Hampstead House wins Planning on Appeal
November 30th, 2011 by Tim O'Callaghan (Tim O'Callaghan)
This post is rather late but our Hampstead House extension won planning approval earlier this year. The application was refused at committee despite strong support from planning officers. The decision was overturned on appeal and the sensitivity of the design and quality of the application was praised by the planning inspector. The project will begin [...]
Tim O learns Bricklaying
November 30th, 2011 by Tim O'Callaghan (Tim O'Callaghan)
I completed my 8-week beginners brickwork course last night which culminated in the completion of a 9 inch brick wall laid in English bond (see picture below). We covered single skin stretcher bond walls, stretcher corners, conjoining walls, 13 inch piers, the use of a trowel, finishing trowel, pointing iron, level, gauge, mortar board, chisel [...]
Open Eye opens
November 9th, 2011 by Tim Riley (Tim Riley)
We are delighted to announce that the Open Eye Gallery is now open to the public. We attended the opening ceremony on Friday and are very pleased with the response from those present. It was great to see the Covered Public Realm space being used and we hope that the Gallery has many other events [...]
YAYA Shortlist Talks
November 9th, 2011 by Tim Riley (Tim Riley)Last night Dieter and I presented our approach and ideas plus a couple of projects at the Architecture Foundation. It was great to be part of such an informal presentation and discussions and some interesting issues were raised. These included the diverse nature of approaches and the influence of our architectural education but the main [...]
Chipperfield gets it right
February 16th, 2011 by Tim O'Callaghan (Tim O'Callaghan)We all agreed with the comments made by David Chipperfield in the spate of articles surrounding his Gold Medal this week. The Observer piece was particularly good and it’s so refreshing to hear an architect talk so honestly and accurately about the situation for the profession in the UK and the way we think about, [...]
Code 6
January 6th, 2011 by Tim O'Callaghan (Tim O'Callaghan)
Last month, Tim and Tim were kindly invited by Bramall Construction to visit a development of recently completed Code 6 houses in leafy Slough built as an ongoing experiment by Scottish and Southern Energy. The development consists of 12 houses facing each other across a shared garden in one of Sloughs edgier districts. The architecture [...]
RCKa building visit
August 20th, 2010 by Tim O'Callaghan (Tim O'Callaghan)
Inauspiciously, Friday 13th August saw the first RCKa building visit of the year for the entire office including recent additions Josh and Alice. The jaunt masquerading as an afternoon of Continuing Professional Development took us from the office in Farringdon to the unexplored depths of South London via some of London’s more interesting new buildings [...]
Public Participation for Preston Housing Scheme
May 14th, 2010 by Russell Curtis (Russell Curtis)
We’ve been running a few public participation events over the last few weeks at which ideas for the redevelopment of the Meadow Street site in Preston were discussed. In the first session we discussed principles of urban design with local residents, establishing important routes through and around the site itself, together with key views and [...]