fletcher priest architects

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architecture Architecture is our core activity and passion. We have been fortunate to build, and continue to build, long-term relationships with demanding design-led professional clients, consultants, contractors and suppliers. We work on projects of all scales and across many typologies from inception to completion. We hope the range and scope of projects described here shows how the practice is equipped to tackle contemporary issues and address challenges in emerging sectors, locations and working methods. We seek elegant resolutions to the forces, pressures and constrictions that generate the starting point for most projects: the brief. To achieve this, we draw on the considerable experience, ability, energy and enthusiasm of the remarkable group of people who choose to work at the practice, in teams scaled to the project. We enjoy our work.

urban design Our urban design and masterplanning work operates at a scale larger than architecture, but is constantly informed by dialogue with the design of buildings, spaces and interiors across the practice. Our approach to urban design reflects the complexity of the city and the layers of activity that occur in public space. We respond in particular to issues of identity and change over time. The consequence of this is that we seek to establish both visions of the future and proposals which can cope with long periods of implementation and future adaptability. By its very nature, urban design requires our ability to work in complex multidisciplinary teams alongside experts ranging from sociologists to civil engineers, and often in collaboration with many architects, landscape architects and designers. Some of our urban projects generate subsequent architectural commissions, and others arise from initial studies at a building scale. Our team is heavily involved in teaching and research, but our work is grounded in an awareness of the ways in which cities are built: economically, physically and socially.

interiors Interiors, in our view, means designing for the productive and enjoyable use of a building. Our interiors work informs our architectural work and vice versa. We work across many sectors and typologies some of which can be idiosyncratic. The selection of projects described in this section demonstrates that we have the skills to handle of commissions across a broad range such as, for instance, the successful resolution of the many issues that affect the contemporary workplace. We aim to create a stimulating environment whether the project is an arts centre, a brand new industry or an established corporation’s headquarters. In all cases interiors are often an organisation’s most significant manifestation and are therefore a powerful tool for change.

design research The role of the Design Research Studio in the practice is to explore the possibilities of design through experimentation by engaging with other fields and disciplines that influence contemporary architecture. Within the office, it monitors developments in the world of design and technology and is free of everyday project constraints, to explore and challenge preconceived notions and solutions. These nascent ideas are often tested through international competitions. As a platform it has an important function in the office informing our broader work, generating dialogue and interaction, and seeking to define an innovative vision for the future.

key people Keith Priest Michael Fletcher Chris Sutton Ed Williams Emily Rae Gerry Whale Jonathan Kendall Pero Maticevic Stephen Barton Tim Fyles Marco Montariello Martin Edwards Nick Ridout Ray Holden

clients We try to enjoy our work and in this we are fortunate to work with very knowledgeable, design conscious group of clients who have unstintingly supported the practice in many ways. They give us insights into ways of working and developments from their sectors that are really helpful to our own practice. We normally work for organisations many times in a variety of roles. This exchange of ideas is the engine of our growth.

credits The practice is always part of a larger team to realise projects. As a consequence we have built strong relationships over many years with some of the most respected consultants in our industry. The work described on this web site has been done in close collaboration with such firms who are included in the list below of organisations we have worked with since inception. We look forward to developing these relationships. An architectural practice is a group of people working together. This is a list of the talented architects, urban designers, graphic designers, designers, illustrators, administrators from around the world who are responsible for the practices work. We are fortunate to benefit from an average length of stay that is long by current standards. Some do leave, however, and go on to do other things, such as – be professors at schools of architecture, pursue doctorates, edit magazines, work at other practices or start their own. Several also teach part time and in doing so develop academic links. We encourage people to return and bring their newly gained experience back into the mix. Similarly the few who have retired are encouraged to keep in contact with the firm and act as mentors within the practice to the younger graduates just starting out on their careers.

FPA Trust Fletcher Priest Architects have established a trust, which is a separate registered charity, to support architecture and architectural education in the UK. The work of the trust can take a variety of forms, including the sponsorship of events, exhibitions, publications, research and bursaries. Rather than undertake these activities directly, the trust provides funding to institutions and organisations who are best placed to carry out this work with the greatest expertise. Projects currently supported by the trust include an international lecture series, financial bursaries for students to undertake their diploma studies, and the part-funding of postgraduate research. Recommendations for worthwhile causes are sought from all members of the practice, are also welcomed from external sources, and are considered at regular intervals by the trustees.

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Abu Dhabi masterplan We are currently developing a masterplan for a 120 hectare site in Abu Dhabi, containing a wide range of land uses and public realm, designed to respond to climate and provide shade and shelter. While the wider masterplan is currently moving through the planning and design processes, the first stage is currently on site, due to complete in 2011.

Watermark Place Timber Structure The Watermark Place site encapsulates London’s historic role in the international maritime trade. The line of the Roman Wharf marks the northern edge, the medieval Hanseatic settlement of Steelyard is to the west and the existing river wall defines the south. A robust five storey timber structure shades the riverside buildings and acts as a dramatic backdrop to a new sunny public square. It is a direct reference to the extraordinary maritime history of this section of the river. It can carry lights, banners and sound systems to enable and encourage street theatre.

Safe as houses A patented solution for a flood-proof house Please see FlodProfHouse.pdf The Environment Agency predicts as a result of climate change the number of people at high risk from flooding could rise from 1.5 million to 3.5 million by 2080, and the annual cost of damage from flooding could rise from the present level of £1 billion to £25 billion Which? 2009 news Current ambitious housing plans to build three million houses by 2020 could be in jeopardy unless effective flood-proof measures are put in place to reduce flood risk. Fletcher Priest Architects with Price and Myers Structural Engineers have collaborated to develop and test a cost-effective proposal for a flood-proof house designed and patented by inventor Tom Meere. The simple and effective idea is comparable to a vehicle airbag. It is an invisible and reliable mechanical device that is activated in an emergency and can be incorporated into a broad range of house types without compromising their appearance. The concept is simple. Traditional external masonry walls are built around a cellar. Lightweight internal timber walls and roof sit on a buoyant foundation. In a flood, the cellar fills and the inner shell rises held by posts fixed to the outside wall. When the water level falls, the house lowers with it. Importantly, the device works with the flood water, not against it and does not affect the flood storage capacity or the movement of water across the site. Excavated material can be used to re-grade the site and the housing can be built using traditional building materials and construction methods. Houses can be fully DDA compliant. The next step is to test and refine a prototype to illustrate the merits of this approach.

Brussels shortlist We are one of five international teams shortlisted for a prestigious design competition to transform a 12 hectare site at the heart of the European District in Brussels. The project is organised by the Brussels capital region and city in partnership with the European Commission. Submissions are due at the end of October and the winner should be declared by the end of this year. Our competitors are teams led by OMA (Holland), Christian de Portzamparc (France), Xavier de Geyter (Belgium) and Julien de Smedt (Belgium/Denmark)

Boutique hotel in Montenegro Fletcher Priest has been appointed to design a Boutique hotel and nine holiday villas in Morinj, Montenegro. It's location, Boka Kotorska is a fjord-like bay set back from the Montenegro coast. It is sheltered on one side by a range of high mountains, while its secluded inlet location shields it from the open sea waves. As there are no tides the sea front is inviting and green. There are not many places in Mediterranean that are so beautiful and peaceful while being so close to international airport.

Second Riga competition success A joint team of FPA and local practice Grupa 93 have finished in second place in a prestigious public realm design competition for the transformation of the Castle Square in Riga, Latvia, in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The square is surrounded by historic buildings, including the presidential residence, and the square has to serve for civic and ceremonial functions as well as day to day uses for the general public. This competition follows our international success for the new urban centre masterplan in 2007, on which work is ongoing.

Famous City courtyard becomes all weather public space Following our initial work on a 1,000 000 sqft mixed use masterplan for Devonshire Square, we have recently completed a light-weight ETFE roof enclosing the 11,300 sqft listed western courtyard. The roof is the first phase of a roll-out of works planned for 2008 which will include creating a new 27,500 sqft restaurant and retail hub in the courtyard, new landscaped areas and the phased completion of three new receptions to complement the three already completed. The project was a great opportunity to work on listed buildings, originally built by East India Company. They are the oldest warehouses still remaining in the City and are just a few steps from Liverpool Street Station.

Fletcher Priest in Croatia We submitted a planning application for a new, landmark, low-energy office tower in the centre of Zagreb, Croatia. The building will generate 1500+ new workspaces in innovative and highly flexible workplace. It is developed in collaboration with local architectural firm, Agro Inzenjering, the tower will be part of a new cluster of buildings on Vukovarska Street that will mark Zagreb's new business district. Its floor-to-ceiling height glass facade will achieve spectacular panoramic views of the old town, the meandering Sava River and the mountains. See more on project pages

Central St Giles starts to take shape Renzo Piano Building Workshop's Central St Giles starts to take shape. Our role is to realise this scheme in collaboration with RPBW for Stanhope and Legal and General. The slip formed concrete cores have been completed ahead of programme.

Fletcher Priest Riga office Fletcher Priest has opened a new office in Riga, Latvia, to undertake projects in the city and the wider region. In late 2007 we won first prize in an international design competition for the masterplan of a new urban centre for the city, forming a government administrative quarter, and this has quickly been followed by a series of new commissions in the country. Our new office is located in an art nouveau building on the edge of the Old City, within the boundaries of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and will be staffed by a local team in addition to visiting members of the London office.

BCO Sustainable Development seminar at One Wood Street One Wood Street the headquarters building we designed for Land Securities and occupied by Eversheds, the global firm of lawyers has been selected as an exemplar project by the British Council of Offices. It will be the venue for a BCO tour and seminar on sustainable development on October 14th 2008.

freethinking - our take on sustainability Freethinking / n. & adj. / To explore with an open mind, to believe in factual and scientific enquiry, where necessary to question established views; not bound by dogma, bias or prejudice. click here for 'Freethinking' online. 'Freethinking' is not a design book; it is about how we design and how we address some of the most important issues in front of us all. We intend to build on this expertise. The case studies illustrated show the common threads that run through our work, and illustrate the practice’s continued exploration of the thoughtful and responsible use of materials and resources. Arranged under four headings, these appear to us as common sense ideas rather than an ideological approach, and solutions evolve from our working method. Often not recognised, and occasionally not visible, they have given benefits and long-term value to clients and users since the practice was founded over thirty years ago.

