Church Grove for RUSS nearing completion
Church Grove is nearing completion and the self-builders are in, completing works to kitchens and bathrooms. The approach to including the community in the funding, management, design and finally construction of London's largest self-build scheme is leading the way in community led housing and will hopefully becoming an exemplar project for other community groups to use as a model to unlock democratic access to home ownership.
Project team Tzeh Bin Cheong, Reinis Kokins and Sapna Shah have been working closely with contractor Rooff to deliver for our fantastic client Rural Urban Synthesis Society. We're looking forward to seeing residents move in, the building being inhabited and the planting getting established over the link bridge.
See more about the project here
October 2023
Dr Patricia Martin Del Guayo at Tomorrow's Science and Innovation Clusters Event
Dr Patricia Martin Del Guayo took part in two round table discussions at the Science and Innovation Clusters event, drawing on her experience delivering Space Park, Leicester to discuss Designing the Future Science and Innovation Districts, and her current project for Life Sciences at the University of East Anglia to contribute to Creating Sustainablt and Carbon Negative Science and Innovation Districts.
This sector is critical to the UK economy and it was great to be part of the conversations on how the construction industry will be supporting and enabling the sector.
https://www.seh.co.uk/key-projects/space-park-leic...
October 2023
Accredited Passive House Designer - Celia Hsin
Celia Hsin, a key part of our team, has been championing sustainable and passive design and has successfully completed her training in July 2023 to become an accredited Passive House Designer.
Celia will be using her knowledge to support projects across the studio, in particular the current Phase 1 of UEA will benefit.
August 2023
Taking shape in Ladywell - RUSS at Church Grove
RUSS has started self-build work on five Church Grove flats, fitting them out from shell, putting in partitions, ceilings, kitchens, bathrooms and floors under the guidance of the Self Build Management Team.
The project is due for occupation in summer - see here for an aerial view of progress up to July 2022.
Church Grove will provide 36 new sustainable, customised, high quality homes that are permanently affordable and partly self-built, and provide opportunities for training in construction for self-builders as well as apprentices and volunteers from the wider community.
The new homes include a range of maisonettes and flats of different tenures, sizes and levels of self-build in order to create a truly mixed community made up of people from diverse backgrounds in the local area.
See more about the project here
February 2023
University of East Anglia Building 3 planning consent achieved
Unanimous planning approval has been granted for a pioneering conservation and deep retrofit of Building 3 of the Grade II Listed Lasdun Wall. A 1960s landscraper originally designed by Sir Denys Lasdun at the heart of the University of East Anglia campus, the project provides well needed, future-flexible science and teaching space, including a new accessible main entrance. The project also provides an 86% betterment in thermal performance of the fabric, aligning it with the UEA Net Zero Carbon targets.
Of all the new 1960s universities the architecture of the University of East Anglia ‘…most consciously created a visual impression of experiment and enquiry’* following the 1962 Denys Lasdun and Partners masterplan which led to the ‘staggered spinal block of teaching accommodation’** designed by Lasdun and completed 1968-70 by Feilden and Mawson. Now known as the Lasdun Wall, fifty-five years old and listed Grade II, and generating 20% of total campus emissions, it needs significant investment to continue to be usable. Original detailing problems have required large emergency investments and unsightly temporary safety measures.
The virtue of this project is it brings another lease of life to Building 3, (part of the Wall): leaks, failing concrete panelling, poor airtightness, solar gain, single glazing, lack of insulation, low storey heights, limited structural capacity and narrow plan depths have all been addressed, and floorplates expanded from 14m to 28 m depth to provide contemporary scientific facilities suitable for world-class research, with minimal impact on original character and quality, keeping it relevant and useful for the next fifty years at the heart of the campus, and - through a rigorous detailed collaborative design process - mitigating impact on the retained facades and structure.
* (Tony Birks and Michael Holford, Building the New Universities, 1972, p.73)
** Listing on the National Heritage List
University of East Anglia Lasdun Wall Building 3 project page
December 2022
Space Park Leicester scoops two awards in one night
The world’s first science and innovation park dedicated to space-related companies has won two prestigious building awards. Space Park Leicester was officially opened by UK astronaut Tim Peake earlier this year and has built an impressive reputation working on ground-breaking projects such as NASA’s internationally acclaimed James Webb Space Telescope. The £46.4 million facility designed by Shepheard Epstein Hunter architects and constructed by Bowmer + Kirkland, is home to a community of leading organisations, academics from the University of Leicester and students who are undertaking world-leading research and driving growth in the space and space-enabled sectors.
Now it has added two more accolades to its growing list of achievements having won both the Large Non-Residential Scheme of the Year Award and the Regeneration Project of the Year Award at the ProCon Leicestershire Awards which celebrate the best of the county’s built environment.
Neil Loxton, Head of Project Delivery at the University of Leicester said: “The creation of Space Park Leicester took a long disused, contaminated brownfield site in a flood risk zone and transformed it into a major generator of social, economic and environmental improvement. The facility is set to contribute £750 million a year to the UK space sector over the next decade and to support more than 2,500 direct and indirect jobs in the East Midlands. The scheme was delivered within budget and on time, despite the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic, is an incredible success story for Leicester and the East Midlands and we’re thrilled that this world-leading development has been recognised by the judges at the ProCon Leicestershire Awards.”
Dr Patricia Martin del Guayo, who led Shepheard Epstein Hunter’s team of architects for the project since 2017, said: “This is great recognition for a huge team effort providing something unique in the world which enables industry and university to work closely together on key issues like climate change; which has brought a contaminated overgrown site in a flood risk area safely back into use, which welcomes schoolchildren as much as leading researchers, and which is designed as a low-energy, sustainable project which will last 100 years or more and can change and adapt to support the pioneering research in the building.”
Photo by Martine Hamilton Knight
Space Park Leicester UoL website
November 2022
O'Brien House wins planning consent!
O’Brien House is an urban infill project for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets: in place of 26 garages a new three storey block will provide 10 social rent units, as part of the Borough’s pledge to deliver 1,000 new council homes by 2022/23 and identify a pipeline of a further 1,000. The ground floor is composed of five flats each with a private rear garden, upper floors provide five walk-up maisonettes with roof terrace private amenity spaces. The site is close to Victoria Park and next to O’Brien House, a mid 20th century five storey residential slab block with deck access.
Our key objective has been to create high quality and attractive new homes that meet people’s space, storage, daylight, amenity and accessibility needs - the homes will comply with the GLA’s London Housing SPG (2016), 90% comply with Part M4(2) – accessible and adaptable dwellings, and 10% of the affordable homes comply with Part M4(3) – wheelchair accessible dwellings. The building is designed to achieve Passivhaus classic standard on completion. Heat and hot water (and possibly some cooling) will be provided by a ground source heat pump. Although renewable on-site energy generation is not a requirement for Passivhaus Classic, this project is aspiring to achieve net zero carbon in operation, and thus the on-site renewable generation of electricity and heat are maximised.
October 2022
Space Park Leicester: Sustainable Project of the Year
Space Park Leicester was presented with the East Midlands Property 2022 'Sustainable Project of the Year' award, and was also a finalist for the Design Excellence and Construction Project of the Year awards. The judges recognised SPL as 'a bold project to create an exciting space industry institute, linked with the nearby National Space Centre' which 'transformed a contaminated brownfield site in a flood risk zone into a generator of social, economic and environmental improvement'. Space Park Leicester is a finalist for thirteen other awards in 2022. Martin Barstow, Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science at the University of Leicester, Chair of the Space Telescope Institute Council and Director of Strategic Partnerships at Space Park Leicester, has said: 'We have an amazing building. It has really delivered everything we wanted in terms of the quality of the environment and the variety of interaction spaces and laboratory facilities. The beautiful atrium creates a focal point for the occupants of the building and a welcoming landing space for visitors. The facility allows us to host industry partners side-by-side with academic researchers and creates a new model for collaboration. We believe we have created something unique in the world and a number of international visitors have confirmed this in their enthusiastic and positive comments.' The EMP Awards recognise the region’s top commercial and residential property deals, developments, builders, developers and personalities.
See more here
October 2022
Peter Hunter 1938 - 2022
We are very sad to hear of the passing of Peter Hunter today (07 January 2022) after a short illness. Peter was the third of our founder partners and was known to many due to his track record of, and particular approach towards, creating opportunities for regeneration and development during and after his time with the practice.
He was recognised with an OBE for his pioneering catalytic role in stimulating urban regeneration in Northern Ireland (at Laganside) and earlier at Salford Quays where the dramatic transformation of this formerly derelict and polluted docklands site led to the creation of a high quality waterside urban community, and the BBC, Imperial War Museum North and the Lowry Centre being located there.
His architectural and urban design ideas were typically expressed through the models he enjoyed making and communicated through his own particular persuasive, charming and optimistic style.
Peter's 2009 honorary degree from the University of Salford was 'In recognition of outstanding services to architecture and regeneration for the benefit of local and national communities' - a pretty wonderful citation.
Peter built a network of relationships with many people during his long working life who came to regard him as a friend and mentor. Should you be amongst those who knew Peter and wish to remember him please let Steven Pidwill know.
City of Salford 100122: Salford pays tribute to visionary Salford Quays architect
Architects Journal 130122: Tributes paid to ‘visionary’ Salford Quays architect Peter Hunter
Place North West 110122:: Tributes paid to Salford Quays visionary -
January 2022
Percy Gee East Wing Shortlisted for the AJ Retrofit Awards
We're very pleased to share that the Percy Gee East Wing has been shortlisted as an Architects’ Journal Retrofit Award Higher Education and Campus finalist. This project develops the east wing of the Percy Gee building to complete the transformation of the Percy Gee building begun in 2011 and provides an appropriate façade to Fielding Johnson Square. The original transformation project won the 3R (Refurb Rethink Retrofit) - Best Higher Education Award.
The East Wing retains the original two storey brick building and encloses it within a four storey heavily glazed box. The increased scale of the new East Wing gives prominence to the Percy Gee Building, as the western edge of the square and as a student hub building at the heart of the University campus. The enlarged footprint provides key services including the campus’ main food court providing students with a choice of cuisines and social dining options; student services; IT hub and flexible teaching and learning spaces.
