First project by 15-40 starting on site

Akerman Road started on site!

"Now the heritage protected buildings are being restored by construction firm Sandwood Design and Build and architects Anne Thorne Architects with 15-40 Collective to provide social rented homes for local people."

Lambeth News

inner city bale out

. . . And another great article on the Tottenham straw bale, this time in the Riba Journal's June issue

Eco-Hub article on low-tech / high-tech fusion

... by Amanda Birch, worth a read!

Ecohub highly commended at RICS awards

The Ecohub has been 'highly commended' earlier this month at the RICS Award under the 'community benefit' category. Client Paul Ely pictured with awards sponsor at Kensington Palace. The Olympic Park led the awards, so we were delighted that the Ecohub joined such team!

'The new building has so much potential to bring the community closer'

Some pics of the great celebration for International Women's Day held at the Eco Hub.

Thanks to the event organiser Lilly Labonte and Kaya (16) for the words (extract bellow).

Originally planned to be held on the outdoor Shell theatre, the performances for International Women's Day at Lordship Rec was moved to the newly built Eco Hub, due to the weather turning for the worst with snow and chilly winds. The purpose was to promote women in business and encourage those not already involved in business and enterprise to be inspired to do so. There were performances ranging from street dance to spoken word and music, all the performers were young women. There were workshops about how to set up your own businesses and one 2 one drop in advice sessions, from women speakers who currently organise business starter programmes, passing down their wisdom and experience to others. The atmosphere was open and friendly and as a local young person it was nice to feel embraced by my own community, as well get to know other local people. The new building has so much potential to bring the community closer, and offer a perfect place for performances, get together’s or just a coffee or lunch after a morning in the park. This was shown on International Women's Day as it opened the Eco Hub up for the first time, allowing everyone to see what a great space it is and can be. There are more events coming to the eco hub and park very soon.

C404 raises money for garden planting

Funny and enjoyable Poetry and Music evening garden fundraiser at Centre 404, refurbished by ATA, in a delightfully sparkling hall on 10th November. We didn't win the raffle, but enjoyed ourselves. How much was raised? We are looking forward to the planting!

21st century homes event by the Highgate Society

On saturday I spoke about 'deep retrofit' at the 21st Century Homes event organised by the Highgate Society. A series of talks by experts included advice on all aspects of sustainable retrofit, the ones I heard were about boilers and solar hot water, about windows, about understanding the whole performance of the house, and they were extremely good and to the point. There were also stalls so that you could really look at insulation products, or different types of windows. When I arrived at midday on saturday the place was seething with people and humming with a busy exchange of ideas.

Apparently more than 200 visitors signed in at the event, and the following day, about 75 visits were made to local houses. Many of the visitors said they were about to embark on house projects and were actively seeking ideas and information, and that the event had been really useful to them.

This could be a great model for local areas, and it is inspiring that this organisiation, which is concerned about the quality of the historic buildings and environment is thinking so creatively about the future.

Fran

Lordship Rec Festival

To cerebrate the completion of the Environment Centre (now called Eco-Hub) and the park, the Lordship Rec Users Forum are launching a big festival on 22nd September 1-5 pm.

Besides the Open-House London at the Eco-Hub, there will be sports activities, cycling, games, dance, music, children's arts and play, and refreshment at the Eco-Hub cafe!

Festival Flyer and map are downloadable from their website.

Come and join!  And see you at the Eco-Hub.
Junko

Gearing up for Open House London

This year ATA will have two buildings open to the public during the Open House London weekend taking place on 22nd-23rd September.

Eco-hub -  the centrepiece of the regeneration and transformation of the historic Lordship Recreation Grounds, which has been designed to exemplary sustainable standards, including community-built straw bale walls, timber foundations, green roof, MVHR and natural materials and finishes.

Centre 404 (pictured) - a newly refurbished and extended Victorian villa with a non-institutional feel, taking consideration of environmental factors and energy efficiency.The centre on Camden Road is home to a charity supporting people with learning difficulties and their families.

Watch this space, more details closer to the event!
Rute

AECB visit to the environment centre this morning

thanks for coming!