Long life, low energy: Retrofitting sustainability Stephen Barton will be speaking at a New London Architecture conference on 10th February 2009 on the design aproaches to maintain high sustainabilty credentials when refurbishing existing buildings. The conference will include examples from Fletcher Priests pioneering refurbishments on Eastbourne Terrace in Paddington for Land Securities. Speakers include Westminsters leading landowners,and developers, designers and sustainability experts. www.newlondonarchitecture.org

Architect's Eye photography competition Keith Priest is one of the judges of Architect's Eye, a nationwide photography competition for qualified UK architects. The competition, founded in 2007 by International Art Consultants, to recognise and encourage the many skilled photographers in the architects' community is judged by a prestigious panel of nine industry experts. Judges include leading architects, professional photographers and commentators. The panel is also supported by the Royal Photographic Society and RIBA who have each provided a judge. www.architectseye.co.uk

Europan 10 Jonathan Kendall, Director of Urban Design, has been invited to serve on the international jury for this year's Europan 10 competition. The competition takes place every two years and is open to architects under the age of 40 from across Europe. This year's theme is Inventing Urbanity. Jonathan will be reviewing entries for the sites in Estonia and Latvia alongside Klaus Kada (from Austria, chair), Carlos Arroyo Zapatero (Spain) and Oliver Thill (Netherlands) and five local representatives. Entries are due at the end of June 2009 and results will be announced in January 2010. Further details can be found on
www.europan-europe.com

Award winning Watermark Place Watermark Place recently won ICE's Building Project of the Year Award, with the judges commenting 'This is an exemplary building for the quality of its urban space and attention to environmental design, but above all it has been delivered with real passion'. The award continues the projects successful track record. The project was awarded the Best London Project 2008 at the City of London Chairman's Cup and a Highly Commended Gold Award for the City of London's Considerate Contractor Scheme 2008. Watermark Place is due to complete Autumn 2009.

International competition runners-up Fletcher Priest have been awarded second place in the high profile competition to transform the heart of the European District in Brussels. The stellar shortlist for the competition included OMA and eventual winners Christian de Portzamparc. The judges praised our scheme for its human scale and public spaces and its particular emphasis on sustainability. An exhibition covering the five projects selected during the final phase of the competition will be organised in Brussels during summer 2009.

1000 days to go till 2012 - video 31 October 2009 marks 1000 days until the start of the 2012 Games in London. New aerial video on the Guardian website shows the incredible construction progress that has been made across the whole site, including Stratford City and the Athletes Village. Full details can be seen on www.guardian.co.uk

East Thames Headquarters Civic Trust Winner 2009 East Thames Headquarters received a commendation from the Civic Trust at their 2009 awards celebrations. The jury writes: 'The scheme provides headquarters for one of London's largest registered social landlords. Accommodating 650 staff, the building is sited amongst family housing. The clear glazing engages well with the street, and encourages local people to use the ground floor public cafe. The courtyard is attractive, and the scheme is highly energy efficient. A new church was designed as part of the scheme, which enhances local engagement. It is inspiring to see a social landlord investing in a high quality building.'

Tyneside Cinema wins RIBA North East Region Award Tyneside Cinema has won first place at the RIBA North East Region Award 2009. Built by Dixon Scott, the great uncle of film directors Sir Ridley and Tony Scott, the opened in 1937 and is the finest surviving purpose-built newsreel cinema in Britain, and the only one still operating as a cinema. Fletcher Priest carefully restored the original auditorium, foyer and the popular Coffee Rooms that have been operating since 1938. Two new screening rooms have been added in a translucent rooftop extension, providing four screens seating over 500 people. The cinema is now the only multi-screen, art-house independent cinema between Leeds and Edinburgh.

Keith Priest to speak at Harnessing Technology Conference Keith Priest will be speaking at New London Architecture, Store Street, as part of their Energy for London Series this Thursday 30th April. The conference focuses on 'Harnessing Technology', identifying solutions with the greatest potential to meet the capital's future energy needs. Keith will present a case study on Watermark Place, which is currently on site by Cannon Street Station and due to complete in Autumn 2009. For more information visit www.newlondonarchitecture.org

Tyneside Cinema wins Project of the Year Tyneside Cinema swept the board at the North East Renaissance RICS Awards 2009, winning Project of the Year by 'excelling across all eight categories and above all other submissions'. The project also won the Building Conservation and Tourism & Leisure Awards. The judging panel commented that Tyneside is 'a successful commercial venture that has employed creative and innovative design to breathe new life into a leisure facility that is rare and in many ways unique - a project that is playing a regenerative role in the widest sense of the word'.

One Wood Street wins at BCO Awards 2009 One Wood Street in the City of London for Land Securities has won the Corporate Workplace category at this year's BCO Awards. The jury writes: 'The winning buildings were hailed by judges as striking examples of buildings which overcame complex challenges, at the same time as delivering product to the absolute highest standards.' Completed in 2007, One Wood Street was pre-let to Eversheds the lawyers as their international headquarters. Cornelius Medvei of Eversheds comments: 'There is no doubt that the building wins praise and plaudits on every level and is a wonderful building to work in.' As a winner the project will now be considered for the 'Best of the Best' at the National Awards in October.

Cinema Paradise Fletcher Priests' recently completed Tyneside in Newcastle has been selected by the Guardian newspaper in the 'Best for Kids' category in their summer round-up of the best film venues in Britain. So when in Newcastle, refresh your memories of Saturday Morning Pictures. It's for all the family and as the Guardian says it's 'Unique in offering four cinemas under one roof (The Classic, The Roxy, The Electra and The Digital Lounge), the Tyneside runs a Children’s Film Club every Saturday at noon. Free lollies all round.' The Tyneside is also organising week long summer movie making courses for 13-15 year olds, a unique opportunity for budding filmmakers. See their website on www.tynecine.org Photograph: Steve Lomas

Eastbourne Terrace shortlisted for Emirates Glass LEAF Award 2009 10 Eastbourne Terrace has been shortlisted in the Commercial Building of the Year category for The 2009 Emirates Glass LEAF Awards. This is a remarkable achievement given there were a record number of projects from around the world, entering this year Land Securities' transformed Eastbourne Terrace in Paddington, where innovative ground source cooling and high performance recladding reduce energy consumption by at least 40%.

Tyneside Cinema short listed for Crown Estate Conservation Award The Tyneside Cinema is one of five projects nationally to be short listed for the Crown Estate Conservation Award. The winner will be announced at the RIBA Sterling Prize Dinner 2009. The project has also been short listed for the RICS Building Conservation Award and Hadrian Awards, the principal awards scheme for architecture and design in the North of England.

Riga masterplan shortlisted for World Architecture Festival award Our masterplan for the new urban centre of Riga has been short listed for an award in the prestigious World Architecture Festival, to be held in Barcelona in November. More than 600 entries from 80 countries around the world were received. Further details can be found at www.worldarchitecturefestival.com

Digital Hinterlands exhibition Michael Wihart from Fletcher Priest is exhibiting a project from his doctoral research at the Digital Hinterlands exhibition. The exhibition has been timed to coincide with the Digital Architecture London Conference, as part of London Digital Week. It will be held at the Arup PHASE 2 Gallery, 8 Fitzroy St, London W1T 4BJ. The exhibition runs from 8th September to 2nd October, from 9am - 6pm. Entry is free. More details at www.digital-architecture.org/hinterlands

Nomura are moving their City HQ, taking the whole of the 525,000 square foot Watermark Place It is the biggest ever speculative building letting in the City and fully integrates their Lehman operations. Up to 4,000 banking staff will move into the building next year, many relocating from the former Lehman Brothers building in Canary Wharf. Watermark Place, designed by Fletcher Priest Architects for Oxford Properties and UBS Global Asset Management, extends over a whole city block and links the City to the river, creating the largest riverside public space on the north bank of the Thames. With panoramic views that extend from Tower Bridge to the London Eye, this highly visible landmark will regenerate the Thames walk with its distinctive design. Instantly recognisable by the massive timber structure that shades the building, it is designed to be at the forefront of energy saving design. The carbon neutral riverside pavilion uses innovative motorised timber louvers to track and protect the interior from the heat of the sun. Higher up the building, are some of the largest landscaped roof gardens in London, amounting to over a quarter of a hectare, equivalent to four tennis courts. The colours and reflections of the Thames have been pixilated into a sophisticated glazing system, screening the interior but allowing unobstructed views of London and its river.

10 Eastbourne Terrace shortlisted for the Office Development Awards 2009 Sustainability Award 10 Eastbourne Terrace has been shortlisted for the Office Development Awards 2009 Sustainability Award sponsored by Property Week. Land Securities’ transformed Eastbourne Terrace in Paddington, where innovative ground source cooling and high performance recladding reduce energy consumption by at least 40%. The award comes on top of the buildings nomination as Commercial Building of the Year in the international LEAF Awards 2009.

Planning consent granted for Bevis Marks The City of London has granted planning consent for Fletcher Priest’s 230,000ft² (21,370m²) new office building at 6 Bevis Marks for the Monteverde Group. In the heart of the City, it replaces an outdated building and reconnects the existing streets, passages and outdoor spaces. It more than doubles the public space, enhancing the setting of a number of important buildings, including Lord Foster’s Swiss Re, Sir Edwin Cooper’s Baltic Exchange and H.P. Berlarge’s Holland House. A series of stepped volumes create 10,000 ft² (930 m²) of private outdoor roof terraces that enjoy views of Swiss Re and the City skyline. Use of the rooftop gardens is extended by a light and open, ETFE-clad structure. Environmentally, wall-to-wall depths are optimized to achieve excellent daylight penetration. South facing balconies are cantilevered to protect the interior from solar gain overlooking the new plaza below. The new building is highly efficient at many levels. For instance, it reuses and adapts the existing below ground structure, some 50% of the existing building – an approach that has been successful on other Fletcher Priest projects. The spare structural capacity and the embodied energy of the existing structure are not wasted, resulting in savings with reduced risks and less disturbance during ground works. Recycled glass facades with its distinctive green tint contrasts with the clear transparency of the low iron windows. This exceeds current energy saving requirements by 40% and links architecturally to the faience and proportions of Holland House.

