, The waft of leather aged spines now auctioned, The dust of granite, slate still being fashioned, Speak of a song translated. No grandiose proclamation masks the view Or vies with commerce, rather welcoming to A commingling of cultures, leisure, life now Celebrated glass-enshrined. True, Preachers still enthral the crowd, Flocking like the seagulls overhead Brought by the green of a new threshold, Revelations Face Book annotated. But deep beyond the disc-bound carousels Of songs and Quick Pick selections cursory The deaf can seek St Cadoc’s counsel Waiting to be discovered.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Beacons of Environment
Cardiff Central Library Wales This new city library acts as a ‘learning department store’ in the centre of Cardiff. The genius of its setting as an island building at the head of Cardiff’s main pedestrian shopping street is matched by its enticing multi-level interior inviting exploration through the different areas of learning. The upper levels enjoy panoramic views over Cardiff and its environs. The contrasting materials of bronze and coloured glazing respond to the orientation, mediating heat and strong light and opening up to clear daylight.
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Beacons of Environment
Cardiff Central Library Wales
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Beacons of Environment
Navigation Warehouse
Reclamation Project
Wakefield
Rhenen Vogelenzang, The Netherlands
The repair and conversion of a Grade II* listed, but derelict, 1792 grain warehouse. The challenge was to retain the character of the existing building while sensitively upgrading it to meet the servicing demands of a modern restaurant and visitor centre on the ground floor and studio spaces on first, second and third floors.
This old industrial sand reclamation pit has been transformed into a picturesque lake for a new settlement. Gently curving streets ensure an informal character for the new housing areas. Material colours have been chosen to blend harmoniously with the surrounding natural environment.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Beacons of Environment
Kerckebosch
Die Driemark School
Zeist, The Netherlands
Winterswijk, The Netherlands
The replacement of 780 ageing apartments with 1250 new residences in a woodland setting, each having a direct relationship with the trees. A variety of living environments will be created, suitable for a broad spectrum of residents.
Sited in a disused railway siding, the new school is the first step in regenerating the other side of the railway, with housing, culture and leisure to follow. It incorporates three schools around a central space which acts as a through route for the public, from station and high street to the new quarter of the town. At ground level is a vocational college. Secondary education is at the mid level of this vertical school and facilities for learning difficulties are set within a roof garden.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Beacons of Environment
King’s College Public Realm Waterloo, London Following on from a study for the enhancement of the wider public realm around the Waterloo campus of King’s College this landscape and infrastructure project rejuvenates the forecourt to the King’s College building at Waterloo.
Ladywell Fields Lewisham, London The reshaping of an under-used, inaccessible, and featureless park into a vibrant, natural landscape. A former nature reserve has been reinstated and managed for biodiversity. The new park is now enjoyed by countless users and has been successful in reducing crime.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Beacons of Environment
Bombay Boulevard Mumbai, India A retail-led mixed-use project covering a major city block, for a leading Indian developer. The vision is for a highly sustainable urban oasis with carefully integrated elements comprising retail, offices, leisure, residential and hotel accommodation. Water and greenery will feature predominantly to create visual delight and a diversity of habitat.
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Beacons of Environment
University of York Goodricke College This new residential college is the first element in the university’s £500m new lakeshore campus at East Heslington. The college accommodates 600 students around three interlinked protected garden spaces with a shaped wrap of buildings to the north and east and ensuite student rooms share living, dining and kitchen spaces. Low rise buildings enclose the south of the gardens and form houses for students in shared groups of eight. A nucleus building houses common rooms, laundry, and office space for the college.
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Beacons of Environment
Fouka Bay Egypt A masterplan for a new tourist retreat set in 300 hectares of desert, between the Mediterranean and the coastal highway. It will recreate the ambience of a traditional Egyptian town but will give the area a sustainable development of a high quality design and incorporate exclusive hotels, an 18-hole signature golf course and apartments.