Percy Gee East Wing project page
December 2021
Two SEH projects compete for Procon award 2021
Brookfield School of Business and the Percy Gee East Wing Students Union building, both at the University of Leicester, are shortlisted for the Procon Leicestershire awards this year
Both projects were completed earlier this year, and both adapt, extend and refurbish existing buildings on occupied sites. Brookfield adds an elliptical 170 seat lecture theatre and new building of meeting, office and seminar space to the locally listed Victorian house known for Thomas Fielding Johnson, who founded University College, the beginning of the University, at the end of the First World War, as a Peace Memorial. Percy Gee East WIng is the second transformation project by SEH of the original robust brick building by T Shirley Worthington, which had 26 different floor levels over five storeys and no lifts and was opened by Her Majesty the Queen in May 1958, just a year after the university had been granted its Royal Charter.
The earlier phase of the Percy Gee transformation won the Procon award ten years ago.
University of Leicester press release 031121
Percy Gee Phase One 2011 project page
November 2021
Space Park Leicester Phase Two completing...
Space Park Leicester - where space and space-enabled technology will change the world for the better - is designed for the University of Leicester by Shepheard Epstein Hunter. The SEH masterplan and architecture transforms the former John Ellis School site, opposite the listed Abbey Pumping Station Museum, and was evolved through close collaboration with stakeholders since early feasibility studies in 2015.
The second of two phases is now completing and will add laboratories, workshops and clean rooms - which will deliver the METEOR (Manufacturing, Engineering, Technology and Earth Observation Research) programme - to the teaching, laboratory, office and collaboration space in Phase One, already occupied since April 2021.
Space Park Leicester announces Phase Two completion December 2021
Space Park Leicester project page
SPL Phase One time lapse - built in a minute!
Professor Martin Barstow on Space Park Leicester and the importance of space technology
Space Park Leicester opens its doors to the community -ITV
October 2021
Brookfield highly commended at the Education Estates Awards
Bookfield House was Highly Commended for the Refurbishment of the Year Award at the Education Estates 2021 Awards.
The proposals brought the heritage building back closer to its original form by removing accretions and insensitive additions, whilst upgrading the buildings for modern usage with new services and improved thermal comfort. Features of the original house such as the stained glass lantern and the main stair were carefully restored and emphasised through lighting or placement.
Where disused spaces were key to the setting of the house, such as the stable blocks, they were sensitively remodelled and brought into the scheme. Where existing buildings didn’t support the new uses on site, they were removed; buildings to the rear were removed to accommodate the new large lecture theatre and to form a positive relationship between the new buildings and the landscaped gardens. The 1960’s additions were remodelled to house the PGTC, providing a variety of collaborative and individual spaces.
October 2021
Church Grove formally starts on site
The Rural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS) formally launched the Church Grove project on 21 September at a breaking ground ceremony in Ladywell, Lewisham. Church Grove is community-led housing project of 36 permanently affordable new homes – the largest project of its kind ever undertaken in London.
The new homes, available to local people who meet the scheme’s affordability criteria, will be high-quality, sustainable and permanently affordable to future generations of tenants and buyers, with no developer profit being made and a resale covenant in place to maintain affordability. SEH are working with ROOF Ltd to deliver the project which is due to complete in 2023.
A range of property sizes and tenure types, including six social rented homes for residents on Lewisham Council’s housing waiting list, will help to create a diverse resident community. The project includes communal food-growing and gardening spaces, a shared laundry and a publicly accessible playground. A Community Hub, built by nearly 100 volunteers in 2019, stands alongside the new homes and will serve as an affordable, eco-friendly work and events space for the local community.
The scheme was co-designed by a group of the future residents working alongside expert architects, and the residents will also have the opportunity to build it alongside local apprentices and volunteers. Funding for the scheme has come from a combination of sources including grants from the GLA and loans from Triodos Bank UK, Big Issue Invest and CAF Venturesome. The scheme has also been supported by Lewisham Council, who leased the land to RUSS.
Picture credit: Jeff Teader
September 2021
New office for Shepheard Epstein Hunter
After over 20 years at Phoenix Yard, we have moved to a new office! Changes to the way we work over the last 18 month and a decision to end our side hustle of letting out serviced work space to focus on our architecture business meant that Phoenix Yard was now too big for us.
We’ve moved to a smaller space within a serviced office building that gives us lots of break out space and a lovely roof terrace. Our new home is at 175-185 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 9UE. We look forward to seeing you there soon.
June 2021
Sapna Shah presents Brookfield School of Business for RIBA Journal Products in Practice
SEH Associate Sapna Shah shared our experiences of designing a complex building and getting it constructed, while achieving the client's brief for branding, experience and quality at the RIBA Journal's Products in Practice webinar on Education Buildings 2021.
https://www.ribaj.com/products/pip-webinar-educati...
April 2021
Space Park Phase 1 handed over
We have handed over phase one of Space Park Leicester – a scientific research facility which will eventually be a global centre for the space industry.
The University of Leicester is the lead partner in the £135m project which is anticipated to contribute £750m to the economy by becoming a world leader in the manufacture of satellites and the processing of their data.
This first phase is a £13M design and construction project of a space and scientific research facility comprising two wings of offices, teaching spaces and laboratories. Phase 2 is on site and expected to complete in Autumn 2021.
April 2021
Planning success for the Church Grove community-led residential project!
London Borough of Lewisham has awarded resolution-to-grant to these thirty-six 100% permanently affordable, partly self-built and sustainable customised homes. This fantastic community-led housing development on a brownfield site will provide opportunities for training in construction for self-builders as well as apprentices and volunteers from the wider community. RUSS have worked closely with the self-builders during the development of the design.
February 2021
Space Park Progress on site
Despite COVID, work is continuing at Space Park Leicester. The SEH team are making regular site visits, observing social distancing requirements on the train journey and on site. The project is coming along well, and the design of the atrium space already shows the finished form. Phase One provides a mix of teaching, laboratory, office and collaboration space; Phase Two adds laboratories, workshops and clean rooms which will deliver the METEOR (Manufacturing, Engineering, Technology and Earth Observation Research Centre) programme supporting research, development and manufacturing. The site will house University of Leicester departments and companies working in satellite design and engineering and related sectors such as data collection and application. SpacePark will drive research excellence and application by providing a fantastic opportunity for collaboration.
November 2020
School of Business at Brookfield is complete
The School of Businesss at the Brookfield Campus, University of Leicester is complete and has been handed over. Creating a new home for this pioneering Business School by extending and transforming a historic house and associated satellite buildings has been a significant challenge. The School of Business is slowly moving into their new home, including installation of furnishings.
September 2020
Phoenix Yard Development
Phoenix Yard, a group of former brewery buildings set around a courtyard in Kings Cross Road, London has been our office for over 20 years and we are excited to share that we have secured a resolution to grant planning approval from London Borough of Camden for it's redevelopment. The new proposals involve adding two additional floors and roofing over the existing courtyard to provide additional office floorspace and four separate residential apartments.
Phoenix Yard has a rich history going back to 1685 and the interiors retain many interesting features dating from various periods of occupation.The proposal seeks to retain these and to make them more prominent by opening up new views through the buildings on the inside and from Kings Cross Road on the outside so that the new development will add a further chapter to the story already legible in the existing buildings.The new development will also dramatically improve the energy efficiency of the buildings and the development is targeting a BREEAM Excellent rating.
August 2020
Coronavirus update
We moved fast to get all of our team ready for remote working, even our reception team. We’re working as usual, using technology to enable virtual meetings and conference calls and various tools for project management including old fashioned phone calls. It is amazing how quickly working this way is becoming the new normal but we are missing face to face contact. We hope that the current physical distancing strategies work to reduce new cases of corona virus, and that we can meet up with our colleagues, clients and friends again soon.
Keep safe. Our current contact details are here
March 2020
Living Wage Accreditation
Shepheard Epstein Hunter is now accredited as a Living Wage Employer. Our Living Wage commitment will see everyone working with us receive a minimum hourly wage of £9.30 in the UK or £10.75 in London. Both rates are significantly higher than the government minimum for over 25s, which currently stands at £8.21 per hour.
We are based in London, a region where nearly a fifth of all jobs (19%) pay less than the real Living Wage - around 785,000 jobs. Despite this, we have committed to pay the real Living Wage and deliver a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work.
The real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum. Since 2011 the Living Wage movement has delivered a pay rise to over 200,000 people and put over £1 billion extra into the pockets of low paid workers.
Katherine Chapman, Director, Living Wage Foundation said: “We’re delighted that Shepheard Epstein Hunter has joined the movement of over 6,000 responsible employers across the UK who voluntarily commit to go further than the government minimum to make sure all their staff earn enough to live on."
February 2020
Space Park Leicester Phase One
Phase One of Space Park Leicester is now underway on site, with Phase Two expected to follow soon. The start of construction was celebrated this week with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by Professor Emma Bunce, Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics; Sir Peter Soulsby, City Mayor; Liz Kendall MP, Leicester West; Gary Dixon, Chair of Council, University of Leicester; Professor Nishan Canagarajah, President and VC, University of Leicester; Rt.Hon. Chris Skidmore, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation; Jack Kirkland, Chairman, Bowmer & Kirkland; Kevin Harris, Chair, LLEP; Neil O’Brien MP, Harborough, Oadby and Wigston; Catherine Mealing Jones, Director of Growth, UK Space Agency. University of Leicester groundbreaking
Shepheard Epstein Hunter has designed Space Park Leicester for the University of Leicester. Having prepared the masterplan for the site (the former John Ellis School adjacent to the listed Abbey Pumping Station Museum) and initial feasibility studies dating back to 2015 SEH is architect for both Phase One and Phase Two, which is expected to start later this year, both phases finishing in 2021.
The University describes SPL as providing '... state-of-the-art, high-tech facilities for research, development and manufacturing' and housing university departments and '...companies covering an end-to-end capability, from satellite design and engineering, through to downstream data and its applications...' creating '...unmatched opportunities for collaboration...where industry and academia join forces'. Space Park Leicester will '...drive research excellence and application...support industrial growth in the sector and...develop the skills needed to deliver...expansion of the space (and wider) economy.'
Planning consent granted for Phase Two - January 2020
February 2020
Bin, our new Director
We are very pleased to announce that Tzeh Bin Cheong is now a Director of Shepheard Epstein Hunter.
Bin has been an important and influential member of the practice for the last fifteen years, designing and delivering complex projects in our housing and education portfolios; and has led our implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM).
