Just a few Photos for the trip there are others saved in Events on both Leeds & Stokesley Servers.

Photographs of the recently completed health centre at Wrekenton, Tyne & Wear.

The 1500sqm building has a prominent street frontage on one of the main routes into the town and contains accommodation for a local GP practice along with new pharmacy, dental, podiatry and minor ops facilities.

Client: Sunderland TPCT     Contractor: Laing O’Rouke

Sedum Roof at Yorkshire Agricultural Centre

Following Ben’s post on green roofs, here’s the sedum one at the Yorkshire Agricultural Centre.  The intrepid Heather Parry is pictured with Stuart Falshaw giving the roof some TLC.  This piece was in the Yorkshire Post on 14th March.

Here’s a link to EcoSalon’s list of 17 green roofs from around the world.

Interesting to flick through for 5 minutes and don’t worry, there’s some more modern stuff than the house shown above in there too.

I’m sure most of us are aware, however just incase BS 8300:2001 (Design of buildings and their approaches to disabled people - code of practice) has been revised to BS 8300 :2009. 

Amendments include:

• The recommendations on steps, stairs and handrails reflect those in BS 5395-1.
• There has been a relaxation of the recommendations on the provision of vision panels in doors, and more detailed information is given on the location and design of door opening and closing furniture.
•  More information is now provided on means of escape and references are made to BS 9999.
•  An increased percentage of accessible bedrooms is now recommended.
•  New subclauses have been included on accessible baby changing facilities and Changing Places sanitary accommodation.
•  Information on achieving sufficient visual contrast has been revised and included in a new annex that makes reference to BS 8493 on the measurement of light reflectance values.
• A new annex on slip resistance has been included, drawing on guidance issued by BRE and CIRIA.

These however are not exhuastive and reference should be made to the document itself online through The Construction Information Service.

Following approximately ten weeks of consultation with the client, P+HS have recently submitted a full planning application for a new two storey linac facility (radiotherapy treatment) within the existing city centre site. The new facility will replace the existing linacs with three new bunkers and associated patient change / treatment check. A central atrium next to a courtyard garden will function as the main feature, providing pleasant views out for waiting patients and visitors whilst encouraging natural light and ventilation into these areas. Additional accommodation includes two new CT scanners with associated control areas, patient wait wc’s, mould fitting and a main reception upon entrance. The first floor will be for staff only, consisting of consultant offices, seminar, staffroom etc.

As part of the design process, sketch plans were tabled and discussed regularly at weekly workshops with the end users. This provided a framework for establishing critical aspects such as main entrance, clinical adjacencies, staff accommodation etc. at an early stage. Below are some snap-shots of some of the proposed external images, together with plans discussed prior to sign-off. All we need to do now is achieve Excellent for Breeam!

This afternoon Adrian Evans collected the award for Best Healthcare Building in the Building Excellence Awards held at The Stadium of Light. This follows a similar award for Grindon Lane Primary Care Centre and, we understand, awards for Wrekenton and Eaglescliffe Health Centres.

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Here are some architectural blogs for those of us who don’t have a life beyond the screen.
Commentry courtesy of The Guardian.

bldgblog.blogspot.com
“Urban speculation, landscape futures” and mind-blowing drawings of space-age constructions.

EntschwindetUndVergeht.com
Reporting from the Negative Equity Ghetto of Thamesmead, location of A Clockwork Orange.

Architecturelist.com
Blogging on the latest super structures from China and Dubai, plus Russia’s plans for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

ArchiLook.com
Collecting architecture themed YouTube clips.

Pruned.blogspot.com
Eclectic mix covering New York tunnels, desert golf courses and Manchester Bury & Bolton canal.

Archidose.blogspot.com
Daily dose of architectural brain food.

Did you know that Autocad can check the spelling in your drawings?

Type ’spell’ in the command line and follow the prompts on the dialogue box that appears.

Make sure the dictionary is set to British English.

One minute they’re designing fantastic buildings such as the new Regional Agriculture Centre at the Yorkshire Showground, the next they’re using their natural calming influence over one of the raw material suppliers: this is a reference to the sheep NOT the client!

In this picure Heather Parry of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and Eamon Shutt of P+HS at a photocall promoting the sheepswool insulation used in this highly sustainable building.

One Architect and his Sheep

Here’s a tip to help with selecting objects, I’ve found it’s very useful when using the stretch command.
Enter a command e.g. stretch, when the select objects prompt appears enter cp for crossing polygon. You can then draw a polygon around the nodes that need stretching and complete the command.

For more info and an explaination of the other selection options such as window polygon follow the link:
CAD Tutor Object Selection Tutorial
You will need to scroll down, as I’m sure everyone’s mastered window selection!