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Beacons of Environment
International School
Overlay
Luxembourg
London Olympic & Paralympic Games
This shortlisted scheme in an international competition is described as the ‘Butterfly School’. Two curvilinear groupings of kindergarden and primary school are located either side of the shared space which forms the body to the wings of the butterfly. A canopy of fabric stretched over a wooden gridshell tree structure mediates the microclimate to allow the teaching environment to open to the air, and access multi-level play decks and learning gardens.
This finalist competition entry draws the different venues together in a vibrant and colourful design which emphasises the spirit of enjoyment of the Games. It offers reusability options for the elements that make up the variety of venues in London and around the UK.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Beacons of Environment
Inverness College UHI Campus, Scotland A new campus for Inverness College, the largest of the colleges in the University of the Highlands and Islands, which will provide state-of-the-art facilities to replace the current outdated buildings and provide a high quality learning environment.
Harrow View Middlesex An extensive masterplanning exercise for a 16 hectare ex-industrial site in north London culminating in proposals for high density housing focused around a central open space. Recommendations were also made on landscape structure and quality, residential density, urban form and parking strategy.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Beacons of Environment
Learning Campus
Motherwell College
Ebbw Vale, Wales
Scotland
A masterplan transforms this abandoned industrial valley into a new place of learning, leisure, living and culture, revitalising the valley community. The post 16 Learning Campus comprises flexible teaching space, with the learning resource centre forming a built link between the upper town and the new valley settlement. Other learning spaces and student residences make up this campus.
The new college forms a key part of one of Europe’s largest regeneration projects on the site of the former Ravenscraig Steelworks. The building draws together teaching space, workshops and a learning resource centre around a social ‘village square’. The curving roof form mediates against the prevailing winds in this exposed terrain.
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Buildings as Beacons
Veenendaal Veenderij, Ontwerp, The Netherlands A residential development of approximately 44 hectares and 1060 units in Veenendaal, 40 km south of Utrecht. The urban design vision is to ensure that all residents have maximum benefit from the natural water-rich environment. Small scale island neighbourhoods are grouped round a lively centre with apartments and a square on the water with jetties and connecting wooden bridges.
Beacons of Commerce
Northern Light Stephen Gallagher
Glancing towards Belfast’s “jewel” A more authentic gem quietly takes its place, Both of the same century The past for one, a model For the other, a teacher. Aware of the duty of time It sits at once universal but specific The rhythm of stone Plays to an ageless tune. Effortless strides along the street offer A calm invitation beyond To elegant space and Unhurried order. It watches the city evolve Shadowed by bright arrivals. When their gloss fades You will remain — an Ageless companion.
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Beacons of Commerce
Abito Apartments Salford Quays, Manchester This second phase of Abito follows the award winning pilot project in Greengate, Salford, it is a variation on the theme following the same principles of microflats accessed from a multi level covered courtyard. At Salford Quays there is a car park level below the courtyard, and the integration of a double frontage to the modular format to offer a number of 2 bedroom apartments to add to the generic studio format of the concept.
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Beacons of Commerce
Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Abito Apartments Salford Quays, Manchester
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Atlantic Quay, Glasgow
Edinburgh International Conference Centre Extension
Capella, an 11 storey office tower completes the Atlantic Quay masterplan which has seen the construction of six Grade-A office buildings designed by BDP. Atlantic Quay forms the heart of Glasgow’s International Financial Services District and incorporates high quality landscaped public realm which recalls its historic importance as Glasgow’s principal dockside.
The extension to the EICC will enhance its prominent position in the highly competitive exhibition and conference market by expanding capacity and capabilities. Additional facilities consist of function space, a multi-purpose hall, breakout areas, café, office accommodation and a new atrium plus a separate eight-storey commercial office development, including three retail units on an adjacent site.
Capella
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Henley Business School
Richard Rose Central Academy
University of Reading, Berkshire
Cumbria
The building sets academic offices and flexible learning space around a social learning heart space. The new building wraps around Zen gardens drawing together the new activities with the world famous ICMA building.
