Waiting area at Houghton Primary Care Centre

Yesterday I had the honour of being part of the team to receive the award from the BRE for the, now confirmed, Outstanding award under BREEAM Healthcare for Houghton Primary Care Centre. The Award was made to Steve Naylor from Sunderland PCT at the IHEEM conference in Manchester.
Being the first healthcare building in England to be awarded such an exemplary award it was with extreme pride that I was invited to speak briefly about the meaning of the award for P+HS. Pride, but also guilt, as I’m very aware that all of the hard work was done over two and a half years by Adrian Evans, Eamon Shutt and the entire technical team. Congratulations to you all, this is a great achievement for both you and the practice.

Developed for Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust as part of their
strategy to improve facilities to support healthy communities, Houghton is an exemplar in sustainable design and provides high quality and accessible health, social care, sports and leisure facilities from one integrated site.

P+HS has worked closely with the PCT for over eight years and is responsible for the architectural design of several innovative and sustainable primary health care facilities across the North East. The client’s commitment and the very early introduction of a BREEAM Assessor added clear focus to the Houghton project in terms of sustainability targets and the development was also able to benefit from a highly experienced project team and lessons learned on earlier schemes.

Sustainable elements include thermal wall facilitating innovative low energy natural ventilation strategy, ground source heat pumps, water attenuation, wind turbine, underfloor heating, rain water reclamation, green roof, solar thermal panels and photovoltaic panels.

The team responsible for the successful delivery of Houghton le Spring Primary Care Centre are:

Client: Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust
Architect: P+HS Architects
Contractor: Willmott Dixon
Natural Ventilation Engineers: Breathing Buildings
Structural Engineer: Cundall
M&E Engineers: Mott MacDonald
BREEAM Assessor: WD Re-Thinking

Selected as a case study by BRE, you can read more about this project here

Well, the talking’s over, the retirement presents have been opened and Chris has boarded the ‘Last train for the coast’.

It’s with a feeling of immense pride that I now write this post as the new Managing Director of P+HS. I joined the practice in 1987 and the past 23 years have been eventful, exciting, frustrating but always rewarding. I now look forward with enthusiasm to the coming years and the opportunities that we must explore and secure together to ensure the success of the practice.

There is no doubt that our profession remains in unpredictable times, and we will have to work in lean, effective and innovative ways both now and in the future to ensure our continued success. I know that I am fully supported by a formidable team: my co directors, our hugely talented and dedicated staff, our trusted partners and of course our loyal clients. With this support I am confident, as I take P+HS forward on the next leg of its journey, that we will all do our very best to be successful in identifying and capitalising on every opportunity open to us to deliver great architecture and provide the very best service possible to our clients.

Joe Biggs

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.

Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th November 2008

Gallery open 10am to 6pm

Bridget Jones: Prints

Screenprints, etchings and relief prints, including the new ‘Edinburgh’ prints.

www.bridgetjonesglass.co.uk

Catriona Jones: The Architecture of Dressmaking

The work explores how the discipline of dressmaking can inform architectural design, and examines how architecture can learn from craft through the language and techniques of dressmaking.The images show invented tools and imagined spaces created by a guild of architectural dressmakers in the garment district of New York.

This exhibition is part of the 36 Lime Street Open Studios event:

Artists’ workshops open to the public 10am to 6pm, please see www.36limestreet.co.uk or www.ouseburnopenstudios.org for more details.

HKS has increased its shareholding to 66%, with the firm’s English arm, Newcastle- and Glasgow-based Ryder, dropping back to 33%.

Ryder executive director Mark Thompson said the London operation, which now employs over 60 staff, was a natural hub from which HKS would expand its international work in areas, including India and the Middle East.

The two northern offices will continue to collaborate with London, he added, but will revert to trading as Ryder Architecture, dropping the HKS name.

 BD Online

P+HS were in attendance at the LABC Northern Region ‘Built in quality’ awards held at Slaley Hall on Friday evening.