Bin's projects include Colindale Gardens, Battalion Court, Elmington Green, East City Point, Sarah Bonnell School, Upton Cross School, Fawood Avenue, Ada Lewis House, Honilands School, Paddington Green School, Blackfriars Settlement, Sunnyhill School. Glamis Estate, Tudor Gardens, Ada Lewis House, Winchelsea Road, Fawood Ave, Woodberry Down Masterplan, Blackfriars Settlement, Stonebridge Transformation, University of Leicester, Gladesmore Primary School and Hitherfield Primary School.
Bin joined SEH in January 2004, became an Associate in July 2013, and Associate Director in 2017.
January 2020
Ann and Charles interviewed for ADF
Ann and Charles spoke to James Parker at Architects Data File about Shepheard Epstein Hunter's past, present and future. Read the full article here.
https://www.architectsdatafile.co.uk/news/practice...
September 2019
GivX SEM10 Award
Shepheard Epstein Hunter have been recognised by GivX as having one of the UK’s leading community investment programmes.
GivX calculates the value an organisation adds to the community through volunteering and donations. This is presented as an annual GivX score, the pound value of what a company gives on a per employee basis.
We’re proud to say that we gave the equivalent of £12,445 to the community over the last year. That’s £519 per employee!
Shepheard Epstein Hunter has won the prestigious ‘SME 10 Award’ for this fantastic contribution. This is awarded to the top 10 highest contributing SMEs out of this year’s 111 entrants.
We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this by volunteering or donating through our community investment programmes.
Maggie collected our award.
September 2019
Atrium Building LABC National Award Winner
The Atrium Building won the Local Authority Building Control Building Excellence Award 2018 for the ‘Best High Volume Housing Development’ in the National awards on 9 November. Congratulations to our Client Countryside, LA Building Control officer Mariza Graham and our SEH team led by Nick Hufton and Sapna Shah.
At the Atrium Building, the living spaces overlook the new neighbourhood to the south while deck access is from the road side. The access walkways are enclosed in a atrium – an arrangement we believe hasn’t been built on this scale before in an urban environment. The atrium protects the living spaces from noise and pollution, and in turn the linear block protects the smaller-scale housing to the south of the site. The role of the atrium, however, is not just defensive: it is an attractive, airy public-private space for the residents to meet and interact, and contains a triple-height winter garden which has become a focus for the block – and an important selling point for the apartments.
November 2018
Three As and an FD
We are very pleased to announce four new appointments to our core management team:
Maggie Bray, who has been central to SEH for the last ten years as Finance Manager, has been appointed to the Board of Shepheard Epstein Hunter as our new Finance Director.
We have appointed three new Associates:
Yinka Enirayetan started with us in 2014 and is currently leading our team for Brookfield School of Business. Other projects include Telferscot new school and housing and Elmington Green
Patricia Martin del Guayo (Dr) recently presented the Warneford Hospital masterplan at the New London Architecture 'Knowledge Capital' conference, and has been with us since 2015, other projects include three other masterplans for the University of Oxford and Space Park Leicester.
Hilary Ennos also joined us in 2014 and her projects include Elephant Studios for London South Bank University and Willow Dene SEN School.
May 2018
Atrium Building LABC Award winner
The Atrium Building won the Local Authority Building Control Building Excellence Award 2018 for the 'Best High Volume Housing Development' in the London Region on 11 May. Pictured are our client, Countryside, LA Building Control officer Mariza Graham, guests and Nick, Bin, Ann, Maggie and Derek from SEH.
The project provides 153 new homes with a mix of 1 and 2 bed flats and 2 bed maisonettes, a tenure mix of 60% private and 40% affordable (including shared ownership), and 55 car parking spaces - it is an innovative solution to the challenges of providing new homes next to a busy main road. On the south side of the A13, a major arterial road running east-west in London's Canning Town, the atrium shields dwellings from traffic noise, pollution and weather. Air circulates naturally up from the south side, away from the road, and the linear building form shields the rest of the site. There are good visual connections between homes, and the central winter garden is a memorable focus. Each of the four stair ways contains external secure storage for refuse and recycling, designed to minimise travel distances for residents and for collection. The building was a finalist in the 2017 Housing Design Awards.
May 2018
The School of Business at Brookfield, set to go on site
Planning consent has been given by Leicester City Council for the new University of Leicester School of Business at Brookfield. The Victorian house will be adapted and refurbished as the memorable centre piece of the site and a new three storey teaching and learning building, with an elliptical 170 seat lecture theatre, will replace an unsympathetic mid 20C extension. The former stables and outbuildings will also be adapted and refurbished to provide seminar rooms, offices and catering.
Professor Zoe Radnor, Dean of the University of Leicester School of Business, has said: 'We’re delighted to have reached this major milestone. Brookfield will provide the School of Business with the exceptional environment that a top performing business school needs. It will accommodate a wide variety of teaching and social learning spaces, all set in a distinctive environment of the historic Victorian house and landscaped gardens. The move to Brookfield will enable us to continue to thrive and grow our own unique identity.'
The house was the former home of Thomas Fielding Johnson,
the first Town Clerk to the New Corporation of Leicester, who played a
significant role in the creation of University College (which became the
University of Leicester) at the end of the First World War, as part of a ‘Peace
Memorial worthy of our ancient Borough’. It is fitting that the University
should be now based on the site and that the School will provide such an
appropriate use for the house.
The University of Leicester School of Business at Brookfield
See fly-over video of Percy Gee East Wing and Brookfield Business School
University of Leicester: Business School go ahead
Our design develops and adapts earlier work by BDP.
April 2018
Percy Gee East Wing goes on site
The University of Leicester's Percy Gee East Wing project gained planning consent in 2017 and construction is now underway with contractor Stepnell. A groundbreaking ceremony on 19 April 2018 was attended by Professor Paul Boyle, President & Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, and Assistant City Mayor and Castle Ward Councillor Danny Myers from Leicester City Council.
Professor Boyle said: 'Situated in the heart of the campus, Percy Gee is the focal point for student activity, and is home to more than 150 different student societies. The new facilities will be far more suited to our diverse range of student groups, with a multi-purpose studio for performance societies, a state-of-the-art media suite, and a central location for support services. These plans will complete the modernisation of the Percy Gee Building and deliver an extension to match the quality of the rest of the Students’ Union.'
President of the Students’ Union, Amy Moran, said: “I think it’s really important for students to feel welcome on campus. The redevelopment of Percy Gee will bring more central seating and social space to campus so students can relax, study and eat in between lectures and seminars at their leisure. It’s a major part of attracting students to our campus so it’s so important that it has a modern and vibrant atmosphere.”
After the successful award winning transformation in 2010 of most of the Percy
Gee Building - the home of the University of Leicester Students’ Union - the
East Wing development will provide an enhanced
mixed use facility of an appropriate scale facing on to the University’s main
square, to better serve the Union and the University. With an expanded food court and flexible floor space for teaching and learning, the new extension will act as decant space to enable a major programme of campus redevelopment
and refurbishment. The original Percy Gee Building was opened by the Queen in
1958 and is one of the University’s larger buildings. The East Wing project will
retain all of the current uses including the O2 Academy and add new catering, teaching and learning and computer facilities.
Ground breaking event - 'Ambitious £21 million extension gets underway'
The University's consultation document
March 2018
Space Park Leicester
We are very pleased to have been appointed to design Space Park Leicester, working with the project board and user group at the University of Leicester and the City of Leicester to regenerate the former John Ellis school site, close to the National Space Centre.
The University says: 'Space Park Leicester is an ambitious initiative to develop a global hub and collaborative community based on space and space-enabled technologies . Based in Leicester, adjacent to the National Space Centre, the Park's first building is expected to be ready in 2019. It is part of the Leicestershire Enterprise Zone and was formally launched in March 2017 as part of the Government's Midlands Engine strategy with an allocation of £12.87 million.
'The Space Park is a collaboration between the University of Leicester, the City of Leicester and the Leicester and Leicestershire Economic Partnership (LLEP). When fully open, the Park will combine University research and teaching facilities with a range of research institutions and international commercial partners. Alongside the development of a new generation of cutting-edge satellite technology, the site will be home to detailed analysis of space-enabled data that can transform sectors such as international communications, resource management, environmental monitoring and disaster relief'
Professor Martin Barstow on Space Park Leicester
Britain poised to lead a space race
Government funding for National Space Park announced.
February 2018
Gabriel Epstein 1918 to 2017
We are sad to announce the death of one of the practice's founding partners Gabriel Epstein, who died on Tuesday 25th July 2017 in Paris.
He was born in 1918 in Duisburg, Germany. His family fled Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. After an apprenticeship with Erich Mendelsohn he studied at the Architectural Association, graduating after the war, and joining Derek Bridgwater and Peter Shepheard, the foundation of our current practice. The firm was known as Bridgwater and Shepheard, then Shepheard and Epstein and then Shepheard Epstein and Hunter. Gabi retired from SEH in 1986. From 1979, Gabi divided his time between practice in London, and teaching as Director of the Institute of Public Buildings and University Planning at the University of Stuttgart and as Professor at its Centre for Infrastructure Planning. Gabi’s significant recorded statements reflecting his architectural values (or ideology as John Melvin has referred to it) include:
‘The conflict between the building and life always results from a concentration on the building as a building, the building as a shape, the building as the great work…Our birth, our life, and our death are rooted in the sensual and we can never forget that’
‘I care for materials that age gracefully, for rhythm, proportion, roofs and a lively contrast between light and dark surfaces, especially in the English climate.’
‘The real problem is to conceive and plan great humane urban centres…It is this and the creation of public spaces which has concerned me for years. In this regard we do not deal with short-lived tendencies: the sensual and functional relation of people to public space is unchanging and practically independent of climate and culture. The meaning of Venice, Cambridge or Isphahan is the same for all; it flows from the experience of the spaces and the life that goes on in them….I believe that our modern conditions can be harmonized in practice with the traditional concept of the city – the city that is the foundation of our culture.’
Gabi was a member of the Council of the Architectural Association from 1956 to 1965 and its President from 1963 to 1964. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lancaster In 1970. He has left a legacy of values and approach to architecture which continues to inform the work and culture of our practice today, and of which we are proud.
Lancaster University has said: 'It is difficult to overstate the contribution Gabriel Epstein’s principles and their implementation have made to the way the University functions as an organic institution, able to adjust and realign its buildings and their operation as needs develop and change. While he designed buildings for a wide range of further and higher education institutions, the Lancaster campus will remain as his most enduring legacy - the University's tribute by Marion McClintock can be read here:
Marc Epstein’s Wikipedia entry about his father, (which we have drawn on here) is here.