A three storey building for 1500 pupils offering specialisms of Science and Sport but with a Business Enterprise ethos. Located on a tight urban site surrounded by quality streetscapes and mature trees the compact design solution replaces and revitalises a dated and poorly maintained group of buildings offering a more diverse range of landscape solutions.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
The Elements Livingston, Scotland The extension to the Almondvale shopping centre is a major retail addition to Livingston town centre. Conceived as six separate buildings united by a transparent ETFE roof, it creates a new public heart for Livingston, and includes a major covered tiered space with an upper level wintergarden. It is the first covered retail scheme in the UK to receive a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Ten Square Hotel
Urban Realm
Belfast
Shenzen, China
Expansion proposals for one of Belfast’s most popular and successful hotels located within the Linen Quarter conservation area in the heart of the city, increasing capacity from 23 to 108 bedrooms.
A competition winning design for a new town square, streets and public park in the Nan Tou historic quarter of Shenzhen influenced by both historic and contemporary structures, ensuring that they are integrated into the new urban environment and are given a setting that respects their role, style and scale.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Wholesale Markets Birmingham The largest composite (horticulture, meat, fish and poultry) wholesale markets in the UK are to relocate to a new attractive setting that will increase their popularity and catchment and add to the relatively small number of global food tourism destinations. Passive low energy design and active systems will be reinforced by renewable energy production.
Abraham Darby Sport & Learning Academy Ironbridge, Telford The design combines a 1050 place academy, sponsored by the Haberdashers’ Livery Company, with a 420 place primary school and a community leisure centre, set on a sloping site at the gateway to the Ironbridge World Heritage Site. The scheme exploits the levels to produce a highly compact design, thereby freeing up as much space as possible for external play, learning and sports provision.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
No.1 First Street Manchester The refurbishment and extension of the former BT building within the First Street development in central Manchester. Originally designed for the British Council and providing 108,000 ft 2 it has been remodelled to provide 180,000 ft 2 of high quality Grade A office space, which involved the structural challenge of increasing the building height from 5 to 8 occupied storeys.
The Investment Centre Bootle Liverpool This building reverts to the human scale of the existing High Street after poor modern development of overscaled government office buildings. The activities regenerate the locality providing inter-related start-up space for small businesses with shared cafe space and meeting rooms.
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Buildings as Beacons
Ikea Beijing, China A 3m ft retail and leisure project that will help to regenerate the Daxing district of Beijing. The scheme creates a series of covered street environments and connects the newly masterplanned commercial office district and residential neighbourhoods. The project also includes a major transportation hub with the light railway extension and a new major bus station. 2
Beacons of Progress To Build You a School Fiona Craig
I’m going to show you what we do To catch the light, to frame the view. I’m going to show you how we start To build you a school. We’ll place the buildings on the site To trap cool north-light, temper south. We’ll ventilate, mitigate, soften and soothe We’ll take the harsh elements, turn them to good. These things we’ll do, I promise you, To build you a school.
We’ll take you to a sunny mall Where light stripes a pink wall Or winter’s low-light softly creeps Till jostling shadows make you tall. Your hall will open to display A theatre round, a dancing stage And in a library perched aloft You’ll learn to learn, know how to know. A journey forth, a knowledge quest; Down the hill, towards your best.
If you show us what you like We’ll note it down and sketch it out. We’ll paint your days and shape your dreams And cater for your every need Sensory, sociable, sporty or wild The place that takes shape in the mind of each child Becomes a reality, if you know how To ask and to share; to make and to show. Please tell us your thoughts so we can begin To build you a school.
And in a place of boisterous play Your starling chatter starts the day. A nature trail, a science fair; You’ll take your lessons “en plein air”. All come together now to view Your city from a rooftop hill. We’ll make this place so you can grow And tell your friends how much you know. We’ll show you just how much we want To build you a school.
