A new permitted development regime for non-domestic buildings came into force on 6 April 2010. Access guidance here [PDF]

This information was taken from the Planning Portal.

A new book, Primary Care Centres A Guide to Health Care Design by Geoffrey Purves is now available.
Published by The Architectural Press, this second edition does what it says on the cover and includes an outline review of the main issues in designing health buildings, international comparisons, the political framework, briefing, measuring design quality, art in health, and loads more. There are planty of floor plans and images (I know how you Architectural types love these) and of the 19 featured Case Studies, 2 are from P+HS: The Vermuyden Centre and Washington Primary Care Centre.
Anyone wanting to borrow the book, please see Diana who has an office copy.

It’s that time of year again! Here are the Leeds and London office entries for the annual egg-decorating competition. And the winner? Ryan’s lovely easter bunny, which beat off a number of less traditional entries including a whiteread-esque gelatine egg mould, a robot-spider egg, a crystal-encrusted egg, a P+HS graffiti egg, a trio of spiraling silver eggs and an intricately perforated egg-shell.

For the judges this year, conceptual art was soundly beaten by good old fashioned easter charm.

Decorated Eggs from Stokesley Office 2010

Following the P+HS tradition of showcasing our creative flair at Easter, the results are in for this year’s contest. A strong field of 13 entries (one not pictured) was judged by Director Joe Biggs who commented: ‘As ever the entries were all of an exemplary nature. Judging was an arduous but pleasant task and I consider myself to be privileged, and honoured, to have been selected for this important duty.’ Joe judged the entries against the criteria of Skill, Architectural Quality/Reference, Humour, and Effort, with consideration also being given to sustainability. Special mention was given to Kay’s skillfully knitted dog and also the best child’s entry from Sam Taylor, but the overall winner, with his detailed representation of the P+HS Phantom was James Pitchers. Congratulations to everyone.

The Winning Entry from James Pitchers

As part of BREEAM and guidance from ‘The art of good health – Using visual arts in healthcare’ document, I have created a set of A3 presentation sheets with Artists that have worked with P+HS in the past and a range of new artist have been created for future reference. It’s a starting point and one that can help for future projects.

These presentation sheets have been created following input from the LINAC arts coordinator Mr. Chris Potter and James Gordon.

Artist in this project:
Shona Kitchen
Julia Barton
Kisa Kawakami

Artist:
Shelagh Wakely

Arists:
David Harben
Blow Zone
GA Aquatic

These are just some examples of what we proposed to our client at Nottingham City Campus for the new LINAC Facility.

For those in P+HS interested in seeing all the presentation sheets please access our intranet and check out Operations / Technical page.

I’ve been wanting to look at this Urban Splash scheme for quite a while and a trip to see Michael Bourne’s Swan Lake at the Lowry enabled Mrs P and I to take in some architecture. Chimney Pot Park is a great example of how to make housing regeneration into Architecture. Very clever upside-down housing conversion of beautifully preserved streets in Salford. The rear alleys are turned into undercover and secure parking, with garden decks above. All fully occupied and the remaining streets just waiting for the end of the recession. Radical structural alterations see the roofs replaced by a steel structure, incorproating the kitchen hung inside the roof. All in all, very uplifting housing.

Some internal images from a 1:100 model showing the pedestrian entrance and main reception area of the building.
The PCT and GP receptions are located inside a suspended drum within the main atrium space, creating a dramatic space and sense of arrival for the visitor.
The scheme is currently progressing towards a full planning application date of early May this year.

Planning Minister John Healey has confirmed a package of planning system reforms saving developers time and money to help them complete building projects during the recovery have now been approved by Parliament.

Businesses that need to extend existing planning permissions to allow more time to build new developments will now pay significantly lower fees which, along with other measures to improve the flexibility of planning permissions, will help save up to £69m a year, giving a valuable cash boost for developers so they can keep investing in new projects.

New measures that enable businesses and homeowners to extend existing planning permissions without the expense and red tape of a new planning application were introduced in October 2009.

The fees for extending planning permissions are now being reduced so the fee for a major development that was previously as high as £250,000 will now be £500, the fee for smaller developments that was as high as £3,000 will now be £170, and for householder projects the previous fee of £150 will be reduced to £50.

Read the CLG press release

Read the Dear Chief Planning Officer letter

Access the new Statutory Instrument

The Planning Portal’s PDF fee summary, which incorporates all the changes, and the online Fee Calculator, which incorporates changes to ‘other applications’ submitted under Schedule 1, Part 2 category 9(b), was updated on 26 February 2010.

Applications to extend the time limits for implementing planning permissions and non-material amendments are not yet included within the Portal’s online Fee Calculator, but will be incorporated when the applications can be applied for via the online service. Currently the forms can be downloaded from the Portal and are available below.

Non-material amendments form [PDF]

Time limit extension forms [PDF

The extracts above were taken from the Planning Portal News Round-Up dated 4^th March 2010.

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 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.

Chris Sneesby, some of us know of him through work, has set up a company making ‘Archipods’. The pods can be used for a variety of functions such as home office, leisure or play spaces. The archipod web site has more information and details www.archipod.co.uk

Those of you working in the healthcare sector will no doubt be aware that the acoustic design of healthcare buildings was re-thought with the introduction of HTM 08-01, in particular the method of selecting appropriate acoustic partitions was seriously overhauled. While the changes took the guesswork out of selecting the required laboratory sound insulation value for partitions, the maths involved in working out the requirements gave me a headache and it took a very long time to work out all of the partition requirements for the first project I carried out under this HTM.

As a result I set up a spreadsheet to take the pain out of the calculations and speed the whole process up, and you can now find this sheet on the intranet should you wish to use it, oddly enough, under the title “HTM 08-01 Calculator”. There are some explanatory notes on the first tab.

A word of warning though, the spreadsheet does a lot for you but you still need to have a basic understanding of the HTM and be aware that the HTM recommends that an acoustic consultant be employed to ensure an holistic approach to acoustic design on all projects.

http://www.safetyindesign.org/

Just a reminder of this valuable information site for designers

SiD – Safety in Design Ltd is a not for profit company that exists to support designers in the built environment. It is by industry and for industry.

The following is posted on their web site:

“ FEEDBACK - All the speakers at the recent CIRIA  “Designers Dilemmas” workshop on the 8th October spoke against numerical design risk assessments and HSE confirmation of this was also provided. Want to know more? Sign up for the newsletter now! Want to comment? Do so on the Discussion Forum.”

I have signed up for their newsletter and will pass this round to all.

The CIRIA workshop confirms what we have all suspected for some time. I will be suggesting we review our own procedures in order to try to make them simpler, however, risk does need to be assessed & evaluated for hazards identified in order for appropriate responses to be made.

In the meantime, everybody’s views welcome.