Riga masterplan in major public exhibition Our masterplan for the new urban centre of Riga, Latvia, is one of the main projects included in a public exhibition to be held in the city between 8 February and 30 April 2010. This follows from the successful public hearings that have been held in recent weeks as part of the formal adoption of the masterplan by the city. Details can be found at Olimpia - iepirkšanās un arhitektūras centrs

Cinema Architecture Two of our projects have been included in the recently published book'Cinema Architecture'. Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle is one of the UK's leading independent cinemas and since our multiple award winning transformation ticket sales have increased by 70%. Our Imax cinema for the London Science Museum was completed in 2001 and is part of the Wellcome Wing. It shows 2d and 3d films, hosts scientific lectures and helps to draw visitors up through the upper floors of the galleries. Details of the book can be found at http://a4d.lv/lv/notikumi/olimpia-iepirksanas-un-arhitekturas-centrs/ The Guardian considers three of our cinemas to be among '10 of the best... Independent Cinemas' in the UK. (Tyneside in Newcastle, Cornerhouse in Manchester & Cameo in Edinburgh) www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2010/jan/22/10-best-independent-cinemas?picture=358359627

Rapid City Owned by NMSI, the umbrella organisation that includes the Science Museum, the masterplan for Rapid City expands and improves the already successful National Railway Museum in York. The project is located on a 9 hectare former rail yard adjacent to York Station and seeks to improve and enhance the role of the museum, persuading visitors to stay longer, spending more time and boosting tourism in the city as a whole. At the same time the idea was to rebrand the museum and prevent it feeling like a site of only historical interest, broadening its scope from railways to other forms of movement, transport and communications. To achieve this, the masterplan, designed in partnership with landscape architect West 8, exhibition designer Imagination and American sustainability expert William McDonough, proposed that the site should operate as an extension of York's urban fabric rather than a self-contained visitor attraction. By creating a combination of museum facilities, public space and commercial developments it builds on the museum's prominent riverside setting and its views towards the city. New apartments cloak an inelegant modern industrial train shed and will generate funding for cultural facilities. Elsewhere the project establishes a series of robust 'universal buildings' that will stand the test of time and have the ability to be flexible, providing space for a range of possible activities including residential, commercial, light industrial and educational uses. Currently the area is dominated by train tracks used to display rolling stock and connect into the rail network. These have the effect of sterilising and disconnecting the site. To overcome this, a series of giant cranes rather than rails are used to move trains around, immediately freeing up space at the heart of the site. A similar technique is used in the Riga New Urban Centre. Both projects include a national railway museum and share the challenges of disconnection and the opportunities for transformation.

40 Eastbourne Terrace The most significant changes of this renovation project are not immediately visible. The introduction of ground source heating and ground water cooling from 150 metre deep boreholes was selected as a viable solution for heating and cooling the building. It was the first time that Land Securities had used this technology. Recent monitoring has indicated that the installation is reliable, and that it has generated energy savings in the region of 40 per cent. 40 Eastbourne Terrace was typical of a generation of office buildings built in the 1960’s, with narrow floor plates, ceiling heights that restricted the distribution of modern services and poor quality finishes. Land Securities asked us to renovate the building, and the benefit of reuse was a theme taken up in the design process. The retention of the structural frame and substructure provided significant energy savings, and reduced the overall period of construction. Stripped of its cladding, the previously external staircase was removed to create a new atrium, which forms the principal entrance and circulation space. The cantilevered helical staircase is visible from the street, and the intervention reduces the length of the existing floor plates and punctuates a previously relentless facade. The renovated building enjoys excellent levels of natural light, as the new ultra-thin fan coils maximise the ceiling heights. New cladding transforms the presence of the building on the street. This project was so successful that the practice was subsequently asked to renovate the other buildings along this side of the street.

The Hat Factory Luton is not an obvious cultural centre but its population does represent a rich blend of different traditions. The Artezium arts centre consciously set out to provide facilities which would encourage these to develop and interact, fostering cultural life from the wishes, ambitions and potential of its community rather than imposing standard cultural norms. Participation is as important as observation. So the dance studio has configurations for audience and stage or group activities, and the central courtyard can be either a performance space or an area for mingling. Both are enlivened by a large artwork by Tim Head made from car reflectors, a reference to Luton's main industry. Similarly the range of TV studios and editing suites allows participants to perform in, make and present programmes - even to screen them in the cinema. There is also a gallery for travelling exhibitions, and the possibility of a nightclub to generate revenue. The design makes best use of resources, converting a former hat factory into a café with studios above, while the highly serviced gallery, dance and TV studios are in a new building. Making a single access point through the central courtyard and combining vertical circulation to all parts minimises running costs and aids accessibility.

Aspira Health Clubs / Berlin Our German office Fletcher Priest Bösl, based in Köln, has picked up the torch of health club design with its appointment as architects for Aspria Health Club's European expansion programme. After several feasibility studies in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Berlin, the latter in Charlottenburg was completed in September 2002. The 6500 sq m club has considerable space with expansive aerobic studios and gymnasium areas, together with a 25 m pool, sauna and steam rooms and a sports injury clinic. Our client is Peter Beckwith who has been behind many of our health club projects. This ongoing relationship has led to several innovations; the Berlin club, for example provides for non-physical activities, with meditation areas and beauty facilities and has open air space. A large roof terrace extends across an adjacent building.

Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design Location: Jerusalem, Israel Client: Bezalel Academy Size: 36,500 m2 / 392,883 ft2 Our competition entry for the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design campus is a bold and dynamic architectural response that provides a recognisable landmark for an institution renowned for innovation. Arriving here will be a singular experience, with the entrances and public spaces visible through a fractured ground plane. The project draws inspiration from the massive stone outcrops that break through Jerusalem’s carpet of city streets and squares. A protected view corridor is the generator of the form. Acting as a powerful force of nature, it drives through the mass of stone, splitting and deforming it. The resulting shear stone walls of Jerusalem limestone, made up of openings and fissures, define the open space. The stone resembles the excavated face of a quarry. Entrances, studios and workshops appear hewn from the massive landform. Internal spaces flow seamlessly through to the outside. Fissures allow light to penetrate deep into the structure. Glazed openings appear as mineral seams that sparkle and illuminate the rough-hewn shapes. Programmed spaces are clearly organised. Public and communal areas are arranged around the ground and plaza levels. The main entrance penetrates the plaza to the principal public space, and both buildings can be reached from here, with individual departments arranged on the upper levels enjoying views across the city.

Birnbeck Island Location: Weston-super-Mare, UK Client: Urban Splash Size: 27,000 m2 / 290,625 ft2 Seaside towns and ports encapsulate the romance and character of the British. For over two hundred years, they provided an escape from centres of industry. Ordinary and exotic co-existed side by side, and discovering the extraordinary in the ordinariness is what excites the curious visitor. Birnbeck Island has been used as a steamer pier, a weapon testing area and a pier-head ride with recreational facilities. The proposal takes advantage of the isolated location, the perfect setting for a hedonistic life-style, based upon health and well being. It includes among other things, a tower hotel and restaurant, multi-therapeutical baths with thalassotherapy, training and fitness facilities and beauty and health spas. Our exploratory proposal reinforces the access to the island and enhances it through an extraordinary mechanistic structure that incorporates and interlocks with the remnants of the Victorian infrastructure of buildings and piers. Its elements are expressed as a steam engine whose qualities are further articulated in the detail of the design. The project harnesses and generates power through the use of the spectacular tides, wind and solar power. This apparently static geometrical structure combines a machine aesthetic with dynamic components, and by flooding basins and driving turbines, it achieves the attributes of a working engine. Clashing geometries are engineered to extend and enhance the spectacular high-level approach to the cantilevered walkways and terraces. Viewed from a distance it has the dramatic quality of a drilling rig set against the horizon.

Bishopgate / Broadgate The Bishopsgate masterplan was undertaken during the early stages of the 'Big Bang' in London's financial services sector. Part of Rosehaugh Stanhope’s Broadgate development near Liverpool Street station, it is another project defined by railway infrastructure and helped to inform much of the urban design work implemented subsequently by the practice. The project included the concept of bridging over the railway tracks leading into the station to create a new, south-facing pedestrian public space which has become Exchange Square. It also suggested expressing the arched element of the building structure at the head of the square that became Exchange House. At a time when it was impossible to predict with certainty how new technology would affect the way the markets worked, the outline masterplan – implemented across the site by SOM – was designed to cope with uncertainty and change. Intensive research into pedestrian and vehicular movements around the site helped shape a development that successfully connected with the surrounding neighbourhood as well as the earlier phase of Broadgate. The strategy provided the large floor plates needed to meet the demands of the world’s financial services companies in the City, while at the same time producing a flexible development plan for the future. Importantly it also produced a major and highly popular public space in the City at a time when such an idea was hardly in vogue. Years later the practice was asked by Sir Stuart Lipton, who was the client for the project, to join the team designing the Stratford City development in East London.

Cannon Avent Avent is the UK’s leading manufacturer of baby feeding products and winner of the Queen’s Awards for Innovation and Export. Our design seeks to reinforce the ethos of the company, and project the company’s approach to product design and reinforce its identity to international visitors. The first phase comprised a 120,000 ft² factory for Avent, and provides an extremely cost effective solution to their operational and business needs. On completion it housed the highest concentration of robotic manufacturing in the UK. Realised at the cost of a simple shed, it has been recognised for architectural excellence and rural regeneration. Avent was the only purely industrial building among 50 buildings in the UK to win a 2000 RIBA Award for Architecture and was selected by Channel 4 to feature in the documentary “Britain’s Best Buildings.” It also won the Civic Trust Rural Workplace Award in 2001 and features in the Foreign Office’s publication ‘UK architecture: building the future.’ A second phase warehouse and a tent-enclosed yard of a similar scale, for articulated trucks and trailers, has been designed to complete the redevelopment of the Suffolk site. Our project replaces a utilitarian wartime parachute packing building located on the banks of the River Stour, not far from the setting of Constable’s famous painting. \"The building is as good as we could ever have hoped. This must be the first time that the real thing looks even better than the initial visuals.\" Edward Atkin, Managing Director \"We all felt that this good modern building should be given an award to demonstrate the kind of development which should be encouraged.\" 2000 RIBA AWARDS FOR ARCHITECTURE

Renzo Piano Building Workshop's Central St Giles Central St. Giles is designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, who invited us to collaborate as executive architects. The mixed-use development by Stanhope and Legal & General includes an office building and over one hundred apartments, with restaurants, shops and cafes at street level. Located east of Centre Point, Central St. Giles will transform a forgotten backwater, currently overrun with traffic. Labelled Gin Lane in the 18th century, the area was notorious for its poverty and violence. The anonymous government offices that subsequently occupied this site further restricted opportunities for local improvements. This building has now been demolished and construction is underway. Renzo Piano has likened the scheme to an apple, where a bright skin conceals the subtle tones of the flesh. The new offices are arranged around the perimeter of the site and are conceived as a series of linked street façades enclosing a central space. Vivid colours are used to reinforce this, with glazed orange and green ceramic panels providing a contrast to the pale grey and white used internally. Entrances to the new public space align with the surrounding street pattern, developing a network of pedestrian routes from Covent Garden to Bloomsbury. A centrepiece mature oak will be planted, overlooked by the street level restaurants, shops and cafes, and further improvements to Princes Circus will result in another public space. The apartments are organised in two buildings to the west of the site. A mixture of market and affordable housing is arranged on fourteen floors. A series of innovative winter gardens add a further amenity to both the occupants of the offices and the apartments.