The British Library's 2009 interview recording in the series 'National Life Story Collection: Architects' Lives' can be heard here
John Allen’s appreciation of Gabi, published for the Twentieth Century Society on his 90th birthday, can be read here: Gabi Epstein Birthday Tribute r.pdf
For German readers, Akademie der Künste
July 2017
Warneford Hospital Masterplan, Oxford
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has published its emerging masterplan, which we prepared, for the future of the Warneford Hospital site, as a first step in consultation with stakeholders. The proposals have been developed jointly by the Trust and the University of Oxford and put forward a vision of how the site can best provide the highest quality care and research over the next 10- 50 years. Warneford Hospital was named in 1843 in memory of Samuel Wilson Warneford whose significant donations enabled the opening of the buildings in Headington in 1826. In ten years’ time there will have been a hospital on the site serving the needs of local people with mental health issues for 200 years. The original buildings, and some of the more recent ones, will soon not serve the needs of patients and researchers adequately. The masterplan is, at this stage, illustrative, and these plans are intended to enable the many stakeholders associated with the site to consider and discuss how best to ensure the site is able to achieve its full potential to benefit mental health and dementia treatments in coming years. Please see more details here, the Trust's series of short films explaining the project here and a fly-over animation here.
July 2017
Retrofit 17 - finalists in two categories...
Two of our projects have been selected for this years AJ Retrofit Awards.
The awards are arranged by The Architects’ Journal and seek to 'recognise and celebrate design, engineering and construction excellence that prolongs and improves the life of the built environment'.
The 2017 winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at The Brewery in London on 13 September.
For New VIc Sixth Form College - VI as in 6 for Sixth Form - we have completed the first phase of a comprehensive re-development of its campus at Prince Regent Lane, in Plaistow, Newham, London. The College is one of the largest sixth form establishments in the UK and is the largest in London with approximately 2,700 FTE students and 230 FTE staff. See Eddie Playfair and New VIc.
For Woodberry Down Primary School we worked closely with Hackney and the school team to extend and adapt a Grade II listed building, from 1951 by Robert H. Matthew of the London County Council (LCC) (who later formed RMJM) is listed Grade II due to the quality of its building materials and artwork, the intactness of the original building and as a rare early example of post-war school planning in London. The school has expanded from two to three forms of entry with new classrooms, wheelchair access to upper floors and improvements to the kitchen and dining arrangements.
July 2017
Milton Keynes masterplan for YourMK
We are very pleased to have been appointed by YourMK as masterplanner to work with the residents and develop a masterplan for the Fullers Slade community. YourMK is a 50:50 partnership of Milton Keynes Council and Mears Group plc, formed to deliver the repairs and maintenance service to all owned properties and lead on a regeneration programme which will see a doubling of the current population of 241,000 people by 2026. There are seven priority estates, which are in the top 15% nationally for areas with multiple evidence of disadvantage and deprivation.
Milton Keynes was built and designated a new town 50 years ago in 1967, and was intended to relieve housing problems in London and be the biggest of all new towns yet, with an area of 89 square kilometres housing 250,000 people. Fullers Slade Estate was designed by Wayland Tunley and Ken Gibbons of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC).
David Gleeson, Managing Director of YourMK, said 'We have always said that we will make sure that the very best companies are brought into to work with us on regeneration in Milton Keynes, ensuring that communities have a genuine role in developing ideas. The expert master planners we have now engaged will help us to explore the ideas and create the right plans to deliver a vision that will support and build communities.'
Nick Hufton, SEH Managing Director said 'Successful regeneration is about far more than building homes. We know that YourMK are absolutely committed to the regeneration being community led and to developing the infrastructure – making sure that the roads are right, that there are enough schools and GP surgeries and that the environment is the best we can deliver. We are looking forward very much to working closely with the YourMK team and with local residents to create a framework for the regeneration'.
See YourMK blog: it takes a village...
June 2017
Forest Gate Community School Expansion
We have designed this infill extension project for the London Borough of Newham at feasibility stage. It will allow Forest Gate Community School, an East London secondary school which achieved an “Outstanding” Ofsted report in 2016, to expand from seven forms of entry to nine, with a capacity of 1,350 pupils.
The original buildings were designed by Colquhoun & Miller for ‘...760 mixed secondary school children’ and opened in February 1966 by The Right Honourable Sir F. Elwyn Jones, Labour MP for West Ham, as Forest Gate County High School. The ‘formal entrance’ at that time was from the north side off Forest Street - where this new infill extension will be built. The original sports hall was on the first floor with workshops below, sunk slightly below ground level on the north west corner of the site.The school buildings were remodelled in 2011, under the Building Schools for the Future programme. A four court sports hall (at first floor level) block was built on the south east corner of the site, and forms the current entrance (off Forest Lane) with reception area at ground floor level, and a lift and staircase were added.
The project is now being procured through a Design and Build contract. The expanding intake will start with the Year 7 admission in September 2019.
May 2017
Designs for Learning - one client's experience shared...
Eddie Playfair, Principal, of New VIc Sixth Form College, writes about his experience of the College's recently completed construction project... Eddie Playfair - Design for Learning
'At a time when there is precious little capital on offer from the government to renew the college estate, we wanted to make sure that whatever investment we made would address our most urgent needs. We had very high expectations for this project given that there might not be another one for a while. We haven’t been disappointed; our new building exceeds all the ambitions we had for it and has already transformed the college for students, staff and visitors alike.'
May 2017
Elmington Green planning consent
Planning consent has been granted for the third parcel of Elmington Green, a housing development by Bellway Homes providing 247 dwellings over three sites (parcels 1 to 3) near the heart of Camberwell, London. It consists of apartment blocks with dwellings ranging from 1-bed 2-person to 3-bed 5-person units; as well as 3-bed to 4-bed townhouses. A minimum 35% of the units are either social rent or shared ownership units to be provided for the Housing Association Family Mosaic.The layout creates communal shared courtyard gardens at the heart of all three parcels and seeks to restore the traditional urban grain, consistent with the history of housing development in the area. Different brick types and textured patterns are used in each parcel whilst keeping a similar design language to provide a coherence between them but also to relate to their own immediate neighbouring context. SEH developed the design for parcels 1 and 2 after PTE had achieved planning consent. Parcel 3 has been re-designed by SEH with added dwellings and a new planning approval, now received.
See more here.
May 2017
...and shortlisted for a Housing Design Award...
The Atrium Building - the last piece of the East City Point development in Canning Town, London, on which we have worked closely with developer Countryside over the last eight years - has been shortlisted for the 2017 Housing Design Awards: 'Where government and industry champion skill and innovation'
April 2017
The Atrium Building fly-through...nearly there
The Atrium Building - the last piece of the East City Point development in Canning Town, London, on which we have worked closely with developer Countryside over the last eight years - is nearly finished.
See the fly-through video here - this is a real building with the camera mounted on a drone.
A phased handover to new residents is in progress. The energy centre on the ground and first floors was completed in advance a few years ago, to service the whole development, and this building was then built over it.
See also The Atrium Building and East City Point.
April 2017
New VIc opens up
New VIc's 2000 students (in and out every day) have their first experience of the new entrance and Learning Resource Centre after a complex construction contract while the campus remained operational throughout.
March 2017
Percy Gee East Wing
We are working with the University of Leicester to explore options for the further expansion of the Percy Gee Building, on the east side. Previously we have worked with the University and Students' Union to deliver the expansion of the western side of the building. The new accommodation will enable the University to deliver its ambitious campus-wide estate improvement programme, provide new facilities for the Union and University, and better connect the main part of the Percy Gee to the University's newly re-modelled Fielding Johnson Square.
See fly-over video of Percy Gee East Wing and Brookfield Business School
The University's consultation document
January 2017
Funding achieved for the Friends of Kensal Rise Library
The Friends of Kensal Rise Library have secured another £80,000 to complete the second phase of the fit out of the library space, well before the December 31st deadline they had set, through the receipt of a Power to Change grant.
Power to Change is an independent charitable trust set up to support community businesses to create better places across England: it provides funding to organisations which are locally rooted, trading for the benefit of the local community, accountable to the local community and which have a broad community impact.
SEH is working with FKRL to enable the community library to open in 2017, on the ground floor of the original library building, the upper floors having been refurbished as new homes by developer Uplift.
December 2016
Planning consent for Telferscot School and new Clapham Park homes
Lambeth planning committee has unanimously given consent for this mixed-use development of a two-form entry primary school - Telferscot Primary School's second site - for 420 pupils and nursery, on the lower two floors, with 36 homes on the four floors above, for Metropolitan, as one of the later phases of the development of the Clapham Park Estate.
The report to committee noted that 'The design approach centres heavily on the expressed frame of projecting bays that create rhythm across the façade and a vertical emphasis which successfully balances and breaks up the horizontality of the buildings form along with full width balustrades. The bays provides depth and shadow to elevations whilst generously proportioned window openings break up brickwork. Where window cannot be provided in elevations blind window (brick recesses) with decorative brick infill would be used in order to break up elevations and provide relief within brickwork.'
Telferscot School and Clapham Park Homes
December 2016
Central Park Primary School nursery
We have designed an extension and refurbishment of the nursery spaces at Central Park Primary School, in order to accommodate increased funded hours for 3-4 year olds, following our work extending and adapting the main buildings to allow the school to expand to four forms of entry. The design provides a new separate entrance for the nursery and rearranges the external spaces so they can be better utilised for outdoor play.
Central Park Primary School, Newham
November 2016
Grinling Gibbons children at SEH
We were very pleased to welcome ten children from Grinling Gibbons primary school in Deptford, which has launched the 'Grinling Futures' project which aims to motivate, promote and nurture aspirations and ambitions, allowing children to gain insights into different professions and the skills required, through workplace visits. The school intends that in this way the children can gain first-hand experience of the workplace, understand the link between subjects taught in school and possible future careers, and experience how these subjects are combined with collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and evaluation. This will inspire them and enable them to become well-rounded, focused citizens contributing to the greater good of the world.
Over lunch with the whole practice we gave presentations explaining our history, a typical day in the life of an architect, and the skills required to be an architect, and answered lots of questions from the children, who then worked with four architects on a real project - Kensal Rise Library (see photo, with our Yinka on the left and our Rachel on the right). We thought the GG children and their teachers were brilliant, and look forward to continuing our relationship with the school.