AJ footprint visits the environment centre

Michelle Price from the AJ's sustainability blog Footprint spent a morning on site with the design team, contractors and volunteers and reported back on what she saw. Read the full article here.

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!

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.

progress on site despite snow and frost

Timber framed cassettes that will form the ground floor arrived on site today. These will be fully filled with insulation manufactured from recycled newspaper.

The pond in front of the Environment Centre in the Lordship Recreational Ground is currently frozen... The cafe in this building will be a fantastic place to stay warm and look out during the snowy season next year!

See more about the Environment Centre at Lordship Recreational Grounds by ATA here. 

ATA in the triodos magazine

An article about ATA in the beautifully produced The Colour of Money, Triodos Bank's quarterly publication.
As Zana pointed out this issue is all about food so it's quite nice to have some fine sustainable architecture thrown in!
Triodos is a global pioneer of sustainable banking whose mission is to make money work for positive social, environmental and cultural change. It's worth checking them and their clients out.
You can read the article here.

ATA shortlisted for Hackney co-housing project

ATA is one of the five practices shortlisted to design proposals for the Hackney Co-housing Project. HCP in partnership with Hanover Housing Association are looking at a site to build 15 new homes ranging from one-bedroom flats to four bedroom family houses, a common house and other shared facilities such as vegetable gardens, bike shed and kids play area.

uncovering centre 404

Building work is under way on Centre 404 on Camden Road. At basement level, foundation for the new garden room have been excavated and old partitions taken down, uncovering the history and timeline of the building. We've found beautiful layers of old wallpaper, decorative tiles as well as old lath and paster work… as well as some less interesting, more recent additions!

We're thrilled about watching the building work progress - connecting the building to the garden, opening up the space and making Centre 404 more accessible to all.

Anne curates walk in Aldgate

Anne Thorne has curated a walk around Aldgate focused on Gender. Other walks by Muf's Liza Fior, Graham Fisher of Toynbee Hall and artist Kate Rich have looked at Faith, Philantropy and Trade taking as a study area anywhere within 10 minutes walk of Aldgate tube station. The walks are part of a much wider project done in collaboration with Publica which will see over 600 students from the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Design and The Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Media and Design thinking about this area and developing site-specific projects.

Anne's talk looked at the Aldgate Subways, Women in the Guilds, Women in the City (or lack of), Women's Library, Brick Lane (Heba Women's Project and SsBA), the Royal London Hospital (nursing, midwifery, Florence Nightingale's influence on ward design, Elizabeth Fry) and the Jagonari women's centre and the work of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative.

West Hendon Pilot on Site...

ATA's terrace of six houses and a pair of semi detached houses are in the middle of construction as part of the first new buildings in the regeneration of West Hendon, with Metropolitan Housing Trust & Barratt Homes.

The houses respond to the natural slope down to the Welsh Harp Reservoir, the south facing orientation, potential views towards the water, and opportunities for use of solar energy.  Together these suggested the asymmetrical pitched roofs, stepped gables and bay windows, which give each house its own identity.

Sustainable construction and services are at the heart of our strategy; well insulated walls, roof and floors which perform well over building regulation requirements, sustainably sourced timber and timber products, including high performance timber windows,  whole house ventilation, low water use fittings and duel flush WCs, rainwater collection for garden and external use, condensing low NOX emissions boilers, low energy use light fittings.  High levels of insulation and solar thermal water heating will mean reduced utilities bills to residents.

Passivhaus Environment Centre Starts on Site!

The timber piles are almost complete on site, ready to take the timber frame for the building. The low-impact timber pile foundations will support the 300 sqm building in the centre of the regenerated Lordship Recreation Ground. The timber foundations remove the need to use CO2 intensive concrete foundations in the middle of this valuable green space with the London Borough of Haringey.  

The Environment Centre has been designed by Anne Thorne Architects to exemplary sustainable standards, with the local community involved through all stages of the design process. The building is to act as a sustainable learning tool in both it's construction, it's operation, and the future activities that will take place under it's green roof once the building is complete.