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Clapham Centre Lambeth College, London The new 6th form college integrates flexible teaching, library, performing arts base, break out space and performance space within a sequence of building forms gathered together. The central area acts as a buffer space between activities connected by multi-level bridge links giving wonderful views out over Clapham Common. The zinc wrap roof wall creates a bookend to the college block, with the glass front wall and wooden sun breaks acting as a giant window to one of London’s great green spaces.
Beacons of Progress
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Clapham Centre Lambeth College, London
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Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Tilbury Town Centre
Birmingham
Essex
The recognisable form of one the largest hospitals in the UK comes from an analysis of the functions which puts specialisms together to ensure patients’ needs come first. It is set to revolutionise healthcare design and will also create world class teaching, training and research centres.
A masterplan, development briefs, business case and implementation strategy for a number of sites within the failing town centre of Tilbury to identify where targeted public investment would be most effective in kickstarting the regeneration of the town and attracting new private investment into the area.
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Beacons of Progress
Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Crossrail: Whitechapel Station London Whitechapel Station is to be redesigned to accommodate Crossrail, London Underground and the East London Line railway. Early design studies are being undertaken to look at reducing passenger travel times with more direct journeys from ticket hall to platform. The station is being designed as a sustainability beacon.
Station Concept Sketch
Robert Gordon University Aberdeen This prestigious commission for the redevelopment of the university’s Garthdee Campus includes a 34,000 m2 new building accommodating six departments including new schools of art and architecture, pharmacy, life sciences, and schools of computing and engineering. The redeveloped campus also includes the consolidation of the Aberdeen Business School and Faculty of Health and Social Care; the development of a new central administrative facility and a new learning resource centre.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
West Lothian Civic Centre Livingston The new centre brings together previously dispersed services including council departments, courts and police, and is seen as a prototype for delivering more joined-up services to the community. Externally the building is a direct expression of the range of functions inside.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Silverdale School
Shafton Advanced Learning Centre
Sheffield
Barnsley
A new learning environment for 1250 pupils aged 11–18 with flexible teaching and learning accommodation including state-of-the-art ICT facilities. The school is sensitive to a greenbelt site and has also achieved a ‘very good’ environmental rating, and features rain water recycling, natural ventilation, and a bio-diverse roof which helps to attract a range of plants and animals.
This transformational learning environment replaces two existing schools and will accommodate 1500 pupils aged 11–16 and a further 150 pupils post-16 as well as joint facilities with the local community. South-facing social spaces which spill outdoors are orientated towards the inspirational views across the Yorkshire landscape.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Torre Maxima Den Bosch, The Netherlands Torre Maxima forms a new beacon at the south end of the new city quarter of Paleiskwartier in the historic Dutch town. The 100m tower is designed around microclimatic conditions with the soft form offsetting turbulence from the strong prevailing winds, and giving maximum exposure to the sun path.
Wellington Academy Tidworth, Wiltshire The design of the academy for 1150 students responds to its rural site, with the plan arrangement loosely paralleling the house system in use at the eponymous college which is its sponsor. The plan is organised to create sense and order while providing a variety of spaces for formal and informal learning.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Southmead Redevelopment Hospital Bristol The heart of the new low energy, 800 bed hospital will be a naturally lit and ventilated social space, which will support intuitive wayfinding to all areas and provide cafĂŠs, winter gardens and landscape views. Separate circulation routes for patients, combined with a high proportion of single rooms, will enhance security, patient privacy and infection control.
My Place
Queen Alexandra Hospital
Stockton on Tees, County Durham
Portsmouth
A building to act as a focus for the potential of young people in the Stockton-on-Tees area, offering facilities which will attract them and opportunities to develop their skills. A place to be owned by young people.
This redevelopment project has delivered major expansion and refurbishment of an operational acute general hospital on a restricted urban site. It involved substantial reorganisation of clinical departments, re-engineering of the non-clinical services and remodelling of the existing estate, while remaining open for business. The design maximises views out across to the Solent and beyond.