Grinling Gibbons the primary school
Grinling Gibbons the 17C Dutch-British sculptor and wood carver
November 2016
Surrey Students' Union ideas
We were invited to submit ideas for the transformation of the Students Union building at the University of Surrey, as one of six architects shortlisted to tender as part of an OJEU selection process, for a building originally by Maguire and Murray. The Union had been subsequently extended so that its original clarity has been lost, and a comprehensive programme of extension and refurbishment is needed to restore the site as one of the most significant on the campus. Our solution was, in effect, a masterplan for the phased development of the site, creating a memorable atrium at the core which would make the building legible and a vibrant and attractive place to be for everyone. We were not successful, and wish HLM and the University good luck with the project.
University of Surrey Union ideas
September 2016
Our new Managing Director: Nick Hufton
Nick Hufton has taken over as Managing Director from Henry Bird, after Henry's fifteen years in the role.
Nick joined the practice in 1999, became an Associate in 2001, Associate Director in 2006 and a Director in 2008. As well as over twenty years' experience as an architect delivering complex projects across all of the sectors we work in, he is also qualified as a project manager and has trained as a BREEAM assessor. The projects Nick has led for us include East City Point for Countryside, Enfield Library, Thornhaugh Mews for UCL, Sydney Jones Library for the University of Liverpool, Central Library for the University of East Anglia, and Bounds Green School for Haringey.
September 2016
UCL at Thornhaugh Mews, Bloomsbury
We are very pleased to be working with University College London on our project, formerly designed for the Institute of Education (now part of UCL), for Thornhaugh Mews.
This project provides a masterplan and a first phase extension to the 1970’s building designed by Denys Lasdun on Bedford Way in London, which is listed Grade II*. It is surrounded by Georgian buildings which are listed Grade II within a conservation area. The masterplan is based on an analysis of the Bloomsbury area and its development from the early 19th century through to Leslie Martin’s 1957 masterplan for the University of London and Lasdun’s 1965 proposal for five wings or ‘stepped spurs’ and his built 1977 scheme (in which only one spur is realised).
Thornhaugh Mews, UCL, Camden, London
September 2016
Willowdene's new school, in Greenwich
We have designed this transformation of an existing disused school building, which had many difficult changes of level and other access issues, to provide new accommodation for Willowdene School, on Wickham Lane, for the London Borough of Greenwich.
The project, which opened this month provides forty new secondary level places for pupils aged 11-16 who have multiple and complex needs, and also provides the Borough’s Professional Development Centre serving all of the school's staff.
September 2016
Warneford Hospital Masterplan, Oxford
We are very pleased to have been appointed by the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, working in partnership with the University of Oxford, to prepare a masterplan for the Warneford Hospital.
The University's web site has announced: 'We have jointly appointed award-winning architects Shepheard Epstein Hunter to prepare a draft Masterplan for the Warneford Hospital site in Headington, to be ready for review this autumn. The University has had a significant presence for many years at the Warneford, where the Department of Psychiatry occupies several buildings for research purposes...As a major stakeholder, we have aspirations to increase our presence there in line with our joint shared vision for the site with the Trust to support the development of a sustainable academic and clinical community, appropriate to both organisations.'
See also: Oxford wins £12.8m for new NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for mental health and dementia.
September 2016
Willowdene's new school in Greenwich
We have designed this transformation of an existing disused school building, which had many difficult changes of level and other access issues, to provide new accommodation for Willowdene School, on Wickham Lane, for the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
The project, which opened this month, provides forty new places for pupils aged 11-16 who have multiple and complex needs, and also provides the Borough’s Professional Development Centre.
Willow Dene SEN, Wickham Lane, Royal Borough of Greenwich
September 2016
University of Leicester framework success
We are very pleased to have been appointed to the University of Leicester consultant framework, as one of only three architects leading multi-disciplinary design teams for projects over the OJEU major project threshold over the next four years.
Shepheard Epstein Hunter has worked continuously and successfully with the University since winning the commission to masterplan all of the University's sites fifteen years ago. Award winning projects include the Percy Gee Building, shown here.
University of Leicester Development Framework Plan
August 2016
Osney Mead Masterplan goes public
The masterplan we have prepared for the University of Oxford for its Osney Mead Knowledge Park was presented in its outline form to the public in July, and aims to provide increased opportunities for research, innovation, employment, homes and supporting uses, with better pedestrian and cycle connections to the city and surrounding areas. The public exhibition boards can be seen here, reported in The Oxford Student and The Oxford Mail.
July 2016
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre Retrofit Awards finalist
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre has been shortlisted for the 2016 AJ Retrofit Awards.
The awards…'recognise and celebrate design, engineering and construction excellence that prolongs and improves the life of the built environment'.
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre
June 2016
Upton Cross LABC awards shortlist
Upton Cross School, for the London Borough of Newham, working with Morgan Sindall, has been shortlisted for the 2016 LABC London awards.
Upton Cross Credon School, Newham
May 2016
Upton Cross finalist for 2016 LABC awards
Upton Cross School, for the London Borough of Newham, working with Morgan Sindall, has been shortlisted for ‘Best Education Building’ in the 2016 LABC London awards
Upton Cross Credon School, Newham
May 2016
Telferscot: new school and housing for Lambeth
We have designed this mixed-use development of a two form entry primary school for Lambeth (a second site for Telferscot Primary School, for 420 pupils and nursery) on the lower two floors with 36 homes on the four floors above, for Metropolitan, as one of the later phases of the development of the Clapham Park Estate. The project is now at planning application stage.
March 2016
Elephant Studios at LSBU opened by Lord Grade
Our new media studio complex for London South Bank University was opened by Lord Michael Grade, former Chair of the BBC, on 8th February. Elephant Studios at LSBU is a £4 million interlinked media space, offering high-specification production facilities at the forefront of digital technologies and multimedia practice to the LSBU's creative industries students and the city’s media professionals. Use of the studios will be fully integrated into the university’s film, photography, sound and digital design courses, providing graduates with the best possible employment prospects. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has estimated that the UK Creative Industries are worth £84bn to the UK economy.
Janet Jones, Dean of the School, commented: “LSBU's School of Arts and Creative Industries has a strong and deep heritage in media, design, performance and the visual arts. Now our students will have access to the most advanced production technology available ensuring they have the best possible experience and employment outcomes. SE1 is quickly becoming a vibrant, creative hub. Move over Soho, it’s Southwark that will host the next generation of creative talent!”
February 2016
Planning consent for Woodberry Down School
The London Borough of Hackney's Planning Committee granted approval this week for the extension of Woodberry Down Primary School. The original 1951 building by Robert H. Matthew of the London County Council (LCC) is listed Grade II due to the quality of its building materials and artwork, the intactness of the original building and as a rare early example of post-war school planning in London. The school's expansion from two to three forms of entry requires new classrooms, wheelchair access to upper floors and improvements to the kitchen and dining arrangements.
The classroom block is conceived as a series of simple volumes, complementing the massing of the existing school, linked by a lower volume housing the stores. A glazed corridor links the new block to the existing building but is a clear visual break between the two. The dining extension is a similar simple form with a large glazed opening.
January 2016
GDST framework
We are very pleased to have been appointed to the Girls“ Day School Trust professional framework - the GDST is '...the UK's leading network of independent girls’ schools...' educating 8% of all girls at UK independent schools from the age of three to eighteen, with some 20,000 pupils in 24 schools and two academies in England and Wales.
Our current projects for GDST include Putney High School and preliminary proposals for new competition-level sports facilities at the Royal High School, Bath.
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre
December 2015
Steven Pidwill appointed as CABE Building Environment Expert
Steven Pidwill has been appointed to Design Council CABE's Building Environment Expert panel - CABE has announced: 'Design Council Cabe has completed the recruitment of 150 new Built Environment Experts (BEEs)...the largest and most skilled group of its kind in the country. The BEEs will work closely with Design Council Cabe to champion design in the built environment.
Clare Devine, Director of Design Council Cabe has announced: “We have been laying the foundations for our future, building on what we do best, refining and developing new services, expanding our skills set and building relationships to deliver our programmes. To support this, we have expanded our BEE network both in its geographical spread and range of disciplines and skills...This network has an unprecedented breadth of expertise, with specialists in public health, inclusion, SMART and culture, joining experts in planning and built environment. We will harness our collective independent expert advice to instigate and foster innovative thinking, providing advice and support to effect transformational change across all aspects of the built environment.” Design Council Cabe's network of BEEs will provide independent expert advice and promote and support well designed buildings, spaces and places that improve everyone’s quality of life.
December 2015
New VIc gathers pace on site
New VIc describes this £8m project, Phase 1 of their campus-wide improvements programme, which will deliver a new entrance, library, drama studio and new social and learning spaces, as 'a landmark development for Newham and East London.' Interserve, the contractor which won the construction contract through an OJEU and two-stage tender process, has been on site since the summer and is providing site access and valuable experience to the College’s engineering and construction students.
This year the college has achieved a 96% A-level pass rate and has announced that at least 85 students will be progressing to Russell Group universities in 2015. NewVIc’s Principal, Eddie Playfair has said: 'NewVIc makes a major contribution to social mobility, while also remaining a comprehensive college for students at all levels. Our staff and students have worked extremely hard for these results and this success is built on the commitment and dedication of our wonderful team and our ambitious students. It shows that we are truly a successful learning community.'
December 2015
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre first show
Putney High School presented its first Christmas show in the transformed Performing Arts Centre: 'We Will Rock You', based on the Queen West End musical, delivered a multi-media performance with gusto and confidence and was hugely enjoyable. Suzie Longstaff, headmistress tweeted: 'Our new Performing Arts Centre is truly amazing. 'We will rock you' will go down in the history books. Truly awesome'
In May 2014 we were invited by the Girls' Day School Trust to take this project forward and create a Performing Arts Centre for Putney High School. Designed to Stage D by Open London, the design wraps a new skin around the existing building to create extra storage, teaching and access facilities, together with balconies, retractable seating and a dividing partition, which has created a flexible, highly attractive new facility for performance, music and presentation, equipped with a sophisticated lighting and audio visual system. Adjustable wall panelling allows the School to adjust the degree of reflection and absorption to suit speech and music.
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre
December 2015
New City Primary School opens
New City Primary Schools new extension, which we designed for Newham working through D&B main contractor Neilcott, was opened in October 2015. The extension and refurbishment to this 1897 Victorian board school building provides extra classrooms, a more secure and relocated entrance and a rooftop specialist classroom and garden, enabling expansion to a full 3 form entry school with a 45 FTE place nursery.
