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.

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.

The notes are in recognition of the challenges many local authorities and their partners are facing in developing a response to large-scale development schemes that have stalled as a result of the economic downturn.

Access the ‘Responsive Planning Practices for Changing Economic Times’ notes and ATLAS press release

This extract was taken from the Planning Portal News Round-Up dated 4th March 2010.

Morrisons Halifax, designed by Bauman Lyons
Safety Central, Bramley, a pioneering £3.5m safety education centre.
The Regional Agricultural Centre, at The Great Yorkshire Showground.

Presented by Hilary Ben MP and Julia Bradbury (of Countryfile fame) the title gives away the winner.

Along with Nigel Pulling, (YAS, Managing Director) and Heather Parry (YAS, Deputy Chief Executive) I was delighted to accept the award on behalf of P+HS Architects.
Photographs to follow (of me being hugged by Julia!)

Thanks again to all those who work on the project, not least Eamon, Mike & Dave.

Staff Entrance : ramp needs some work.

Main Entrance Barrel

South East Corner

The LINAC bunkers which form part of the new Radiology department for Nottingham University Hospitals is nearing it’s April deadline for it’s partial handover .  The Bunkers which form the main body of the building will be handed over to allow the 6 month commissioning period for the specialist machines to commence.

Work will continue on site to the exteranl envelope and the Mould workshops and fittings areas as programmed for the buildings completion later this year.

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 appoints new Director, Wendy de Silva for London office

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.

The facility will serve as a Neighbourhood Health Centre within the historic town of Conisbrough, which lies about six miles south west of Doncaster.

This is one of several LIFT buildings planned to provide health services as well as contribute to the regeneration of Doncaster.

One of the main challenges was in trying to strike a balance between providing a contemporary stand alone health centre which is also reflective of the local character. This was achieved through numerous community consultations which assisted us in the selection of materials.

Particular to the project is the design of the building fabric to provide thermal mass for night-time cooling as part of the natural ventilation strategy.

Circulation within the building is kept clear and simple with internal spaces planned around a shared central area with double height spaces, plenty of natural light, views out and artwork.

Entrants were asked to draw up proposals for the ‘best new, sustainable commercial building in Leeds’ on a car-park plot on the north bank of the River Aire, in the Yorkshire city’s historic Calls district.

Backed by developer Citu in partnership with the AJ, the contest, in which entrants remained anonymous to judges, attracted 95 submissions, including 20 from overseas.

Among the judges were Paul Finch, Leeds’ civic architect John Thorp, interior designer Paul Logan, investor/landowner Charles Nickerson and Jonathan Morgan of Morgans City Living.

Final interviews will be conducted in the second week in March.

Once a winner is selected, Citu hopes to submit for planning later this year and start on site in 2011.

The link to the AJ with the full article is here

Working on some drawings recently, i found that when it came to plotting out the layout, the “Plot style table (pen assignments)” were missing! (As the following image of the plot window shows, to the top-right)

One reason suggested for this is 3rd party xrefs altering the plot style settings, but i’m open on being corrected if that’s not the right answer. Anyway, the fix is a lot more straightforward than trying to figure out the reason. All you have to do is type “CONVERTPSTYLES” as a command type in either model or paper space and you get the following message.

On this step the work has all been done for me; the handy little pop-up message explains it all… Once you’ve hit “OK” the command then runs the fix and… voila! it’s done. Now continue as you would normally and go to plot the drawing; you should see the following plot window with all the plot styles back to normal!

Select the desired plot style and there you have it! All courtesy of Tom (the genius) Potter. So please forward all thanks onto him.

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. 

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.