We are delighted to be able to announce that Adrian Evans, one of our senior Technologists and Associate of P+HS Architects has been awarded the CIAT 2011 Open Award for Technical Excellence in Architectural Technology for his work at Blaydon Leisure and Primary Care Centre for Gateshead PCT.

This prestigious annual award from the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists recognises technical achievement and has been running since 1994. It attracts international interest with previous winners including Benoy, Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi, and Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, The Eden Project, Cornwall.

Commenting on his award, Adrian said:

‘I am delighted and immensely proud to receive the CIAT Open Award for Technical Excellence in Architectural Technology. The award recognizes the hard work, dedication and commitment of both the design and construction teams, who were instrumental in the successful delivery of this prestigious project, which has been extremely well received by the clients, building users and visitors.’

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

Artwork depicting local landmarks and colourful kites was celebrated at a tea party at Rivendale this month.

The glass art, running along the front elevation of the building, was created by Newcastle-based artist Gavin Marshall who worked with local school and college students as well as representatives from Broadacres, the Alzheimers Society and other stakeholders to develop the design.

Rivendale is an Extra Care facility in Northallerton developed for Broadacres Housing Association. Opened in 2010, the scheme provides high quality extra care accommodation and includes 51 individual 2 bedroom apartments plus bistro, hobby room, gardens, laundry, hair salon and bookable guest accommodation. The recently installed artwork was made possible with an Arts Council grant and is proving popular with residents and visitors.

The team for Houghton le Spring Primary Care Centre are celebrating the achievement of BREEAM Outstanding at the Design stage: the first Outstanding awarded for a Health building in the UK. Designed by P+HS, the development for Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust is being constructed by Willmott Dixon and is due for completion in Summer 2011.

It just goes to show that blood, sweat and tears do pay off in this industry.

I’m delighted to report that all of our Part III students have excelled themselves in their recent exams, and P+HS will have no less than FOUR new architects to add to the team.

Hearty congratulations to Anna Holden from our London office, and James Park, Ryan Meadows and Tom Potter from Leeds.

Congratulations to the team on the handover of Rivendale, a new Extra Care facility for Broadacres in Northallerton.

Photos courtesy of Doug Jackson

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.

 

 

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 BBC recently had a days filming at the new ‘Fodder’ farm shop and cafe building we designed for the Yorkshire Agricultural Society on The Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate.
Apparently, they filmed for 12 hours and somehow this has been condensed into 3 full minutes! and this will be aired this Friday 21st August on the BBC1 One Show (7pm start).

For those of you who have not been, here’s a chance to see 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.

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