The scheme achieves a slim atrium against the side wall of the older building bringing daylight to the inward edge of the new floor plans, and preserving the modelling of the original building elevation and its terracotta memorial plaque.
The cranked plan creates a natural separation between nursery age and older children and makes efficient use of external play space which previously contributed little to the main playground, providing a dedicated nursery play area shaded by a retained mature tree.
October 2015
Sarah Bonnell School learning hub opens
The new Learning Hub at Sarah Bonnell School opened on 15 October: head teacher Sarah Jacobs said the project to create this 'innovative space in which to read, study, research and learn...' had '...exceeded the school's expectations'.
The new learning hub has been created by extending the existing library space to provide a range of learning and teaching resources and environments and a new conference and training space at the heart of the school. The conference room extends out from the courtyard eastern external wall and projects into the new double-height space of the new learning hub. A gallery runs around the first floor perimeter providing additional learning spaces and views over the double height space. The structure consists of glulam columns and cross laminated timber (CLT) floors.
Sarah Bonnell School, Stratford
October 2015
Salisbury Primary School new extensions open
This project for Salisbury Primary School in the London Borough of Newham delivers two new classrooms as extensions to this locally listed robust Victoria building, enabling the school to expand to three forms of entry and bring the nursery accommodation into the main school building.
The scale of the extensions ties in with the Victorian building storey height and allows new mezzanine floors to be created within double height spaces in both extensions, in response to the head teacher's vision of providing valuable additional break-out and teaching space supporting the education of the children. The roofs of both extensions are accessible from the first floor corridor and provide additional supervised outdoor play and learning space.
October 2015
Planning consent for Woodmansterne schools
Lambeth's planning committee have given unanimous consent for the expansion of Woodmansterne school in Streatham to provide two extra forms of entry at primary level and a new six form entry secondary school, following a series of feasibility studies by Shepheard Epstein Hunter working closely with Lambeth's education officers over the last three years. The primary school will be complete first in September 2016, to detailed designs by PTAL architects working for contractor Elliott, followed by the secondary school, scheduled to offer its first places in September 2018. The negotiation of the planning consents required a multi-disciplinary team led by SEH to ensure that we were able to satisfy complex transport and other issues, including flood risk, overlooking, daylight and rights of light, and that we were able to satisfy Sport England's interest in the impact on and future use of the playing fields to the south.
July 2015
PUTPAC heading for completion
Working with Putney High School, the Girls' Day School Trust and main contractor ITC, the Performing Arts Centre at the School is now quickly taking shape. The design, which we have developed from a planning consent scheme prepared by Open London, wraps the existing hall in a new steel frame which is then clad in structural insulated panels (SIPS) and finished in copper and oak. An extension on the rear courtyard side provides an additional gallery to the auditorium which doubles as a student daytime space and reception area for events, with an outdoor terrace which overlooks the school courtyard. A full-height moveable wall enables the school to use two performance or teaching spaces simultaneously, and retractable seating gives a choice of flat or raked audience arrangements. A time lapse video edited by the school can be seen on their website at Putney High School.
.Putney High School Performing Arts Centre
July 2015
Sarah Bonnell Learning Hub taking shape
The new Learning Hub at the heart of Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford is heading for occupation in September. Working with the school, London Borough of Newham and main contractor T&B we have designed a double-height building which delivers the schools vision of a new source of inspiration to satisfy curious minds and enable diverse learning and teaching styles. It extends the existing library and provides a gallery for quiet study and a conference room suspended at first floor level. The construction is of glulam columns and cross laminated timber floors, with clerestory windows and full height external glazing providing optimum daylight. The new space connects directly to the main school atrium with large areas of internal glazing allowing long views through the Hub to the outdoor study terrace beyond.
Sarah Bonnell School, Stratford
June 2015
Woodberry Down Primary School
We are very pleased to have been appointed as architect for the expansion of Woodberry Down Community Primary School in Hackney, London, which was completed in 1951 - to designs by Robert H. Matthew, Architect to the London County Council (LCC) - and listed Grade II in 2007 as part of the English Heritage-led post-war listing programme. The quality of its building materials and artwork, the intactness of the original building and the fact that it is an early example of post-war school planning in London all contributed to the decision to list the building. The school is expanding from two to three forms of entry and the increased pupil numbers will require new classrooms, wheelchair access to upper floors and improvements to the kitchen and dining arrangements.
Woodberry Down Masterplan, Hackney
June 2015
New projects for the University of Oxford
We're very pleased to have been appointed by the University of Oxford for two important major projects. The University“s Estates Department has announced:
‘Following completion of a review of the University’s 14-acre holdings at Osney Mead, architects Shepheard Epstein Hunter have been appointed to produce a masterplan. The process will include consultation with both city and county councils and the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership.
University Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Resources, Prof William James, recently said that the development could bring ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ of investment. ‘We are conscious this is a large piece of land very close to the city centre that is not really a great asset and are working with the city and county councils to try and promote inward investment,’ he said. The site has also been recognised by city leaders as ‘ the next great opportunity’ in Oxford, with plans already to link Osney Mead to Oxpens Meadow with a new bridge across the Thames.’
Shepheard Epstein Hunter is simultaneously preparing a master plan for the Begbroke Science Park, to ensure that related issues for these two locations are considered together. Both masterplans will be completed in the Autumn.
May 2015
New housing in Derby
Working with Metropolitan, and following constructive discussions with the local planning authority, we have designed and achieved planning consent for new housing in Derby city centre on a difficult site which had remained undeveloped for many years, and are now developing and delivering the design with main contractor Tanbry. The scheme provides 55 homes with two and three bedroomed houses and 38 flats including two 3 person wheelchair adaptable flats and two bedroom houses to Lifetime Homes standard. The houses are arranged as a terrace towards the back of the site which allows them to be provided with small rear gardens and off street curtilage parking. The flats are located in a four story block facing St Helen’s Street.
April 2015
Planning consent for three Newham schools
Three schools for the London Borough of Newham with main contractor Neilcott have been granted planning consent. New City primary school extends and refurbishes a Victorian school building to provide extra classrooms, a more secure and relocated entrance. and a rooftop specialist classroom and garden (pictured).
Altmore Primary School (infants) is a new building providing extra classrooms and a reorganisation of early years spaces.
At Salisbury, another locally listed robust Victorian building, two new classrooms will enable the school to expand to three forms of entry and bring the nursery accommodation into the main school building. .
January 2015
Planning consent for New VIc
The first phase of Newham Sixth Form College's £8 million first phase of its campus development has received planning consent.
The project will transform the Prince Regent Lane site – the sense of an exciting, diverse learning community is already evident as soon as you walk through the door of NewVIc (VI as in '6').
This development will give students additional facilities to help them meet their aspirations, and new buildings which reflect the status of New VIc as the largest sixth form establishment in London and one of the largest in the UK.
October 2014
Multi disciplinary teaching labs at Leicester
Working with the University of Leicester’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) departments, we have prepared a study investigating the potential for new multi-disciplinary teaching laboratories on the central campus, adjacent to Victoria Park and at the heart of the mid -twentieth century half of the university“s main campus.
September 2014
New school and housing at Clapham Park
We are working with Metropolitan and the London Borough of Lambeth to provide a new primary school with four floors of new housing over, at Clapham Park.
The Clapham Park estate covers a 36 hectare area between Brixton, Streatham, Balham and Clapham, made up of interwar and post war council housing. Outline planning consent for the masterplan was secured in 2008 and it is anticipated that the whole estate transformation will be complete by 2025, providing 2,073 new and 1,153 refurbished homes, parks, a community centre and this primary school.
September 2014
Putney High School Performing Arts Centre
We have been invited by the Girls' Day School Trust to take over this project to create a Performing Arts Centre for Putney High School.
The design wraps a new skin around the existing building to create extra storage, teaching and access facilities, together with balconies, retractable seating and a dividing partition, which will create a flexible, highly attractive new facility for performance, music and presentation.
September 2014
Phase 4 studies at UEA
We completed phase 3 of the Central Library at the University of East Anglia some ten years ago. This year we have worked with the university to develop ideas for Phase 4 — a significant extension which could provide further enhanced library facilities, seminar and group working rooms, and a major, adaptable lecture facility (shown here).
September 2014
Planning consent for Sarah Bonnell School
Planning consent has been granted for the new learning hub at Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford, Newham. The hub extends the existing library to provide a range of learning and teaching resources and environments and a new conference and training space at the heart of the school.
September 2014
Lancaster University Spine competition
We were shortlisted as one of five practices for the design competition to rejuvenate the campus’s principal walkway, known as The ‘Spine’- a partially covered pedestrian walkway spanning from one end of the campus to the other, originally designed (by this practice, in 1964) to allow pedestrians to walk the whole length of the campus whilst providing a degree of protection from the weather. The RIBA ran the OJEU competition which 'received an excellent response'. The shortlisted teams were Shepheard Epstein Hunter with tf LAB, landscape architects; Gustafson Porter Ltd,Land Use Consultants with Design Engine Architects, Rick Mather Architects with Grant Associates, and White Arkitekter.
We came a very close second, we understand. Congratulations to Rick Mather Architects and their team, and good luck to the University with the project.
September 2014
Segas House
We have prepared a study for Croydon Council which considers the feasibility of converting the Grade II listed Segas House into a three form entry (3FE) primary school. The site is relatively small but the five storey former office/ showroom building, which was constructed between 1939 and 1941 and is on the English Heritage: Heritage at Risk register, could offer a much-needed education facility in the heart of Croydon. The site also falls within the Central Croydon Conservation Area and is in an Archaeological Priority Zone.
September 2014
Bounds Green School
We have been appointed by the London Borough of Haringey to develop proposals for expansion to three forms of entry of Bounds Green primary school. The emerging design proposes a new extension, refurbishment, expansion of the kitchen facilities and improved landscape.
September 2014
Parliament frameworks
We are pleased to have won places on both the new Architect and new Conservation Architect frameworks for the Parliamentary estate.
We have worked on a range of projects over the last four years for Parliament which have dealt with entrances, security and visitor experience, the repair of the historic fabric and the rationalisation of office space, and are pleased to be continuing with our relationship.
September 2014
We are recruiting - 2
Shepheard Epstein Hunter is looking for enthusiastic, capable and well-motivated people to work on residential and education sector projects in the UK.
Shepheard Epstein Hunter is a friendly, dynamic and award-winning practice. We are interested in the positive effect that design can have on the lives of the people that inhabit the environments that we are involved with and we are looking for an individual who will share our passion for responsible, holistic design.