Chelsea Club Chelsea Club is the health club that forms part of the extended Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea F.C. In this prominent location, it has a discreet presence, visible at night as an illuminated opaque façade. The structure has a simple rectangular plan with mechanical rooms at each end that service the club facilities. The principal areas are day-lit through translucent composite cladding panels that diffuse the light to give an interior of simplicity and calm. This tranquil atmosphere is maintained throughout, using simple backlit stretched fabric ceilings that remove the clutter of light fittings and illuminate the spaces with an even glow. The club is organised over three levels, each linked by an open stair that which makes all the facilities visible as members pass through the building. The reception, spa and informal restaurant at ground floor level overlook a 25-metre swimming pool. The main exercise rooms and specialised studios are arranged on the floors above. Externally, a cantilevered running track at first floor gives a dramatic display of the internal function of the building and is illuminated for night-time use. The top floor exhibition space is devoted to an installation on sport and its effect on the body, in collaboration with the Science Museum.

Devonshire Square This group of listed 18th century buildings are the warehouses of the East India Company, London’s first joint stock company and one of the great historic trading enterprises. The buildings were used to house a myriad of exotic goods transported to Britain from the Indian sub-continent and the Orient. They are rare examples of buildings associated with trade that have survived in the City. The empty and redundant warehouses had been carefully redeveloped in the late 1970’s by Sir Stuart Lipton’s Greycoat Estates, taking inspiration from the forms and courtyards of the original warehouses and retaining the most significant buildings. Purchased by O’Connor Capital Projects, Fletcher Priest was appointed to review the potential of the whole site. Proposals were developed to integrate the estate into the changing urban environment outside the site, to improve the efficiency of the office spaces and to develop a greater mix of uses to encourage active use after working hours. Within the context of these masterplanning proposals, Fletcher Priest with the new owners The Rockpoint Group have added residential and retail uses within the listed buildings and roofed over the western courtyard with a delicate steel and ETFE roof to create an active public space below. Across the estate, a series of new office receptions remind users and visitors of the remarkable history and trade that took place within these buildings.

Dashwood This tower in the City of London, opposite Liverpool Street Station, was built in 1976 and had been designed to office standards that have now been superseded. Set some distance from Old Broad Street and the Grade I listed St. Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, the tower was sited on a bleak paved plaza, and the prevailing view was that it should be demolished. A review of available options indicated that the existing structure should be retained and adapted. It was shown that the foundations could support a further five floors, and that additional floors could be added within the restriction of the St Paul’s viewing corridor. An additional 40 per cent more net lettable space could be achieved within this new envelope, in a nineteen storey tower. Major cost savings resulted from the retention of the structural frame, with a shorter contract period on site and a major contribution to the sustainability of the redevelopment. The existing top two floors that housed mechanical plant were demolished, and five new office floors constructed in their place. A new high-performance glazed cladding was designed, with a silk-screened dot matrix frit to protect the interior from direct sunlight. The reuse of the original structural frame together with other energy saving measures ensured that the building achieves an ‘excellent’ BREEAM rating. The adjacent gardens have been extended to incorporate the original hard standing around the base of the building. This improves the setting to both St. Botolph’s and Dashwood.

East Thames Headquarters East Thames Housing Group, one of the ten largest providers of affordable housing in England, asked us to design a headquarters for approximately 750 staff on a site assembled from a patchwork of different owners with various activities on West Ham Lane in east London. They believe the dynamic of change arising from the opportunities which are rippling outwards with varying speed and intensity from the new rail link at Stratford can be directed to help them meet ambitious goals. To this end the building offers more than the obvious benefits of bringing staff together in one purpose-designed location: it actively demonstrates how design can help to foster the most positive balance of activities, from its engagement with street life to encouraging effective work by spreading daylight throughout the office and how to gain the most from a particular site. On the edge of a Conservation Area, the site is largely surrounded by East Thames Housing Group's projects, including a tower block converted into a 'Foyer' for young people that imposes conditions on overlooking. Even by relocating a Unitarian Church, the site remains an irregular shape, and our response is to make the headquarters follow the extent of the site at the lower three levels. It takes advantage of the best orientation and aspects the site has to offer by introducing a cubic volume that steps back to create a roof terrace, while its structure and construction make it efficient to build and operate. Each façade has a character suited to its immediate context; some have solar shading, others have devices to minimize overlooking. As the building contains a single function, it is the architecture, which creates the variety within a multi-use city block. On completion the building was awarded an 'Excellent' BREEAM rating. East Thames Headquarters has been awarded a Commendation by the Civic Trust, and is also shortlisted for a BCO Corporate Workplace Award 2009 and RIBA (London) Award 2009.

School Design Initiative The Sorrell Foundation has created an enormously successful educational programme called joinedupdesignforschools. We were in the pilot group of architects and designers that included Paul Smith and Thomas Heatherwick. The programme inverted the normal design procurement process. Pupils, who are not normally participants in the design of their schools, became the clients of an established architect or designer. We worked with children from Monkseaton Community High School near Whitley Bay in the north east of England. With close to a thousand pupils, the school dates from the 1970’s, with a series of rectilinear classroom blocks arranged around a roofed-over courtyard. The large campus had a depressing air, with featureless buildings finished in exposed concrete blockwork. The classrooms were small, poorly lit and overheated. In their impressively succinct briefing, it was not a surprise that the small group of sixth formers asked for curvaceous, spacious, colourful, generous forms. They longed for natural light, open spaces with fewer corridors, secure storage areas for school bags, and functional, adjustable furniture. They wanted their school to be a place of optimism and potential. An inexpensive solution was proposed, compared to the long-delayed published plans for the school, inserting a number of colourful teaching pods with distinctive shapes made from industrial cladding on timber frames. The existing classrooms acted as anterooms to the new additions, which were top-lit from skylights and gave views across the surrounding playing fields. A happy consequence of the project was the effect it had on the lives of the small group of pupils who presented the design ideas to the school and hopefully, by example, on to their contemporaries. They were featured on the Channel 4 television series ‘4Learning’, and were subsequently invited to 11 Downing Street to explain the proposals they had commissioned to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and key decision makers in the schools design programme.

London Stock Exchange Following the success of Tower 42, Greycoat sought a comprehensive investigation into development opportunities for the London Stock Exchange. The project explored a broad range of strategic approaches for the site, located in one of the most historically sensitive parts of the City of London. The existing building, designed by Llewelyn-Davies, Weeks, Forestier-Walker and Bor in the 1960s, had an unsatisfactory relationship with the street, set on a podium base. A number of options were considered ranging from replacement with a new tower or a low lying building to re-cladding and giving this highly individual structure a new lease of life. The project explored development from a building scale as well as a wider urban perspective. At a building scale it required detailed investigation into the nature of the existing structure and services and the effectiveness of its floorplates, investigating the impacts of trying to change its configuration. At an urban scale the study explored the way in which the existing building sat in its context and looked at the consequences of new development both locally and at a broader scale. Working in association with specialist consultants, the report obtained, analysed and synthesised data on every option, taking into account criteria such as strategic views and visual impact, pedestrian flow, construction timescales, and the appropriateness of buildings to different types of tenant and market condition. As the project developed it became apparent, against initial expectations, that the best and most sustainable solution was a hybrid option, retaining and re-cladding the original tower, with a number of new buildings facing the street. This scheme was undertaken and completed as a separate exercise in 2007 by Grimshaw.

Museum Of Contemporary Arts & Planning Exhibition Location: Shenzhen, China Client: Shenzhen Municipal Cultural and Planning Bureaus Size: 82,050 m2 / 883,179 ft2 The Museum of Contemporary Arts and Planning Exhibition is a symbolic cultural institution that confirms the importance of the Shenzhen region, as well as providing an intimate and meaningful public building for the Futian Center District. Our competition entry represents a pair of hands coming together and interlocking. This universally recognised gesture of unity also signifies respect and humbleness. The new museum is a city within the city, where the external envelope evolves from a dialogue with the neighbouring buildings and encloses a new internal square, a protected space of tranquillity and calm, with the characteristics of the traditional Chinese courtyard. The building has two principal wings. The Contemporary Art Museum is on one side and the Planning Exhibition spaces on the other. The public square between the two provides a venue for outdoor sculptures and a meeting place for communal activities, as well as a restaurant. Dialogue is further enhanced through the site landscaping, where the plan of the city is recreated at a small scale with water features and hard landscaping framing a pedestrian route. The dramatic form of the cantilevered museum galleries represents a charging bull, the energetic force and symbol of the city, driving forward. This sculptural form is constructed from concrete and full-height steel trusses, with glazed openings that control the daylight levels internally and give selected views out. Within these large volumes, ramps, staircases and escalators link the free-flowing form of the open plan interior, with spectacular double or triple height spaces. The fragmented shapes that make up the museum will create a dynamic cultural landmark and a tranquil oasis for private contemplation.

