It looks like the endorsement of Adrian Taylor is more than enough to convince the shoppers of Harrogate - nearly all the stocks of Treacle Stout sold out at Fodder following Adrian’s recommendation. Rumours are circulating that the Taylor seal of approval will be rolling out across other product ranges shortly.
If anyone is interested, Leeds Met University is holding its annual Arts Festival at the moment, with the architecture section opening this weekend. The exhibition is split over three sites (all in and around Leeds city centre) and includes selections of work from a whole range of creative disciplines, including graphic design, art, architecture, landscape, film making and performing arts. More information can be found on the LMU website.
Once everyone is upgraded with the service pack we will never have the problem again. Hopefully.
After an entertaining planning committee panel yesterday, P+HS gained planning permission for Tinshill Medical Centre. Approval of the exact design details have been deferred for the case officer to approve, but we have already been working closely with the planning team to ensure that the crispness of the design is followed through thoroughly.
The medical centre, on Old Otley Road in north Leeds, is approximately 1700m2, and includes pharmacy and GP facilities.
Ryan and I are getting ever closer to the end of our student days - all that’s standing between us and our Part II is the small matter of a thesis project. Our tutors have encouraged us to pursue ‘open learning’, by which they mean sharing our work with peers, colleagues and pretty much anyone who will look. We have therefore set up blogs where we can publish the entire development process of our design projects, and where people can comment on the work we post online.
Please have a look at the sites and then, if you’re interested in helping out, check back every week or two and comment and what you see. Any feedback will be hugely useful to us.
The sites are…
http://the-urban-scout.blogspot.com
Obviously we are at a very early stage right now (design work doesn’t really start until January) but we have made a start. We hope you like them, comment on them, and continue to watch as our designs develop into the unprecedented masterpieces they’re bound to be.
Thanks!
The shortlist for the Young Architect of the Year was announced last week - websites of shortlisted practices are linked below. If you’re stuck for inspiration, have a browse. As always, it’s mostly quite impressive competition entries, card models and graphics but if you look hard you can find a few built projects between them…
Whilst we’re on the subject of student work…
The Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape and Design has invited P+HS to the guest preview the end of year exhibition, on Thurs 5th June 6pm-9pm.
The exhibition is open to the public from Fri 6th to Fri 13th between 10am-4pm (Saturday 7th June 10am-2pm).
The exhibition will be held in Hepworth Point, Leeds Metropolitan University, Claypit Lane, Leeds, LS2 8BQ.
Displays will include work from:
Architecture
Landscape Architecture
Garden Art and Design
Interior Architecture and Design
Design
Graduate Certificate Landscape Architecture
PG Dip Architecture
PG Dip/MA Landscape Architecture
It seems that garden design is actually a separate course to landscape architecture, who knew? By this point, the exhibition consists of refined selection, hand-picked by the tutors, and so should only contain the good stuff (i.e. can’t guarantee us P+HSers will have any work on display, but some or all of us might do).
Just wanted to say thanks to all the staff who sat in on my university project design review and contributed valuable feedback. Whilst there is still more work to be done, the project is basically over and passed as smoothly as I could have hoped. So thanks very much everyone, cheers for the help.
Competition time: if anyone’s interested, there’s a competition to submit a (speculative) design for none other than the White House, Washington DC. Whilst the topic may be slightly imaginary, there’s a very real $5000 first prize. Registrations and submissions by 20th April.
See the competition website here
shedkm’s website is devoid of supporting text, but stacked full of colourful little images. You can’t go wrong with a big red box.
Urban Splash are coming to Leeds with their Saxton scheme. Visit the website, it’s good to see a developer with a sense of humour.
The website doesn’t give much information yet, but following the trail could be a once-in-a-lifetime excuse to trawl through Leeds bars in pursuit of research and CPD…
[Image taken from the website linked above]
Designing out risk in public spaces is in danger of going too far, argues the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, with a rash of bland and standardised spaces being the inevitable result. The agency that has done so much to restore the importance of quality space alongside quality buildings, now wants designers and their clients to start challenging the risk-averse culture that is becoming entrenched.
In its latest report, Living with risk: promoting better public space, CABE suggests that compensation culture fears may have been overstated; while fear of litigation clearly lies behind the risk-free design response, the reality is that the level of personal injury claims in the UK has been falling. And CABE has attracted some unexpected allies to its new campaign, including the Health and Safety Executive and Zurich Municipal, the largest insurer of local authorities.
Basing its conclusions on case studies and a survey of key organisations, the report suggests there is significant agreement among the key organisations involved that the situation needs to change and that too much professional effort is being devoted to designing out risk, to over-design and to ad hoc design interventions.
The way forward, of course, is for a sensible and proportionate approach to design based on normal behaviour, rather than freak accidents. The report offers a number of principles that can be applied, including the early involvement of all of the main user groups in any risk assessment process.
CABE is preparing a briefing on humanising streets that will look at the balance that can be achieved in shared and civic spaces.
The CABE report even dares to suggest that risk can be celebrated, as long as there is a clear design vision to manage it and any opportunities for positive risk taking are clearly communicated – hope CABE has got its relevant cover in place.
Living with risk: promoting better public space is available as a briefing or in full if you follow this link.
[RIBA PRACTICE BULLETIN - No. 400 - Ref: 32]
Architectural Assistant
I joined P+HS in 2002, with virtually no architectual experience, as an Ecology graduate. My time at P+HS started as a summer job, but I'm still here and well into the final stage of qualification.