September 2014
Two new Directors at Shepheard Epstein Hunter
We are very pleased to announce that Ann Lakshmanan and Charles Dokk-Olsen have become Directors of Shepheard Epstein Hunter.
Charles and Ann have played leading roles in many of our projects over the last ten years and we look forward to their continuing to help our clients realise the potential of projects and opportunities over coming years.
Ann is currently leading a range of schools projects in London and Bath on sensitive and constrained sites; and Charles is leading the NewVIc Sixth Form College project in Plaistow, school projects in Newham and masterplanning projects in Leicester.
University of Leicester Development Framework Plan
July 2014
Four new Associates at Shepheard Epstein Hunter
We are very pleased to announce that Maggie Bray, Ruth Nelson, Sapna Shah and Yuto Fujii have become Associates at Shepheard Epstein Hunter.
- Maggie is at the centre of our finance, time management, fee invoicing and administration systems
- Ruth has played a pivotal role in our masterplanning, university and school projects for the University of Leicester, Hackney and NewVIc Sixth Form College
- Sapna has been responsible for many of our projects including London South Bank University and the International Transport Workers Federation
- Yuto's projects include housing at Stonebridge, university projects at the University of Leicester and schools in London.
June 2014
We are recruiting...!
We are very happily busy with new work in education and housing...and are looking for architects, preferably with some experience, but mostly with suitable skills and qualities to build up our team working on really interesting projects.
If you're interested please send your details to Henry Bird
May 2014
Gabi Epstein and Peter Hunter back in the office
A very happy occasion for us last week when Gabi Epstein and Peter Hunter, two of the founding partners, dropped in while Gabi was visiting London away from his home in Paris. Gabi's contribution to architecture and academic life is well written up on Wikipedia and he is also on the British Library Architect’s Lives sound library (as is Peter Shepheard the other founding partner). Peter Hunter's own significant history has been recognised with an OBE for his pioneering catalytic role in stimulating urban regeneration in Northern Ireland (at Laganside) and most notably at Salford Quays where the dramatic transformation of this formerly derelict docklands site led to the BBC being located there, Daniel Libeskind’s War Museum and Stirling & Wilford’s Lowry Centre. Peter's 2009 honorary degree from the University of Salford is 'In recognition of outstanding services to architecture and regeneration for the benefit of local and national communities' - a pretty wonderful citation.
April 2014
Retrofit for Purpose
The RIBA has published a new book, written and researched by Sunand Prasad, which explores the art and science of bringing energy efficiency to existing buildings. The essays and eleven case studies - one of which is the Percy Gee Building at the University of Leicester - explore the critical issues, offer practical solutions and call for architects and clients to develop a better understanding so that we can actually deliver the sustainable buildings we aspire to.
The book is an important contribution to the field and can be purchased from the RIBA here. 'The case studies focus as much on the transformation of usability and image as on the improvements in the energy and resource use of non-domestic buildings. The essay section puts these projects into a wider context, arguing that while there is much more to retrofit than energy efficiency, gathering, sharing and analysing reliable energy performance data are absolutely critical.
The book considers a range of other retrofit variables; from client ambition to tenure, budget, use-type, age, context, fashion and fiscal arrangements and assess how retrofit can be made affordable, how it fits in with wider government policy and how performance can be measured.'
Percy Gee Building, Students Union, University of Leicester
April 2014
New VIc VIctory
We are really pleased to have been selected as architect for Newham Sixth Form College's £8 million first phase of its campus development, following a rigorous competitive selection process. Newham Recorder
Our client Eddie Playfair, NewVIc Principal, who last week was on Radio 4 talking about equality of education opportunities for young people, said: “This appointment means we can now move ahead with our plans to create an exciting new building which is welcoming, accessible and flexible. The first phase of the redevelopment will include a new entrance, library and drama studio as well as social and learning spaces for students. We are all very excited by this development which will be a major boost for NewVIc and for its students. The local community will also benefit from new state-of-the-art facilities. We are a successful learning community and we need buildings which fully reflect our aims and the hopes and aspirations of our students."
The project will transform the Prince Regent Lane site – the sense of an exciting, diverse learning community is already evident as soon as you walk through the door of NewVIc (VI as in '6'). This development will give students additional facilities to help them meet their aspirations, and new buildings which reflect the status of NewVIc as the largest sixth form establishment in London and one of the largest in the UK.
April 2014
Cardiff University Masterplan...or maybe not...
We were very pleased to be shortisted for the £0.75bn masterplan for Cardiff University, and admire the University's ambition - and that of the city planning authority - as conveyed in their open day and briefing documents.
But it wasn't to be: congratulations to mosescameronwilliams architects, and good luck with the project.
March 2014
Wickham Lane SEN School
We are very pleased to be working with the Royal Borough of Greenwich again on the creation of a new secondary level Special Educational Needs school and teacher training facility at Wickham Lane.
The robust Victorian building has been unoccupied for a while and we look forward to working up the design for its transformation and bringing new life to the site.
March 2014
New Inspiring Learning Hub for Sarah Bonnell School
We have been working closely with Sarah Bonnell School and the London Borough of Newham to develop ideas for a new learning hub - extending the existing library to provide a range of learning and teaching resources at the heart of the school.
Sarah Bonnell School is a thriving comprehensive school for 1,200 girls in Stratford, East London. Established in 1769 it has a long and proud history and tradition as one of the oldest schools for girls in the country.
More about Sarah Bonnell School
March 2014
Three schools for the London Borough of Newham
We are delighted to be working up designs for three more schools for the London Borough of Newham and main contractor Neilcott (with whom we worked on Parkside / the Edge), and working alongside Rivington Street Studios architects, who are designing the other three schools in Neilcott's batch.
New City primary school is an extension to and refurbishment of a Victorian school building to provide extra classrooms, a more secure entrance. and a rooftop specialist classroom and garden (pictured).
Altmore primary school (infants) will be a new building providing extra classrooms and a reorganisation of early years spaces. RSS are designing the junior side of this school on its sister site ten minutes walk away.
At Salisbury, another locally listed robust Victorian building, two new classrooms will enable the school to expand to three forms of entry.
February 2014
National Bakery School
Founded in 1894, the dynamic and influential National Bakery School at London South Bank University is the oldest bakery school in the world with an international reputation for courses designed in consultation with leading heads of industry. They have made cakes for Queen Elizabeth II's wedding and official Millennium celebrations.
We are very pleased to be working with the school on the design of their improved facilities in Southwark, London. Not just because of practical room 3 (chocolate).
More about the National Bakery School.
February 2014
Help Millfields Community Primary School raise funds...
...for better playground facilities and Syria - see their Millfields Christmas song on youtube and this video telling you why they made it.
December 2013
Hitherfield School official opening...
The official opening of Hitherfield Primary School in Streatham, Lambeth, London took place this month, designed to Stage D/E by esteemed colleagues Greenhill Jenner, who have been on Lambeth's architects' framework with us for the last four years.
The new three-storey accommodation blocks act as bookends for the 1910 Juniors building. We acted as executive architect for the design and build contractor ISG
December 2013
Princess Anne opens Blackfriars
Blackfriars Settlement's community centre in Rushworth Street was officially opened on Wednesday 11 December 2013 by the Princess Royal. The 126-year-old local charity moved back to Rushworth Street this summer after three years operating from temporary premises. The new building – designed by Shepheard Epstein Hunter – provides a purpose-designed community centre and 36 shared ownership homes, developed by Notting Hill Housing Trust, with two floors of space for the settlement's educational activities and services for older people.
The Princess Royal's first contact with the settlement was in 1969 when she visited its Nelson Square premises. This time she said that although local people's needs may have changed over the years, the need for accessible space for community activities remains.
'This building underlines the endurance of Blackfriars Settlement and its ability to adapt to the changing circumstances and continuing funding challenges,' said Mayor of Southwark Councillor Abdul Mohamed. Baroness Wheeler of Blackfriars, chair of the charity (on the left in the picture), said: 'We hope the new centre will make a significant impact within the local community, from young to old...Today marks the culmination of a long-held vision for Blackfriars Settlement to give local people some of the high quality facilities they deserve. This is the next chapter in our 126-year history in SE1.'
The Borough Music School, which former member of the Settlement Anne Worsley founded, will soon move its activities to the new Rushworth Street centre.
Photographs by Peter Durant will be on our web site in February 2014.
Blackfriars Settlement, Southwark
December 2013
New photographs by Peter Durant #3
Peter's recent photographs show new accommodation, recently completed, for Honilands Primary School in Enfield, enabling expansionfrom a 2 form entry school with a nursery to a 3 form entry school with Children’s Centre.
The new extension is to the rear of the existing two storey wing and uses the existing vaulted roof profile and staggered building footprint as a starting point for the new building, which is made up of three oblongs in a similar staggered formation mirroring the existing footprint.
Honilands Primary School, Enfield
November 2013
We're looking for new people...
We are looking for architects with 3+ years experience - see more here...
November 2013
Millfields School rooftop learning space shapes up
We are nearing the end of construction on a package of works supporting the expansion of Millfields Community School in Hackney from 2.5 to 3 forms of entry. Shown here is the new roof top outdoor play, teaching and learning space, partly sheltered with this fabric canopy structure, which will be enclosed by 2m high glass walls, allowing staff and children great views across the surrounding rooftops.
Other works include relocating the kitchen from first to ground floor, creating additional classrooms, and the design of a second double-decker sheltered play structure on the other side of this robust Victorian Board school building to make best use of a very confined site.
November 2013
Finalist for RICS National Conservation Award
The Percy Gee Building at the University of Leicester was among the finalists in the Conservation category at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors 2013 awards dinner held at the Savoy on 18 October.
The building was the regional conservation award winner earlier in the year at the East Midlands awards dinner in Nottingham in April, and was also a finalist in the Commercial and Tourism & Leisure categories.
Percy Gee Building, Students Union, University of Leicester
October 2013
New photographs by Peter Durant #2
Peter Durant's photographs of our reception transformation project for City University London can be seen here.
The project has transformed the entrance floor of the Social Sciences Building to improve the relationship between the interior and exterior.
The solid concrete wall on the south side was removed and glazed, and the resulting transparency allows connecting views between the central atrium and the existing square. The building has become more legible and the experience of entering the building more attractive. The reception facility is now a welcoming desk, and there are comfortable spaces to wait, check e-mails or hold brief meetings.
