That’s how long Dave Delany has been contributing to the success of P+HS!

Dave joined the practice in 1985 joining Chris and Rowland as their first employee at 73 High Street Stokesley, and took possession of his brand new company car, a bright red Citroen 2CV! Sadly, the car didn’t survive with us as long as David has. (Irish manufacture as opposed to French perhaps!)

David was made an Associate of P+HS in January 2003 and has seen the Practice grow from just the three of them at 73 High Street to sixty of us across offices in Leeds, expanded offices at the Old Station in Stokesley, and more recently our office in London.

We wanted to take this opportunity recognize Dave’s contribution to the Practice and to simply say “Thank You” from all of us here.

P+HS appoints new Director, Wendy de Silva for London office

Wendy de Silva BSc (1st Class Hons) Dip Arch RIBA

Wendy was born in Sri Lanka, immigrated to England in the 70’s and studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture, (University College) London.

She started her career as a trainee on a building site with John Laing Construction. Shortly after qualifying, she went back to Sri Lanka and worked with the RIBA gold medalist Geoffrey Bawa on the ‘Ruhunu University’ Project. Wendy is a RIBA Client Design Advisor and has spent most of her professional life in London where she has amassed a wealth of experience across a range of developments in Education, and Residential, but she has particular expertise in Healthcare design.

Great news! Financial Close has been achieved for the Doncaster NHS LIFT health centre in Conisbrough, with start on site anticipated in March.

The facility will serve as a Neighbourhood Health Centre within the historic town of Conisbrough, which lies about six miles south west of Doncaster.

This is one of several LIFT buildings planned to provide health services as well as contribute to the regeneration of Doncaster.

One of the main challenges was in trying to strike a balance between providing a contemporary stand alone health centre which is also reflective of the local character. This was achieved through numerous community consultations which assisted us in the selection of materials.

Particular to the project is the design of the building fabric to provide thermal mass for night-time cooling as part of the natural ventilation strategy.

Circulation within the building is kept clear and simple with internal spaces planned around a shared central area with double height spaces, plenty of natural light, views out and artwork.

P+HS have made it into the final six of “36 The Calls design competition“.

Entrants were asked to draw up proposals for the ‘best new, sustainable commercial building in Leeds’ on a car-park plot on the north bank of the River Aire, in the Yorkshire city’s historic Calls district.

Backed by developer Citu in partnership with the AJ, the contest, in which entrants remained anonymous to judges, attracted 95 submissions, including 20 from overseas.

Among the judges were Paul Finch, Leeds’ civic architect John Thorp, interior designer Paul Logan, investor/landowner Charles Nickerson and Jonathan Morgan of Morgans City Living.

Final interviews will be conducted in the second week in March.

Once a winner is selected, Citu hopes to submit for planning later this year and start on site in 2011.

The link to the AJ with the full article is here

Well, to those who recognise the title of the post, this AutoCAD error message may be one you’ve come accross before, however, for the benefit of all; i’ll go into a little more detail.

Working on some drawings recently, i found that when it came to plotting out the layout, the “Plot style table (pen assignments)” were missing! (As the following image of the plot window shows, to the top-right)

One reason suggested for this is 3rd party xrefs altering the plot style settings, but i’m open on being corrected if that’s not the right answer. Anyway, the fix is a lot more straightforward than trying to figure out the reason. All you have to do is type “CONVERTPSTYLES” as a command type in either model or paper space and you get the following message.

On this step the work has all been done for me; the handy little pop-up message explains it all… Once you’ve hit “OK” the command then runs the fix and… voila! it’s done. Now continue as you would normally and go to plot the drawing; you should see the following plot window with all the plot styles back to normal!

Select the desired plot style and there you have it! All courtesy of Tom (the genius) Potter. So please forward all thanks onto him.

P+HS are currently progressing early design development for a new medical centre in South Kirkby. Proposals include two GP practices, PCT areas, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Opticians, Gym, Cafe, and Library space (Approximately 4,200sqm of internal floor area).
The model shown has proved to be a useful tool for helping the end users and contractor understand the mass and form of the building (along side the plans) at regular user group meetings.
The sketch shown has been used for recent public consultation sessions currently in progress.
We are aiming for a Planning Application around March / Aprl this year.

P+HS have achieved design stage BREEAM Excellent (total 72.57%) for the new Linac building NUH with an extra 2.5% to spare. Well done team. 

Part L is being amended and is due to come into force on 6th October 2010. Many of the changes aim to more clearly distinguish “Requirements” from “Guidance”.

There are also a number of changes, the main ones being:
Design Submissions to be a requirement (in the Regulations) as well as As Built Submissions
No change to the methodology for calculating the TER beyond the 25% reduction in the target.
The guidance proposes a “strategic sequence” for meeting the TER target
Builders to be able to get lower DERs if they adopt procedures that provide more quality assurance e.g. Air Permeability (more pressure testing), Thermal Bridges.
Design Limits for Building Fabric – no changes.
Design Limits for Building Services - expanded to cover micro-generation of heat and electricity.
Clearer rules for air permeability assessment at the As Built stage, involving more pressure testing.
Thermal bridging – 25% to be added on to calculated values if accredited details not used
Party Walls – no longer assumed to have a U value of 0.0 W/m2K; value depends upon construction.
Conservatories – exemption for conservatories of less than 30 m2 to be removed.

We’ll get some seminars organised when they are available.