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.

Last night colleagues from Leeds and Stokesley got together at the end of the 25th year in Practice to hear the year end results and celebrate the milestone. Once again, and in spite of the current challenging economic climate, P+HS has demonstrated real growth both commercially and professionally. Chris Potter thanked staff for their commitment and hardwork through the year and went on to unveil the Practice’s plans for the future, the most exciting of which was the opening of the London office in January 2010. Watch this space!

PS. Thanks to Chris Lawes for designing the cake, to Chris’s Uncle for making it, and to Ben for eating most of it.

Having established that the Regional Agricultural Centre is a much loved development within local circles, it seems that national experts agree. The building has won an EG Green Award for sustainability: declared a joint winner alongside Cabot Circus (a £500m development from Land Securities and Hammerson), the Centre was highly praised by the judges for its ‘thoughtful design’. Not bad for a ’small’ development!

Washington Primary Healthcare Centre has scooped the LABC National award for Best Healthcare Building.  Developed for Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust with Laing O’Rourke, the Washington building is also shortlisted for the Building Better Healthcare Awards next month.  Congratulations to the team!

P+HS is delighted with two new appointments to its management team.

Joining the Board of Directors is Phil Bentley based in Leeds, whilst in the Stokesley office, Adrian Evans is appointed as an Associate.

The announcement comes as P+HS celebrates its 25th successful year in business, and indicates its commitment to maintaining the stability and growth of the company.  Congratulations and good luck to both Phil and Adrian in their new roles.

The Good Employer Guide 2009 is out and P+HS is the only company to be in the top five for all categories – Social Responsibility, Working Smarter, Feel Good Factor, Inspiration, Leadership, Ability to Contribute, and Current Market Conditions.

 

Editor David Rogers commented: ’Congratulations are owed to architect P+HS…this company made it into every top five for which it was eligible, the first firm to do so..the (architect) profession comes top of the feel good factor and also the smarter working index.   This may be explained in part by the fact that they have also come top of the new market condition index (a new rating, which measures how well employees believe their company is dealing with the recession).

 

Geraldine Pinder and Diana Cole were in London yesterday for this year’s Good Employer Guide announcements:  Geraldine commented:  ‘we are immensely proud of our staff and achieving this accolade from the industry is a mark of what can be achieved, despite difficult times within the construction sector, by sticking with an open, inclusive and team approach.’

 

Thanks to all staff who took time to complete the survey: the survey company tell us that they had a superb response from you and we are very grateful that you took part: results like this send out a clear, positive message to the industry about the strength of P+HS.

 

The guide is published with this month’s copy of Building and extra copies of the supplement are on order for both Leeds and Stokesley offices. A digital copy can be viewed here.

 

 

P+HS were well represented at a recent conference from the Health Service Journal entitled:
‘Developing Primary & Community Healthcare Estates’. Chris Potter addressed the high profile audience on the subject of increasing the lifespan of buildings through flexible and responsive design. You can download all of the speakers’ presentations by clicking HERE

Gill Traynor has just informed me that it is EIGHT YEARS to the day since she joined P+HS! When asked the secret of her long service, Gill said: ‘P+HS really look after their staff’. Nice to hear, and congratulations Gill.

The shortlist for the Building Better Healthcare Awards has been announced, and we’re on it!

Washington Primary Care Centre is shortlisted in the Best Primary Care Design category: developed for Sunderland Teaching PCT with Laing O’Rourke, this superb building is certainly attracting attention and recently scooped the award for Best Healthcare Building at the Northern LABC awards.
To see the full shortlist for Building Better Healthcare 2009 clickhere.

The White Paper ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say’ sets out a vision to provide people with good quality social care and NHS services in the communities where they live. In line with government policy to decentralise some healthcare services, P+HS has been working with its clients to deliver facilities for local communities which combine healthcare provision with services such as pharmacy, social care, housing, sport and leisure, and library resources. We have identified such developments as ‘ Integrated Healthcare’, and a new section on our website showcases these projects. Hope you like it.

The Regional Agricultural Centre has been short listed for the 2009 EG Green Awards in the category Retail/Leisure Development of the Year.

This is a fantastic achievement for the team (Yorkshire Agricultural Society, P+HS, Houseman & Falshaw, and DKP) who all worked so hard to make this highly sustainable building a reality. Other short listed finalists in this category are Land Securities,Tesco, and Hammerson - all £multimillion/billion operations with national and international presence: so I reckon our team from Yorkshire have done pretty well!

The building was conceived as a green development from the start and it’s about sustainability right through from its timber frame upwards; using local teams, skills and materials wherever we could, and incorporating more special sustainable features than you could shake a stick at, making it one of the most sustainable buildings in Yorkshire.

It’s now down to the public vote, so here’s the link for you to show your support for what small, regional alliances can achieve with vision, creativity and honest hard graft.
Vote Here.

We are delighted to share more news of our students. We first met Shoaib Mahmood when he spent a year with P+HS during his year out from University. Shoaib is now back in our Leeds office having completed his degree, and has just received his results: a First Class Honours Degree and the C.I.A.T. Award for Outstanding Achievement with the highest class mark this year! Congratulations to Shoaib and welcome back to the P+HS team.

Richard Waite, AJ News Editor, has noticed that Leeds Met has changed its approach to teaching architecture and the shift is bearing fruit. At the recent select exhibition for the school’s end-of-year show, Richard said “the projects closest to the door, drawn up by post-graduate students, are impressive…Tom Potter has created a sweet, colonnaded Chipperfield-esque model for a micro brewery in Leeds.” Nice one Tom

The new development at The Yorkshire Showground was officially opened last night: it includes superb office accommodation and meeting rooms for the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, along with office space for start up businessses with agricultural links from the region. The really tasty bit though is the farm shop and cafe, where trading is brisk. ’Fodder’ as it is aptly named,  opened its doors to the public earlier this month, and it really is worth a visit:  not only is it located in a great building with lots of eco friendly features, the shop is stacked full of locally sourced fresh and speciality foods.  So if you’re looking for something to do this weekend, take a trip to Harrogate..and fill your baskets (made from recycled plastic of course).

 

Once again, P+HS have excelled themselves at the LABC Northern Region Building Excellence Awards.  In a glittering ceremony, P+HS  received two commendations for Eaglescliffe Health Centre (with Tolent Construction) and Wrekenton Health Centre (with Laing O’Rourke), and won the Best Healthcare Building overall for Washington Primary Care Centre (also with Laing O’Rourke).   Washington will now go through to the National LABC Awards later in the year.  Congratulations to all involved.  The results were as follows:

Washington Primary Care Centre for Sunderland Teaching PCT- Best Healthcare Building - Overall Winner

Wrekenton Health Centre for Sunderland Teaching PCT - Commended

Eaglescliffe Health Centre for Abstract Integrated Healthcare - Commended