City University Social Sciences Entrance, Islington
October 2013
Planning applications for three school projects
We have submitted planning applications for three primary school expansion projects in Newham, London, due to start on site at the beginning of the new year.
Central Park Primary School will expand to 4 forms of entry: the existing 1899 and 1980's buildings will be linked together at ground level and a new second storey will be added to the Victorian building (the top floor was destroyed by fire in 1979). Two rooftop outdoor play, teaching and learning areas are provided on the southern corners of the original building.
At Hartley Primary Schoolwe are replacing the kitchen and dining block with new facilities to support the school's recent expansion to 4FE, with a dining hall to seat four sittings of 210 children and rooftop outdoor play, teaching and learning area.
At Kensington Primary School, we are again recreating second floor accommodation on top of a remaining Victorian structure. This time the top floor was hit by an incendiary bomb on the 16th September 1940. The recreation of the top floor will allow expansion from two to three forms of entry.
October 2013
Open House this weekend - SEH projects
Projects by Shepheard Epstein Hunter taking part in this weekend's Open House (21/22 September) - click on the links to go to Open House pages:
Phoenix Yard, our own practice offices in an unusual building with an interesting history...(pictured)
Enfield Library major new addition and remodelling of a Carnegie Library in a conservation area...
CEREB, the London South Bank University's test bed and teaching space for efficient/ sustainable energy technologies, built on the roof of the K2 building (K2 is by Grimshaw)...
RSAIV, Enfield Grade II listed arms factory, home to the Enfield rifle, closed to public for 170 years, and now a mixed-use village and commercial centre
Unfortunately, Julian's School in West Norwood has had to pull out of the weekend at short notice due to emergency tree surgery works.
September 2013
New photographs by Peter Durant
Peter Durant has taken new photographs of three of our recent buildings, which you can see here: Julian's School West Norwood for the London Borough of Lambeth, new conference and meeting facilities for the International Transport Workers' Federation, and the transformed facilities for young people at The Edge (formerly Parkside myplace) for the London Borough of Hackney
Julian's Primary School Norwood, Lambeth
August 2013
Tzeh Bin Cheong, our new Associate
We are very pleased to announce that Tzeh Bin Cheong (Bin to us) has become an Associate of Shepheard Epstein Hunter. Bin's rigorous and analytical approach to design, technical excellence and delivery is evident in his contributions to many of our recent projects including: Ada Lewis House, Honilands Primary School, Upton Cross Primary School, and Sunnyhill Primary School.
Bin has led our development and implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM), which the government announced in its Construction Strategy of May 2011 would be required ('collaborative 3D BIM ...with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic') on its projects by 2016.
August 2013
Planning approval for Stonebridge
Planning permission has been granted for two sites in Stonebridge, Brent. The scheme provides 47 1- and 2-bed units in two buildings and completes a development started as part of an earlier phase. The project is due to go to site later this year.
July 2013
Finalist for the Retrofit Awards 2013
Stamford Court for the University of Leicester has been shortlisted for the Architects Journal 2013 Retrofit Awards. This project has transformed rather tired student accommodation from the mid 20C into a flexible centre for meetings and functions in the Oadby Hilltop Conservation Area, in three phases. See short video .
The transformation opens up the main space to connect with the surrounding mature landscape, while providing sophisticated audio-visual and presentation facilities and a range of seminar, break-out and social spaces. It revives the best qualities of the original Edwardian house, and links the previously disparate elements of the plan to form a coherent spatial sequence.
The extended and improved main hall space has become a tall rectangular room terminating in a shaded glass eastern elevation which gives views and access onto the beautiful lawns and mature trees of Oadby, with retractable blinds and screens integrated with the window frames and ceilings which are concealed when not in use, and a roof structure of glulam timber beams with steel tension ties.
Seminar rooms have flexible partitions to provide a range of room capacities, and the largest seminar room has fold-back glazing to most of the external wall so that it can be opened up in summer to the landscape to the south. Solar shading on the south side prevents overheating on sunny days.
The house has been reconfigured: the original staircase, fire places and doors have been restored, and the fire strategy has been updated to allow the removal of 20C Georgian wired partitions and provide transparency using large areas of fire-resisting glass.
Percy Gee Building, Students Union, University of Leicester
July 2013
Sheerness Dockyard Church Rescue
We have been working with The Spitalfields Trust to develop a viable masterplan for the Grade II* listed Dockyard Church at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. The church has lain empty and derelict since a fire in 2001. However, on 5 July, the compulsory purchase of the building by Swale Borough Council will be complete. Ownership will then be passed to the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust. The church will then be passed to a new trust which will oversee its restoration to provide community space, small business units and, it is hoped, a display area for the magnificent 40ft square model of the dockyard made in the 1830s and currently in the care of English Heritage. See SAVE Britain’s Heritage press release.
July 2013
Open City Architecture in Schools Primary Award Winners
SEH took part in Open City's Architecture in Schools Primary programme this year. Our partner school Laycock Primary worked with SEH and Nicholas Hare Architects to make building visits and then develop a sketch proposal and model to respond to the Open City brief 'Design a Shelter for a real or imaginary pet'. The pupils made some fantastic models and were recognised for their success at the awards ceremony held in Canary Wharf.
The school won Awards in Research and Development, Environmentally Friendly Design, Design Skills and being the Overall Award winners. They were also commended for the best class response and Erin Rowland was the Teacher of the Year.
Find out more about Open City's Architecture in Schools programme and see the award winning models here and more about Laycock Primary here.
July 2013
Working with the Friends of Kensal Rise Library
We were very pleased to be invited to advise the Friends in their campaign to seek the best future for Kensal Rise Library.
See Brent and Kilburn Times article
June 2013
Congratulations to Clare, new Design Council Director
Congratulations to Clare Devine, a former director of Shepheard Epstein Hunter, who has been appointed by the Design Council as Director of Architecture and the Built Environment. During her time with us Clare led our teams for the south west campus development at Lancaster University, the Jennie Lee Library at the Open University, and the phase 1 designs in the early stages of the award-winning Stonebridge regeneration project. Pictured here is the show-house for Phase 1, which was conceived as an exhibition:
'We all dream about our ideal home. How it should look and feel. The concept of home has no single meaning. A home is never just only a container for things but a recipient of memories and hopes, a true reflection of our identities. Our homes tell how we perceive ourselves, our past and future.
This exhibition explored what ‘home’ meant to people in Stonebridge, and reflected the multitude of experiences of the people of Stonebridge, their memories, emotions and aspirations. To do this we interviewed residents aged 5 to 81 years old. Their responses were then incorporated in each of the rooms.
‘home’ was furnished with objects, fabrics and furniture from the 1950s to the present day - the period from when the original local Victorian housing was demolished, through to the 1960's and 70's when the estate was conceived and built.'
Stonebridge Show House, Brent, London: 'Home'
May 2013
Upton Cross Credon School wins planning consent
Planning consent was received at the London Borough of Newham's Strategic Development Committee last night (21 May) for the creation of this three form entry school which extends a 1896 Victorian school building, bomb-damaged in WWII, and more recently used as a training centre. The site is just round the corner from West Ham football ground. This is part of Newham’s programme for providing urgently needed primary school places (space for 9,500 to 10,500 children). We worked with Newham’s Design Review Panel which is chaired by Peter Ahrends.
More here
.Upton Cross Credon School, Newham
May 2013
Conservation award for Percy Gee Building
The Percy Gee Building at the University of Leicester won the award for Conservation at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, East Midlands, awards dinner in Nottingham on Thursday 25th April 2013.
The building was also a finalist in the Commercial and Tourism & Leisure categories.
Percy Gee Building, Students Union, University of Leicester
April 2013
Congratulations to Phoenix Yard books
Congratulations to Emma Langley and her team at Phoenix Yard Books for winning Newcomer Award at the Independent Publishing Guild Awards 2013.
Phoenix Yard books started out with us just a few years ago as one of the mixed community of thirty or so small-to-medium sized businesses at Phoenix Yard who do all sorts of things from architecture and engineering to product testing to software development to various forms of consultancy and...publishing books for children.
Phoenix Yard books' mission is... 'Turning writers into successful authors, artists into inspiring illustrators and children into enthusiastic readers'.
March 2013
East Midlands RICS awards - Percy Gee
The Percy Gee Building at the University of Leicester has been shortlisted for the RICS East Midlands Awards 2013 in Commercial, Building Conservation and Tourism & Leisure categories.
The building has previously been recognised in some 20 awards schemes, including Best Higher Education Building in 2011 and Building of the Year 2011 in 3R and Procon awards.
Percy Gee Building, Students Union, University of Leicester
February 2013
Stonebridge: 'Best Built Project - Five Years On' at LPA
Stonebridge Estate Regeneration won a commendation for Best Built Project - Five Years On at the London Planning Awards. on Monday 28 January 2013, for 'the depth of its community involvement, and the breadth of its sustained transformation...1996-2008'.
'The annual are jointly run by the Mayor and London First, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), and London Councils and were created in 2003 to recognise projects, schemes and planning professionals and organisations that have made a vital contribution to the capital in making it a better place to live, work, do business or visit.'
Shepheard Epstein Hunter and Terence O'Rourke, who led the submission for this award, were appointed to prepare a masterplan for the Stonebridge Estate in 1995 following a competition set up by David Rock, ex RIBA President, who paired architects and planners to get the best approach to estate regeneration and masterplanning. The two firms have worked together successfully over the implementation of the masterplan, resulting in the modern Stonebridge, which won a European Urban and Regional Planning Award in 2008 and was overall winner at the 2010 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) London Awards.
Stonebridge regeneration, Brent, London
January 2013
New Norwood School heading for completion
Julians School New Norwood for the London Borough of Lambeth has already taken its first intake of children in phase 1 (originally the 1910 Arts and Crafts style Gabriel House Jewish Orphanage) and Phase 2 - a colourful four-storey modern extension, cut into the sloping site - is heading for completion in the next few weeks.
Julian's Primary School Norwood, Lambeth
January 2013
International Transport Workers HQ starts
Our project for the transformation of the International Transport Workers Federation's headquarters building went on site this month. The fourth floor of this listed building in Southwark, which facilitates meetings of ITF delegates from all over the world with simultaneous translation facilities, is being gutted and overhauled to provide energy-efficient environmental services, enhanced conference facilities, new mezzanines, meeting rooms and ancillary spaces. The project is due for completion in April. Styles&Wood is the main contractor.
International Transport Workers Federation, Southwark
January 2013