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Beacons of Commerce
Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
University of York Berrick Saul Research Building This new multidisciplinary research centre provides flexible space in a single sinuous accommodation wing. A circular pod on the eastern side of the main wing nestles within trees, housing a 150 seat lecture theatre, open plan study space and specialist educational psychology labs. The building is designed to minimise energy usage with a narrow plan form, good natural daylighting and is predominantly naturally ventilated.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Middleton Arena
University of Brighton
Rochdale
Varley Halls, Student Housing
This magic box of facilities draws together every age group from the local community, with its childrens’ gym, seniors’ tea dances, serious athletes and all night gigs. The curving roof form wraps up all the volumes from auditorium to swimming pool, visually adding a beacon of regeneration to the town and its people.
The masterplan and subsequent design of a student village on the Varley Halls campus at the University of Brighton which will include 1000 study bedrooms, social and recreational facilities and seminar spaces within a landscape setting.
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Buildings as Beacons
University of Chichester The Dome This Grade I listed Georgian House forms the historic centrepiece to the university’s campus at Bognor Regis. The design idea transforms the house into a new School of Enterprise for Management and Leadership and a new Research and Employer Engagement Office.The cross circulation of the house is transformed into a Business Crossing Zone and Student Crossing Zone as respective networking and informal learning areas at different levels.
Beacons of Space, Light & Sound
Escape the dust! Sarah Hobday-North
Escape the dust! The smog and grime To stroll green fields With friends, some peace Of mind, you’ll find In towers high; sublime. An urban park in countryside White towers grow where swampland ponds All looking in and standing proud Away from all the city crowds An incoming urban tide.
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British Museum Galleries Refurbishment London Part of a 10 year framework agreement covering a range of projects within the estate, this project sympathetically repairs the building fabric and reinstates the designs of a number of original Sir Robert Smirke interiors following WW2 bomb damage. It has ultimately created a lighter, brighter visitor space exhibiting artefacts not previously on display.
Beacons of Space, Light & Sound
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
British Museum Galleries Refurbishment London
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MoD Offices
Tanfield House
Wiltshire
Edinburgh
A new flagship office and laboratory together with a data centre and a fire station for the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. At its heart is a three-storey street flooded with natural light. This development, together with a second being refurbished in Hampshire, enables the Dstl to consolidate its operations and 1600 staff, previously dispersed over several sites.
The redevelopment of a former administrative HQ building to provide 18 self-contained individual office suites, over three floors, arranged around a naturally lit central atrium. This city centre building is now further enhanced by extensive landscaped rooftop gardens.
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Beacons of Space, Light & Sound
Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
The Strand Campus Phase III King’s College London The refurbishment of the Grade I listed East Wing of Somerset House and the significant reordering of subterranean accommodation within the Quad will create major new public access routes and accommodation for a diverse mix of arts and education-based activities. This forms the third phase of BDP’s masterplan for the development of the Strand Campus.
La Marina Residential Development Lagos, Nigeria A masterplan for an exclusive residential complex with associated leisure facilities on a disused, former military site in an important waterfront location on the approach to Lagos Island.
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
Maggie’s Night Hike London Marking the fifth annual London Night Hike for cancer charity Maggie’s, this lighting installation in the form of an enormous heart-shaped ‘lantern’ featured the night hikers’ personal messages written on paper bag lanterns.
University College Library London The reordering and refurbishment of the main library within the Grade I listed William Wilkins building, which followed on from a masterplan for the provision of library services at UCL, encompassing more than 16 different sites, 19,000 students and 5000 academic staff.
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Beacons of Space, Light & Sound
Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Blackpool Brilliance
Westfield
Lancashire
West London
A light and sound show, part of the Illuminations, has helped to regenerate Blackpool and enhance its reputation as an innovative lighting destination. Six arch structures represent a continuous spiralling ribbon along a city street incorporating projectors and speakers for musical content, and acting as a beacon both in daylight and darkness.