New Urban Centre, Riga The masterplan for the new urban centre in Latvia's capital, Riga, was won in an open competition that attracted over 1,000 expressions of interest. Built on the Daugava River, the city has a historic medieval core which forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the boundaries of which touch the edge of the new development. The brief for the new urban centre, located on the left bank of the river, was that it should express both the economic growth of the young and rapidly growing nation but still be sympathetic to its surroundings. On a 46 hectare site that had previously contained allotment gardens and railway tracks, the proposal – including various government buildings, a new railway station, transport interchange and a network of streets and public squares – is rooted in a sense of its place as well as being deliverable in incremental phases and which overcomes complex infrastructure constraints. The new centre will spread out on both sides of the existing railway line that runs into the city. To stop these lines from potentially isolating the various different segments of the scheme – a familiar problem also encountered at Stratford City in London and Rapid City in York – the project creates a network of legible routes and spaces across the site, where the major new buildings will be located. The masterplan includes two major new public spaces. Museum Square to the north of the site will be created by extending the decking over the new through road and acts as a dramatic gateway to the refurbished Railway Museum containing cafes, small shops and restaurants. Station Square will sit between the Council Building and the new railway station, providing a starting point to a pedestrian link that runs eastwards towards a new bus terminal. The proposal includes plans for long-term future development by laying the foundations in the public realm for further expansion across a 206 hectare area. Arguably the pivotal building in the design is the Riga City Council headquarters. The folded structure, wrapped in coloured and translucent concrete and punctured irregularly with windows, will bring together 2,300 employees currently working in dozens of buildings within the existing city centre. Meanwhile on the south-east side of the site, the Public Administrative Complex containing five national ministries takes inspiration from the smallholdings that surround the site and fracture the landscape into tiny pieces, forming a cluster of smaller buildings. “For Riga, the start of the 21st Century is defined by rapid development as the city sees to position itself as the metropolis of the Baltic region. We are pleased that the international design competition for the city and state authority’s new administrative centre was won by Fletcher Priest. Their design proposal demonstrated urban discipline, tolerance, functionality and coolness. The design for the new Riga City Council headquarters stood out with its particular elegance. We look forward to working together to take the project forward.” Janis Dripe Riga City Architect

North Wharf Road Located in the key Westminster economic development area around Paddington Station, the site has immediate connections to the Heathrow Express, London Crossrail and London Underground. Highly visible from the elevated motorway used by some four million vehicles a year, it adds to our recent work in Paddington that includes the whole of the south side of Eastbourne Terrace. The design contributes significant areas of public open space to the Grand Union Canal’s Paddington Basin to create an uninterrupted canal-side walk from Paddington Station to Bishop's Bridge Road, with the potential to reach Little Venice. Developing the site as two separate buildings creates a direct route to the waterside from North Wharf Road. A lattice exostructure to the office pays homage to Brunel and his contemporaries, who developed the engineering infrastructure of the adjacent canals and railways. It has the recognisable form requested by the client, Derwent London, who were actively involved in the design development of the project. The office building enjoys a column-free interior, a rooftop garden with stunning views and a sunny waterfront setting at street level. This is an energy efficient building that employs innovative technology and controls. The adjacent residential block, with one hundred market and subsidised apartments, is sited to avoid overlooking. Clad in a layered timber façade with projecting balconies, it refers to other riverside projects, such as Odessa Wharf and Watermark Place that successfully use timber as a structural and cladding material. A café and gallery will animate canal side life. Planning approval was granted in January 2008. The GLA and Westminster have supported the scheme through the planning process, and it is part of a larger plan to transform this area into a vibrant community.

Ofcom Headquarters Ofcom is the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services. It was established in December 2003 and inherited the duties that had previously been the responsibility of five regulatory bodies. Its inaugural chief executive was Stephen Carter, formerly a senior executive of JWT UK and currently Principal Special Adviser to the Prime Minister’s Office. From the start, Ofcom's intention was to operate in an open and accountable manner, and to be receptive to public and industry comments. The new offices were to integrate the constituent groups and to manifest the organisation as a lively, dynamic and effective public body with a distinct personality. The project was completed within eight months from appointment through to completion and the success of the project was such that we were subsequently appointed to design complementary interiors for Ofcom’s regional headquarters around the UK. "May I congratulate the team on the success of the move to Riverside House. The fit-out is first rate, and gives a real sense of how Ofcom will be. And the smooth way in which we have been able to move in and get working almost immediately reflects an enormous amount of planning effort." Lord Currie, Chairman, Ofcom

One Lothbury The architecture of the Bank of England set the tone for Victor Heal when he designed One Lothbury in the late 1950s, now an integral part of the City’s Bank Conservation Area. The building facing Tivoli Corner was originally commissioned and occupied by the Bank of England. After purchasing the site, Barclays and Welbeck Land looked to maximise the building’s potential, with high-quality offices that were worthy of its location. Detailed in the neo-classical manner and clad in Portland stone with bronze fittings, it replicated the language of a major pre-war banking institution. However, the utilitarian interior spaces, a banking hall with a maze of small offices, could not be adapted to the needs of present-day occupiers. Following consultations with the Corporation of London, it was agreed to retain, restore and in places extend the existing stone façades to Lothbury, Princes Street and Old Jewry and to construct a new internal structure, with floor heights and depths to modern standards. Modifications to the rear were negotiated and agreed, to satisfy restrictions imposed by neighbouring properties. High-performance windows replace the single-glazed steel frames; these are recessed to increase the articulation of openings on the exterior and to give the impression of greater mass. Above the principal cornice, an existing floor is replaced and a further glazed storey added, set a short distance back from the building line, to appear as a contemporary rooftop pavilion. This glazing is replicated in the new full-height rear elevation that overlooks Meeting House Yard, reinstated as part of the City’s network of pedestrian courtyards and alleyways. The original fittings at ground level are retained, and a new reception completes the street frontage, with materials that achieve the transition from old to new.

One Wood Street One Wood Street, opposite the oldest tree in the City, was completed in 2007 and pre-let during construction to Eversheds as their headquarters. The ground floor retail units were also pre-let to major high street brands. The design combines office and retail space and substantial public realm that includes a new square orientated for lunchtime sunshine. It was granted planning permission in fifteen weeks, and the completed building is well received in the City and seen an exemplar project by Land Securities. Within the height restrictions determined by the proximity of St Paul’s, and the need to improve the street level environment, public and private outdoor spaces are finished in high-quality materials that are robust, sustainable and uncomplicated. The scheme includes the largest green roof in the City. The façades and massing respond to the site. A formal Portland stone frontage on Cheapside, the City’s historic high street, is punctuated by deep set glazing to emphasise solidity when viewed obliquely. Milk Street, Wood Street and the new pedestrian route that links the two, are part of the surviving network of lanes, alleys and courts. Here, the new elevations following the curving streets are of metal and glass, with an adjustable cladding grid of aluminium brise soleil to protect exposed areas from direct sunlight that is determined by the silhouette of adjacent buildings. A new landscaped plaza is bathed in sunlight at mid-day, and is a successful addition to the small number of much-used public spaces in the Square Mile.

Peoplebuilding Peoplebuilding at Hemel was commissioned by the team responsible for Stockley Park and Chiswick Park. Close to the M1 motorway, this was the site of the first purpose-built factory in Hemel Hempstead, a post-war new town. The location required an elegant but extremely cost effective solution. To enhance the quality of the setting, a number of public amenities were planned, to set it apart from traditional business parks. The gently sloping site is the gateway to Hemel’s business district. Six four-storey buildings open onto a formal boulevard, with a leisure club, café and other centralised facilities surrounded by generous informal landscaping. Each building is oriented north/south, with mechanically activated brise soleil protecting the west, south and east elevations. These arrays of ‘translucent’ perforated aluminium louvres are controlled by the building management systems that track the sun’s path. Views from fully glazed façades are achieved throughout, with controlled protection from direct sunlight, yet because of the layered facades occupants enjoy considerable privacy. This protection results in significant energy savings and excellent day-lighting levels internally. The buildings are set in a formal landscape designed with Charles Funke, overlaid with a ‘natural’ tree-planting programme. Optimised car parks structures are accessed by ramps formed from rammed earth. Two buildings have been completed and two further buildings are planned to be constructed imminently for national and international occupiers. "A simple scheme which entirely met the objective. All parties were involved from the concept and the result made best use of everyone's contributions. This philosophy runs right through from the standard of the site offices and the nature of the organisation. Innovative in terms of energy saving with its system of louvres, which operate automatically, work beautifully and function perfectly." British Construction Industry Awards 2003

Sedley Place This mixed-use development in a Westminster Conservation Area, for Welbeck Land and the City of London Corporation, faces Oxford Street and connects through to a quieter site street, Sedley Place. The scheme retains the hierarchy and language of public spaces in the city block, using passages, arcades and internal courtyards, and replicates the mixture of uses that bring life to a city centre neighbourhood throughout the day. These include a major retail store, retail kiosks that line the arcade, offices, restaurants, cafes, studios and apartments. The elements that make up the scheme each have their own appropriate architectural language that defines the pedestrian route through from the busiest shopping street in the United Kingdom to the intimate backwater a short distance away. The south-facing court at the heart of the scheme is a focal point replacing dead end vistas, and increases the amount of public space on the site by twenty per cent. All major elements were pre-let, with Boots taking the major unit as a flagship store. It was one of six projects selected for the Architecture Foundation’s exhibition in 2002 on modern design in conservation areas entitled “Building with Integrity” and exhibited at “Transformative Architecture”, an international exhibition in Switzerland, on the architecture of various regions and architects. The development was a finalist in the British Construction Industry Awards and won awards for innovation in construction. "Quality is all important. We deliberately set out to create a product of the highest architectural integrity, and we are very pleased with the result." Alistair Watson, Managing Director, Welbeck Land

Seven Dials Seven Dials warehouse, dating from 1890, is located in the heart of Covent Garden. It was still a byword for urban poverty in the early 20th century. The atmospheric streets, fronted by warehouses and houses for tradesmen, survived because of the campaign to retain and successfully develop the nearby Covent Garden market building and piazza in the 1970s. In 1999, the wedge-shaped listed former brewery between Earlham Street and Shelton Street was badly damaged by fire. The lower floors remained intact, while the upper floors of timber and cast iron were destroyed in the intense heat. The remains of the building were subsequently spot-listed, while Belgo continued to trade from the ground floor and basement. Schroders appointed us to restore the building, with modern accommodation behind the retained and rebuilt façade. The existing damaged structure was removed to provide new office space on the third, fourth and fifth levels. A new glass roof structure follows the line of the brewery watertanks to replicate the massing of the original building. This mixed-use scheme retains the well known restaurant and two floors of retail at street level, the Covent Garden Community Centre on the second floor with the headquarters of Expedia on the upper levels. Seven Dials is a example of how an existing building can be successfully restored and adapted to create appropriate mixed uses that contribute to a vibrant part of London. 'Fletcher Priest's commitment to this complex office and retail scheme has been consistently excellent throughout its long gestation period (including obtaining planning and listed building consents) and construction. The commitment has culminated in a substantial pre-let being secured, again reflecting FPA's considerable expertise.' Matthew Wooder, Schroders

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is a subsidiary of the Sony Corporation and is a world leader in video game technology and game consoles. Their European offices are located close to their sister television and film company on Golden Square, which we had designed, and are conceived as a working showcase for their products. This is a fast-changing industry and visitors are invited to play the latest games at reception consoles. The street frontage, public areas and offices are designed to capture the spirit of the world of computer graphics and animation. Objects and surfaces are subtly modified to provide an insight into the virtual world of computer games imagery. The sweep of the flowing slatted timber wall appears as a continuous surface, emerging from the floor and framing the reception lifts. An illuminated reception desk appears as a mysterious glowing box. Familiar Playstation symbols are used as subversive graphics on street furniture and fittings, and a redundant lightwell has become a landscaped courtyard café with glowing fibreglass benches. The highly adaptable basement studio creates meeting rooms and spaces for product launches which evoke a world where technological innovation and vivid imagination meet.