The practice was shorlisted in four categories with the following results:

Jaime collected the award for ‘Best Structural Innovation’ with respect to OCHRE YARDS [Finalist]

Helen collected the award for ‘Best Housing Award or Residential Project’ with respect to OCHRE YARDS [Highly Commended]

Eamon collected the award for ‘Best Partnership with designer/Architect’ with respect to LAWSON STREET HEALTH CENTRE [Finalist], and

Adrian Evans collected the award for ‘Best Public Community Project’ with respect to GRINDON LANE PRIMARY CARE CENTRE [Highly Commended]

 After a few months of delay Middlesbrough’s new institute of modern art is due to open on Saturday 27 January 2007. 

MIMA’s inaugural exhibition, Draw: Conversations Around the Legacy of Drawing, features a selection of sketches and drawings from some of the most influential and revolutionary artists of the 20th Century.

With pieces from Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, there is something to grab both seasoned art connoisseurs and those that don’t know their Monet from their Manet.

A spectacular opening piece from abstract artist DJ Simpson and rare sketches from Damien Hirst and Pablo Picasso are without doubt the highlights of the MIMA experience, but it wouldn’t be right to reveal anymore and ruin the surprise – you’ll just have to go along to the sneak preview exhibition on Saturday 27th January between 5.30pm and 9pm to find out for yourself.

Please be aware, as well as the EA site there is a further EA site http://www.pipernetworking.com/floodrisk/index.html which gives National Standing Advice to Local Planning Authorities for Planning Applications. Even when the risk is low ie Flood Risk 1, a Flood Risk Assessment may still be required. I have been requested to provide one for a housing project as the site is over 1 ha. Flood Risk 1 is referred to as a “little to no risk area” and is shown unshaded on the maps! The main area that will need to be covered by the risk assessment for this site is that of the impact of surface water drainage. SUDS would be a consideration whether an FRA or not was required. A good starting point to assessing your project requirement is “the matrix” http://www.pipernetworking.com/floodrisk/matrix.html. The site also provides technical notes on flood risk assessment, but hopefully these will be carried out by a consultant.  

Heworth Green Ventures are developing a £12m major new office development in the centre of York, design by P+HS, which has just received planning consent.

The development provides over 60,000 square feet of lettable commercial space and houses a replacement for the Minster Medical Practice on the ground floor. The design is highly sustainable, with considerable thought into carbon emissions, using natural ventilation and the use of off-site fabrication for the external skin. The first 20,000 square foot phase has already been let to Hunters.

The whole site is being developed collaboratively between Heworth Green Ventures and Persimmon Homes. The former car park was heavily contaminated and the site had to be excavated to a depth of around 4m with all contaminated spoil removed from site. Rather than fill the site back in again, a basement car park for over 200 cars has been created with a single ramped access.

Work has already started on the piling with the main construction due to start in Autumn 2006.

The site is completed with a high quality landscape scheme and the provision of the first phase of the new link road across to Layerthorp.

The development is being constructed by Tolent Construction, with engineers Alan Wood and Partners.

he proposal includes the demolition of the existing three storey office building occupying the site. The building is currently office accommodation for Broadacres Housing Association.
Broadacres Housing Association intend moving their present headquarters in East Road to new offices in late August 2006 as the organisation has out grown the existing accommodation.An office containing the local housing team will be retained on the site to handle all day to day housing enquiries for tenants including the collection of rents and for meeting facilities. As well as retaining an office the development has also facilitated the provision of 19 much needed affordable homes in the centre of Northallerton where opportunities are very limited.

It is intended that current staff relocate to the proposed new offices within Northallerton. The proposed Housing Office to be built on the site will initially be managed by existing staff.

The site comprises an area of 0.178Ha and it currently houses a three storey office built along the eastern side of the site; to the rear of the site there is secure car parking. The site is accessed from Elder Road to the north and is bounded to the east by the busy East Road. To the West the site is bounded by a 1.2M high brickwork wall and an adjacent nightclub. Given the sites proximity to both the night club and busy East Road a noise assessment has been commissioned.