straw bale

Thursday 22nd March was the third day of straw-bale building at the Environment Centre at Lordship Recreational Grounds - a lot of people working on site! It's fantastic to have the roof done first, now one is able to see the actual scale and outline of the building. There will be a lot of volunteers on the site from Monday 26th March onwards and a few of us at ATA will aim to be there to enjoy seeing this building emerge. Come and see us!

For more details call AT Architects on 020 7749 6931

never mind the greenwash

Hello from Fran at the AECB stall at this year's ecobuild.

that time of year: ecobuild

Fran will be speaking at ecobuild on Wednesday 21st. You can catch her at the Sustainable Architecture & Design talk at 12:30, where she'll be talking about community regeneration and education and presenting ATA's project Lordship Park environment centre, alongside Paul Elly, policy and development manager oflordship recreation ground, LB Haringey.

Later on at 4:30 she'll be discussing the refurbishment of mid-terrace properties to Passivhaus standard using as example projects Hawthorn Road (London) and St Luke's Street (Stoke on Trent). Both talks will take place at south gallery 9 & 10.

Or can come and say hello to her and others at the AECB stand. And Junko will be at the Passivhaus stand (N64) from 2:00.

Happy ecobuilding!

happy international women's day

Drawing by Fran
(who is now back!)


Just want to say thanks to ATA for restorative sabbatical leave in south France, where I walked and painted, thank you all!  Fran

ATA completes first houses at West Hendon

Family houses designed by Anne Thorne Architects LLP for client Barratt Metropolitan LLP are the first to be completed on the large West Hendon regeneration scheme, which is a partnership project between Metropolitan Housing Partnership, Barratt Homes and the London Borough of Barnet.

The eight houses on the pilot scheme - a terrace on Sorrel Mead and a semi- detached pair on Cool Oak Lane, are off the West Hendon Broadway and a 10-minute walk from theWelsh Harp reservoir, a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Popular memory recalls sailing and boating on the reservoir and the triangular geometry of gables and bay windows on the houses are a visual play on that history. The houses are a mixture of two and three storey for 5-7 persons.

you are doing a fabulous job, well done everyone!

The beginning of March saw the wider team at centre 404 - volunteers, staff and trustees, visit site to inspect progress.

Jean Wilson OBE, Chair of Centre 404 says:
I was SO excited to visit the building, it looks amazing, even better than I had visualised. Architects, builders and Amy, you are doing a FABULOUS job, well done everyone!

James Humber and Katy Anderson from the Learning and Leisure Team:
We are really excited to see how flexible and open the new activity spaces will be for all the members who come to our after school, evening and weekend clubs. There is so much more space that is multi-functional now and it will provide us with many opportunities to grow new and different services. Our members enjoyed the space before we moved out,  the team just can’t wait to see everyone come back into a fabulous new building!

And volunteers co-ordinator Carla Grauls was excited about the new garden room:
We can’t wait to get started with all the re-planting to bring our garden back to life, we will be busy looking at putting in some lovely pots on the new patios and planting lots of colourful flowers and climbers. Our garden volunteers have missed it so much and we are looking forward to coming back and having a nice garden room for our group to have lunch!

You can read more about the progress of the works on Centre 404's site diary blog.