Stockholm City Library Location: Stockholm, Sweden Client: City of Stockholm Size: 24,500 m2 / 263,722 ft2 Our entry to an international competition to extend Erik Gunnar Asplund’s 1928 Stockholm Public Library took the form of distinctive, sweeping planes which provided an animated backdrop to the platonic form of the building’s rotunda. The design was deliberately dynamic, while being simultaneously flexible and easily understood by library visitors. The proposal was based on three clear principles. The original retain Asplund annexes were to be retained. A fourth annex that was never built was to be added as a pivotal point in the scheme, where the original rotunda and annexes meet. The existing annexes were to be stripped of their cladding, remaining as skeletal frames enveloped by, and visible within, the fluid forms of the new building fabric. The central axis of the entrance to the original rotunda was extended and expressed via a high-level bridge, acting as a backbone to connect old and new. This would have been the distribution route, connecting all the working elements of the library. The relationship of the existing building to the adjacent landscape was an important part of Asplund’s original concept. In our design, these relationships were reinforced by changes to the topography, extending through the building, deforming the existing grid and giving new form to the landscape.

Stratford City Masterplan / Athletes Village The masterplan for Stratford City was always going to be a huge project, forming a key part of the strategic growth of London eastwards and a demonstration of best practice in urban design. The project has been made possible by massive investment in public transport railway infrastructure, built around the new Stratford International Station at the centre of the site. However, its international significance has grown exponentially since London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The project has been designed in close collaboration with Arup Urban Design and the Dutch landscape architects West 8 over more than six years and work is ongoing. The project was originally expected to take 15–20 years to reach its conclusion, but the timetable has now been dramatically accelerated and a critical mass of development will be delivered in a single phase. It speaks volumes for the robustness of the design that it has been able to withstand the immense scale of change. This robustness is illustrated by the way in which the project has been able to accommodate the Athletes' Village, home to 17,000 competitors and team members before reverting to more than 3,700 homes to form a new urban community after the Games. A key element of the London bid, the Village is now almost entirely located within the Stratford City site and the complexities of the functional requirements of the Games are being combined with the overriding need to create a high quality long-term urban environment. This has involved the integration of the masterplan within the wider Olympic Park development, coordinating with a wide range of stakeholders and helping steer the massively complex project from a strategic planning level through to construction and implementation. The 73 hectare site, which includes Stratford regional station, will be a new urban centre in its own right, incorporating a mixture of uses, and leaving a legacy of design decisions for generations to come in the structure of streets and open spaces. It gives opportunities to literally sculpt a new landscape using the soil from the tunnelling work. This has lifted the level of the site by an average of six metres, raising the scheme out of the flood plain and enabling roads and bridges to overcome the tracks that have encircled and isolated the site since the growth of the railways in the nineteenth century. The project aims to establish a series of urban districts, integrated into the surrounding communities and with the new parkland and river systems of the Lea Valley. It seeks to create areas with their own identity in which people choose to live and settle. Ultimately, the project is about more than just housing, or retail, or offices, or any other individual land use. It is the reason why community facilities are at the heart of the project, why public space has been integrated throughout the scheme, and why, in collaboration with many other architects and designers, Stratford City will aim to provide a range of first class amenities. Stratford City is about creating a real piece of city. "One of the most memorable aspects of masterplanning Stratford City was the spirit of collaboration we experienced with Fletcher Priest. Through their clarity, rigour and spirit of exploration, not only was the outcome of the highest quality, but the journey with them was very enjoyable." Malcolm Smith, Director, Arup Urban Design

Rio Tinto Headquarters In 2003,Telstar House, an office building constructed in the 1960’s, was badly damaged by a fire. At the corner of Eastbourne Terrace and Bishop's Bridge Road, it is within Westminster’s Paddington Regeneration Area. With the active involvement of Derwent London and Westminster, Fletcher Priest explored the possibilities of replacing the entire building with the design that is now the headquarters of Rio Tinto. Massing, townscape and rights of light studies showed that the area of the original building could be achieved on fewer floors, in a form that better responded to its setting. A cascade of set backs resulting from site restrictions visually reduces the bulk of the new building and provides west-facing terraces on a number of levels. With much needed new open space at street level and a curved form to echo the corner with Bishop's Bridge Road, the streetscape is significantly enhanced. The stone clad façade is made up of pre-fabricated units that repeat themselves in a handed pattern. These are arranged to provide more shading on areas of the building that are exposed to direct sunlight. Areas that face north have more glazing. This variation provides the patterning that gives the building a distinctive appearance. Window openings are proportioned to relate to both adjacent post-war office buildings and Victorian residential buildings nearby. Rio Tinto, the world’s leading mining and exploration company, pre-let the building and moved their London headquarters from St James’ to offices that are more conducive to their modern working practices. Fletcher Priest have, by remarkable coincidence, rebuilt and renovated the large-scale buildings along the entire south side of Eastbourne Terrace that face Paddington Station and border the largely residential Bayswater Conservation Area. "Derwent London commissioned Fletcher Priest to consider our company holding in the Paddington area of London with the aspiration of a substantial redevelopment opportunity. Fletcher Priest not only won a planning permission for a new 100,000 sq ft office building on Eastbourne Terrace but also achieved what so many architects struggle to deliver and that is a new building with integrity that I am sure will stand the test of time and be appreciated for many years to come. Fletcher Priest have recently won a further permission for our site at North Wharf Road for a stunning canal side office building and separate apartment block which we believe will set the standard for new developments in this locations for many years to come. We look forward to our continued collaboration with Fletcher Priest." Simon Silver, Derwent London

Tower 42 Tower 42, built in 1981, was the tallest building in London for ten years, until the completion of Canada Square in Canary Wharf. It is still the tallest building in the City of London and continues to have a symbolic presence. With the changing nature of banking requiring large trading floors, the tower was becoming obsolete and it was identified instead as a suitable location for the myriad of organisations that need a smaller but significant presence in the Square Mile. Fletcher Priest identified that the requirements of these organisations are similar to those provided by an international hotel with shared meeting and conference spaces, concierge service, and high-quality bars, cafes and restaurants that could also add to the vibrancy of this part of the City. Lower level blocks each side of the base of the tower were reconfigured and extended to improve their efficiency and provided additional space equivalent to thirteen floors of the tower. The new entrance and reception included a ground floor café with access to a new restaurant operated by renowned chef Gary Rhodes on the 24th floor. Redundant space at the very top of the tower was transformed into a spectacular champagne and seafood bar called Vertigo 42, with unparalleled views over central London. To complete the transformation, Fletcher Priest designed and installed the new graphics and signage to re-launch the tower under its new name.

Vodafone Headquarters In bringing 3,000 people together in one location from over sixty buildings in Newbury, Vodafone wanted to capitalise on everything that a contemporary workplace could offer. Our experience of designing all the constituent parts of modern offices, and considering the interactions between them, led to our involvement in every stage of this seven building project – from strategic masterplanning, building design and site supervision to space planning, product design and the specification of furniture. A comprehensive masterplan was key to obtaining public and planning support for developing the old agricultural showground situated on the edge of the town. The plan incorporated a detailed transport strategy as well as ecological considerations, important contributors to the goal of making a sustainable development with high energy-efficiency. The seven individually resilient buildings are set into the landscape and grouped around a small lake. Tents and bridges provide covered links between them and allow rectilinear plans to follow flowing contour generated layouts. Each derives its character from its position in the landscape. The siting of the buildings was informed by the analysis of prevailing winds to allow natural ventilation and night-time purging to exploit the thermal mass of the concrete structure, reducing the load on the chilled beam air-conditioning system. A family of materials, appropriate to Newbury, including gun-metal windows, cedar boarding, natural terracotta rain screen cladding and lead coloured roofing, balanced variety with opportunities for innovative procurement. Extremely energy-efficient, cost-effective and with all resources necessary for interactive and intensive work, Vodafone's new headquarters has transformed the way the company operates. "We would not have achieved our global success without the move to our new headquarters. It fosters communication, and recognises that some of the most effective work is done away from the desk. For instance, we have recently developed a new product in six months that previously would have taken us a year." Mike Newens, Global Property Director, Vodafone

Watermark Place Watermark Place replaces the redundant international telephone exchange, Mondial House, on a site that fronts the river next to Cannon Street station. The site has an important place in the history of the Thames and is defined by the boundaries of the working river. The northern edge is the line of the Roman wharf, and the 'Steelyard' under Cannon Street station was a German Hanseatic trading post, the largest medieval trading post in Britain. The strategic viewing corridor to St. Paul's Cathedral informs the height and massing of the new building. Twin rectangular blocks to the north are attached by a full-height atrium, and the fluid forms of the lower pavilions enclose a south-facing open square with a restaurant to encourage active use. This, together with the pedestrianisation and widening of Angel Lane to the east of the site, more than doubles the existing public space and creates the largest riverside square in the City of London. The new building and its setting form a strategic part of the City Corporation’s initiative to encourage access to the river and develop a unified river walkway. In order to enjoy the magnificent views along the river from Tower Bridge to Westminster, the building is clad in high-performance glazing, using dot-matrix glass with a palette of colours derived from a pixilated image of the water to create a dappled façade. The lower waterside buildings have clear glass cladding protected by a massive five-storey timber structure redolent of historic wharf structures and responsive timber louvres, which protect the lower pavilion. These are designed to work together to give character and animation to the new public square. Intrinsic to this development is the re-use of a third of the existing buildings, using the below ground imperial structure to support the new metric column grid above. This results in less demolition and significant savings in time, energy and materials. Roof terraces of breathtaking scale allow building users to enjoy the riverside setting and distant views, while high-level sedum roofs encourage wildlife to inhabit the city. "Oxford is excited to have entered the London market with a development as unique and distinguished as Watermark Place. The building combines efficient and inspiring indoor and outdoor spaces with environmentally conscious design, and will be an impressive addition to the City waterfront." Michael Mayville, Vice President, Oxford Properties Group