At Westfield, the largest city centre shopping centre in Europe, BDP designed lighting for the malls, entrances, amenities, and car parks, but the most striking feature is the sophisticated high level colour change lighting to the undulating feature roof, while all internal lighting is daylight-linked to optimise energy efficiency.
Howard Assembly Room Leeds The Victorian Assembly Room, is adjacent to the Leeds Grand Theatre built in the same period. It became a cinema in the early 20th century but since the late 70s has been part of the theatre and has now been restored to provide a 400-seat concert venue, orchestral rehearsals and educational projects.
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Creating Places for People  Annual Review 2009
Qatar National Convention Centre Doha Acoustics consultancy on the $1.2 billion Convention Centre project in Doha catering for up to 7000 delegates in four main halls plus a multitude of additional facilities. BDP’s acoustics group is part of a design/build team progressing a design by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki.
Buildings as Beacons
Highlights 2009
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Highlights 2009
Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009 G
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Best Designed Place Award
GGB BDP Building of the Year Award 2009
Winners
Winner: Cardiff Central Library Cardiff Central Library
The Best Designed Place awards go to projects completed over the past year which celebrate a sense of place for people. The projects chosen this year are from a range of building types and sectors but all have the common theme — a people-centred approach. In the Review we also announce the winner of the GGB BDP Award, our own award named after our founder, awarded to the project from those nominated by our offices which best demonstrates our abilities and values and has been recognised by clients, customers and society.
Goodricke College
Berrick Saul Research Building
West Lothian Civic Centre
Abito Apartments
Motherwell College
Lambeth College
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Livingston
Extracts from the judges’ citation for Cardiff Central Library
All the projects shown here have received a Best Designed Place Award. Projects displaying G motif were short-listed for the GGB BDP Award — the winner is Cardiff Central Library.
An uplifting building with a place for everyone from a quiet reading corner to a vibrant music floor. The coffered concrete ceiling works with the interior design to add to the dynamic environment.
Atlantic Quay
Sefton Investment Centre
Middleton Arena
Ladywell Fields
Lots of visual connections between floors and with the outside world to aid legibility, and a clever twist delivers a separate but integral children’s library. A great model for delivering a big library on a small site. Where Cardiff leads, others will follow. Very high profile with an exceptionally open and transparent feel. Sets a new standard in civic buildings and it will be at the heart of life in Cardiff for many years branding BDP’s design skills.
Inspire
Tanfield House
Nirlon
Henley Business School
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Creating Places for People Annual Review 2009
BDP Highlights 2009
This year we have been particularly successful with awards, winning three RIBA awards for the design of our own new studios in Manchester and Sheffield, together with the Liverpool One Masterplan which went on to be shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, the UK’s premier architectural award. This 42 acre regeneration of Liverpool city centre through a 2.4 million ft 2 mixed use retail led scheme also won a number of other awards including an RICS National Award, Civic Trust Commendation, BURA Award, BCSC Town Centre Environment Award and Building Magazine’s Project of the Year. Victoria Square, Belfast, which transformed the retail heart of the city was the other big success winning a Civic Trust Award, RICS National Award Commendation and International Council of Shopping Centres Award amongst others.
Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College, Birmingham, for which BDP were engineers, won the Prime Minister’s Award for Better Public Building and Bridge Academy, Hackney was also shortlisted. The Manchester studio was successful in the BCO regional awards and was also a finalist for the Green Building category in the MIPIM awards 2009. We have expanded our international workload with recent wins in Tunisia, Nigeria, Canada, India, China and Egypt across a broad range of sectors and in the UK have increased our workload in the sectors of transport and leisure and sport especially. Two new profession directors, Andrew Teage and David Ritter, have been appointed, strengthening the leadership in urbanism and sustainability in the Liverpool and Manchester studios.
New directors Andrew Teage and David Ritter