Lend Lease European Headquarters Our project for Lend Lease at Hanover Square was the first refurbished office building in the UK to achieve a BREEAM rating of excellent. The refurbishment was an opportunity to create an office that would act as a catalyst for change. The fit-out sets new standards for workplace design and environmentally responsible office design. Lend Lease wanted the building to embody its environmental values and aspirations, in surroundings that encourage innovation and collaboration. The two-storey entrance addresses Hanover Square and works as a very public reception area, exhibition space, presentation room and a venue for social events. A massive light box on the entrance wall and a video screen in the foyer area can be seen from the square, communicating activities to passers-by. The existing concrete frame is left exposed, taking the benefit of the thermal mass of the structure to provide passive cooling, in line with the company’s commitment to sustainability. This is evident throughout, with recycling bins that are an integral part of the design and motion-activated lighting. Finishes are predominantly natural materials, and all timbers are from Forest Stewardship Council approved sources. A bamboo veneered wall runs the length of the ground floor, linking the meeting rooms to the reception. Where possible, materials are recycled, recyclable and reusable. The offices have helped establish a new national BREEAM rating for fit out, and achieved an excellent rating. It was included in the exhibition Designed to Work London, organised in partnership with the British Council for Offices. We continue this ethos in the design of a second, project-based office for Lend Lease, nearby in the West End.

Sony Pictures Europe Sony Pictures Entertainment is the television and film subsidiary of the media conglomerate Sony, with its company headquarters in Culver City, California, USA. The London offices, between Soho and the shopping streets of London’s West End, are responsible for marketing and distributing their products in Europe. Set behind a classical stone façade in Golden Square, the interior was substantially rebuilt around a new atrium to bring daylight deep into the building. Two daylight reflectors below the glass roof track the sun’s path and reflect light into the glass-floored atrium that connects all areas of the building, with a flexible space for a reception, temporary displays and meetings. Some 300 people work here in a mix of cellular and studio spaces. The screening room is a technically sophisticated installation to satisfy broadcasting and film industry professionals, and is often hired out for special events.

Moving Picture Company Moving Picture Company's building in Wardour Street, Soho has the latest technology and the most sophisticated film, TV and special effects post-production facilities. Clients and staff can see throughout the interior from the glass lifts, call 24 hour "room service" and enjoy views across London's rooftops from the series of terraces we created in reshaping the upper levels. This is a facility where the need for a calm creative environment and technology interact to create icons of modern life, yet it is also an icon of the British film industry: it was originally built for Rank in the 1930s. Even praised by the planning committee of Westminster Council for adding to a Conservation Area, the newbuilding is fully adapted for the contemporary digital film industry. "Fletcher Priest delivered us the building we wanted and more. The more time we spend in the building the more we have come to appreciate both the sophistication and effectiveness of the design. Our working life and business process have been transformed." David Jeffers, Managing Director

Screen Cinemas Screen Cinemas pioneered the independent cinema. The cinemas have the highest occupancy rates in the industry because their policy of showing the best films in cinemas with a touch of movie industry glamour lures local audiences into a film-going habit. We have designed all their cinemas for them, and have had at least one project underway through each of the last 20 years. Going to the cinema is a night out and our designs add to the sense of occasion for filmgoers, and ensure efficiency of operation. They are tailored to their neighbourhoods, so that they maximise the social benefits of giving young people something to do and extend active hours locally. The Screen at Walton on Thames where we fitted out a concrete shell within an office complex with two auditoria at half the standard industry cost, has become a catalyst for other local businesses. The Screen at Winchester brought in a Lottery grant to convert a listed former chapel into the city's only cinema. Ken Russell and Quentin Tarantino both named a Screen cinema as their favourite picture house.

10 20 30 Eastbourne Terrace Following the success of 40 Eastbourne Terrace, Land Securities appointed the practice to renovate a group of adjacent buildings of the same vintage. The existing18-storey office tower and two lower wings are highly visible from the neighbouring conservation area. A number of cladding solutions were reviewed, including a terracotta screen to shade the areas in direct sunlight. A glazed solution was developed with silk-screened fritting to protect against solar gain and to reduce overlooking, following consultations with residential neighbours. The external cladding is conceived as a glass veil draped over the existing structural frame with a subtle opaque pattern to vary the transparency of the façade. This avoids a challenge experienced at number 40, of installing cladding between existing and varying structural bays. Reduced car parking provided an opportunity to extend the office building and to create a new landscaped park between the offices and the residential properties. Redundant fire-escape terraces on the lower blocks were removed and replaced with an additional floor, and the frontage to Paddington Station is reconfigured in slate and glass. The new building completes the grouping of projects by the practice along Eastbourne Terrace, which includes Rio Tinto’s new headquarters.

Roundhouse Phase2 The Roundhouse is a landmark in north London and part of national collective memory. It has been transformed into an international performing arts venue and a creative centre for young people by John McAslan. After an open competition, the Norman Trust and the Roundhouse Trust appointed Fletcher Priest to examine how additional Roundhouse facilities and a range of other compatible uses could be accommodated on the vacant site to the west of the Grade II* listed building. The site currently serves as the only access for deliveries, vehicle manoeuvring and improvised storage. For the Roundhouse to operate continuously, building works had to be designed and planned to avoid disruption. In addition, the Roundhouse is the annual venue of the BBC Electric Proms, an event that requires a significant amount of flexible space for temporary offices, outside broadcast vehicles and parking. The potential of the site has been explored through a number of studies, one of which is illustrated here, and a proposal is currently in development. This includes new offices for the Roundhouse administration, a multi-purpose rehearsal space with flexible seat storage and areas allocated for recording studios and apartments. The Roundhouse has had a major impact on the cultural and social life of Camden and is much loved and respected. The expansion of its facilities will allow it to extend its role as a venue for extraordinary events.

Offices, Stratford City Stratford City will become a major new destination in east London and with its superb transport links it will be within easy reach of central London and now mainland Europe. The inclusion of high-quality office buildings will give the new development the mix of uses that make a successful urban centre. The proposed buildings are sited at three key points of entry, directly facing the new Stratford International Station, next to the new public transport interchange and facing the principal route that connects to the rest of the site. All three buildings share the same architectural language, with floor plates appearing as stacked volumes randomly set on top of each other. These offsets are achieved through a series of cantilevers that reduce the perceived mass of the buildings with full-height reflective glazing. Each office is distinguished by its metallic finish, reflecting the sky and obscuring the interior. Highly visible soffits and roofs are finished in panels of contrasting colours that reinforce the formal abstraction. "Westfield Design has enjoyed a very successful and productive collaboration with Fletcher Priest on the Stratford City project, where FPA's unique brand of creativity and pragmatic realism can be combined to raise the quality of the architectural proposition." Simon Cochrane, Concept Director, Westfield

Retail Centre, Stratford City The masterplan for Stratford City sets the framework and guide¬lines for the development of the city centre for this diverse mixed use development. It will be a major retail and leisure destination in east London. Located between Stratford's International and Regional stations, it will also have a direct relationship with the existing town centre and surrounding areas. This first zone comprises over 3.8 million square feet of space, with a variety of uses. We were invited to collaborate as concept architects for the design development of this fast-moving project, reviewing and advising on design strategy. This entails working as part of a large multi-disciplinary professional team, co-ordinating design decisions and presenting the scheme to many review bodies. It is one of London's best-connected sites with an intensive transport infrastructure. The scale and complexity of the development requires a coherent architectural language, expressed in the built forms and the range of selected materials. Principal building groups are wrapped externally in a continuous cladding envelope, which is cut and folded to form openings for pedestrian and vehicular entrances. A different palette of materials provides internal continuity so that individual tenants’ shop fitting, signage and graphics are fully integrated into the overall concept. Construction work is currently underway, and it is planned to be one of the first elements of the masterplan to be completed.

Wagamama Wagamama restaurant pavilion was constructed as part of our renovation work on Tower 42 in the City of London. The base of what is still the City’s tallest building had an unsatisfactory relationship with the street. It was an uncomfortable place to walk or sit, as the tower generated strong gusts of wind that were drawn down the face of the building into the plaza. The new restaurant pavilion brought much-needed animation to the plaza and helped to resolve the hostile micro-climate. Wind tunnel tests indicated an optimum shape and strong points in the subterranean structure were identified to provide support. The resulting restaurant has an idiosyncratic shape, retaining a pedestrian route through the site between Old Broad Street and Bishopsgate. Eating areas are visible through full-height glazing on cantilevered floor plates that are supported on a long spine wall. As the pavilion roof is highly visible from within the tower and from surrounding buildings, it is treated as a fifth façade, with a carefully maintained lawn on its top surface. This small but powerful intervention has been recognised for the effect it has had on the streetscape of the City and led to its selection by a distinguished panel of world architects in the exhibition “New City Architecture”, alongside more obvious large-scale candidates.

Green Park The GreenPark development at Reading by PRUPIM is one of the most significant business parks on the M4 motorway, stretching west from London along the Thames Valley. Forty million vehicles a year use this road, and our site is one of the few which is clearly visible from the highway. The three buildings are designed as variations on a nine-square plan and arranged in a staggered configuration to give views within the site and to the open countryside beyond. As a grouping, they appear as fragments of a larger object. Each of the four and six storey pavilions is arranged around a landscaped central courtyard and is distinguished by a number of cantilevered floors and cut-outs that give a bold sculptural form. These result in idiosyncratic terraces and overhangs that articulate the abstract volumes, give clear identity to each building and create enjoyable spaces for the building users. The high-performance glazing uses a silk-screened dot matrix to protect the interior from direct sunlight, and builds on the natural refractive green quality of glass itself. The sculptural forms of the buildings are further abstracted by the reflective surface. Stripes of planting link the buildings and integrate the car parking into the landscape. Groves of trees, stripes of shrubs and lawn flow across the site giving cohesion to its constituent parts. "The success of our GreenPark is driven by ensuring we meet the needs of the building users. One reason for selecting Fletcher Priest for this next stage is their clear understanding of the many issues facing a modern organisation." Tim Davis, Development Director, PRUPIM

Chichen Itza Lodge-Museum Location: Yucatan, Mexico Client: Arquitectum Size: 1,820 m2 / 19,590 ft2 Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilisation, located in the northern centre of the Yucatan Peninsula. Set in one of the most enigmatic and beautiful places in the world, the project is a competition for the design of a new museum lodge and visitor’s centre. Our competition entry demanded a respectful and poetic architectural intervention that was also ecologically responsible. Our design has a monumental lightness. It does not compete with the Temple site, but respects it with an appropriate contemporary architecture. The location of the museum lodge is determined by the characteristics of the site, the ceremonial route to the Temple compound, coupled with a site grid whose focal and gravitational point is the Temple. Conceptually, the project is an inversion of the Mayan form, replacing solids with voids. This geometry is further underlined by the floating floor slabs from which to view the landscape. Public and communal areas are arranged at ground level, with rooms and terraces above. At the very top is the restaurant that enjoys direct sunlight and the best views of the Temple. Circulation is through open staircases that make reference to the Mayan typology. The form of the building also protects the museum from direct sunlight. The building is designed to have a minimal ecological impact. Photovoltaic panels clad the roof, and rainwater collection becomes a sculptural element visible from all levels. At night, suspended illuminated lodge boxes are reminiscent of fireflies in the forest canopy.

Architecture Biennale London 2006 Installation Design for London Architecture Biennale Location: London, UK Client: London Architecture Biennale Size: 200 m2 “The World in One City” exhibition, part of the London Architecture Biennale 2006, asked over 80 internationally acclaimed architects based outside the UK, to sketch a new and visionary project for London. Curator Matteo Cainer, Assistant Director of the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale, devised the exhibition to celebrate the concept and the ‘sketch’ as the fulcrum of architectural imagination, and its ability to communicate more clearly the essence of a revolutionary concept, rather than a developed project. As installation designers there was a unique opportunity to devise an installation with no preconceived route. The result was a series of illuminated lanterns arranged as freestanding objects floating in the space. Visitors could wonder freely as each proposal communicated ideas without reference to the others, only the geographical latitude and longitude of its country of origin identified the location of each. According to the exhibition’s central theme, the vertical connection was maintained through corresponding cities on both floors.

New York Tower Museum Location: New York, US Client: Arquitectum Size: 2000 m2 This is a monument to celebrate the cosmopolitan, urban and global character of New York City. The Tower Museum located at the tip of Manhattan on a pier projecting from Battery Park, not only functions as an architectural landmark on the skyline, terminating the north-south axis that extends to uptown Manhattan, but also integrates and revitalizes the immediate area. It houses a museum which will display the personal effects, souvenirs and photos of a new generation of immigrants who arrived after 1960. The Tower rises at an incline towards the Statue of Liberty, the symbolic gateway to New York, gesturing as an outstretched arm and welcoming hand some one hundred metres high. The external structure reads as a complex layering of muscle with a layered sinuous form. Internally, a central spine rises as a vast spiral stair through a void and is approached through a fluid entry sequence to a glazed wall facing the water. Lifts and stairs climb through this vertical void to the museum, library and rooftop restaurant that has a panoramic view over the city and the outlying boroughs.

New Library and Theatre/Concert Hall in Bodo Location: Bodo, Norway Client: Municipality of Bodo Area of new Build: 93 200 m2 Planning Area: 290 000 m2 Bodo is the capital of Nordland County in Norway, and it is the regions major city with 46,000 inhabitants. The new development will take place in the area by the inner marina in the heart of Bodos city centre. The urban design masterplan introduces new urban spaces and cultural buildings volumes that will transform and develop the harbour area, giving it a pivotal role for the city. Our proposal introduces three new public buildings: a concert hall/theatre, a library and a commercial centre. These will enclose and complete the central commercial district, and repair its relationship with the waterside promenade. The concept draws together the new public spaces through an imaginary Moebius strip that visually binds the new public buildings with the esplanade, setting a framework for the development of solids and voids and the spatial experience of walking from one to another. It also integrates the sculptural quality of the three elements, defining rooflines and shifts in geometry. Pedestrian movements have been addressed by examining the integration and effect of new public spaces on existing street patterns. The marina basin is integrated into this new landscape, by reconfiguring and extending the boat moorings to define a body of water that reinforces the geometry of the waterfront. The ground plane is sculpted to define special vantage points and areas set aside for public events. The library is then sited as a doorway to the major shopping street. The volume is visually connected to the commercial centre and has views across the harbour from its cantilevered reading room. The Kulthurhus, with a concert hall and theatre, is at the south-western tip of the marina promenade. Sited to deflect the wind, the public areas face back towards the city centre with views across the water from terraces and foyers on a series of levels. The sculpted form provides a natural public entrance from the street.

National Art Gallery Singapore Location: Singapore Singapore Client: Singapore Ministry of Information Communication and Arts (MICA) Size: 64.300 m2 The new National Art Gallery of Singapore will be housed in two historically significant 20th century monuments situated in Singapore’s Civic District - the City Hall and the adjacent former Supreme Court building. As a showcase for new information and a platform for artistic expression, it will inspire and educate visitors from Singapore and around the world, contributing to the study and research of Southeast Asian art. The neo-classical facades of the existing buildings are left intact, and a new dynamic and fluid space is introduced centrally that connects through to the roof, so that the whole building can be experienced and understood on arrival. The generously spaced entrance foyer opens onto the lecture theatre, cafe and bar at ground level. From here, visitors follow a gently sloping serpentine ramp that rises up through the fabric of the existing buildings, linking the galleries on upper floors and connecting old and new. Existing galleries are retained and renovated and open public areas transformed to house large works that can be displayed and viewed in radical and innovative ways. The culmination of this promenade is a delicately draped canopy roof, spanning the full length of the building. This provides a dazzling rooftop landscape that is the emblem of the new gallery, where restaurants, sculpture courts and gardens provide both distant views and intimate spaces for contemplation. Fabricated from steel and glass, the roof will act as a reflective crystalline jewel during the day and an illuminated beacon at night.

Robin Hood Gardens Location: Robin Hood Gardens, London Client: Building Design, The Architecture Foundation Area of new Build: 56,000 msq Planning Area: 3 hectares Robin Hood Gardens was an architectural experiment that is now seen as a defining moment in post-war British architecture. Despite its many shortcomings, the buildings are the clearest representation of a typology of large-scale housing projects that fascinated a generation of architects through to the 1970s. An opportunity now exists to save and successfully adapt the existing buildings and their immediate surroundings without compromising their essential qualities. The buildings are arranged as two extended residential blocks that enclose the central green space, however, the scale of the blocks and the unbroken repetitive nature of the existing facades do not respond to the adjoining network of streets. Unusually for a building of this vintage, they have no community facilities, resulting in public spaces that lack activity and animation. These shortcomings can be rectified through a series of interventions that illustrate it is capable of adapting to changing requirements whilst retaining the spirit of the original. The proposal has three principal ideas: 1. A series of puncturing elements that break the repetitive cellular arrangement of the existing facade. These are either unique extensions of dwelling spaces, connecting elements or the external manifestation of large interior voids contained within the grid. These large spaces are the core of the regeneration since they house screening rooms, libraries and functions designed to encourage social interaction. 2. A series of paths derived from the geometry of the buildings that are expressed as cuts through the existing contoured landscape. These not only convey a more human scale to the space while linking across the site, but also house a principal \'main street\' oriented east/west and lined with retail units. The others are punctuated like the façade with spaces that provide a series of outdoor rooms for seating and childrens play and general places of interaction. 3. A new network of uninterrupted pedestrian connections with two decks extended over the Blackwall tunnel approach to the east and the DLR station to the south. These decks isolate the noise and pollution emitted by the vehicles below and provide pedestrian routes that link the new DLR station through the communal spaces to the existing network of streets. The project takes into account the draft Blackwall Regeneration Development, providing additional housing, local shops, commercial areas, community facilities and offices. At the same time it retains and celebrates the existing buildings as the central element in a more extensive development.

London 2008 London 2008 Location: Thames, London Client: Arquitectum Size: 834 m2 Appearing as a floating sculptural form on the river, the barge is transformed by a series of articulated reflecting surfaces. The sculpted metal-clad gallery rises from the river reflecting and tracing the surface of the water A large seamless mirrored blade reflects the river embankment and the skyline beyond as a framed image, and the presence of this image simultaneously announces its arrival, and hints at the role of this mysterious floating object as a collection of illusionary urban fragments. Adding to the illusion, a group of mature trees are planted, and their reflection creates a dense floating forest on the Thames. Benches are arranged to capture views in the dappled light under the trees. The interlocking geometry of the mirror, the Trees and the enclosed display areas, become a series of fragmented urban spaces on the water that represent the city in miniature. This is theatre, where views are framed through considered openings, and artefacts and displays use the city as a backdrop. Here illusion and reality co-exist. This theme continues through the exhibition spaces which are experienced as a promenade, where the visitor follows a route defined by surfaces, openings and textures. Entering this world of fragments and illusion, illustrates the complexity of the surrounding city, and highlights aspects of the city that are familiar but not truly experienced.

Espoo Finland Title: City Hall and City Centre Block of Espoo Location: Espoo, Finland Client: Municipality of Espoo Size: 112,200 m2 Planning Area: 190 000 sqm The proposals for the new Espoo city centre demonstrate ideas that will transform a physically fragmented city, where neighbourhoods are isolated by sporadic growth and an extensive and intrusive network of major roads. This is achieved through a planning strategy that employs the following principal ideas: 1. A revitalised and symbolic city centre, with a number of new physical connections to existing public buildings and outlying neighbourhoods. These pedestrian axes, arranged in a radial pattern, act as visual corridors that lead to the major public plaza enclosed by public buildings. It is these that break the orthogonal geometry of the existing buildings, with an informal and dynamic arrangement, connecting the city centre with the commercial development, by linking it with a new pedestrian bridge across the highway. 2. Integrating mixed-use public buildings that are strategically placed to activate and encourage these connections. 3. An extension to the existing parkland area, that utilises the radial geometry to locate new public buildings as pavilions in the landscape. This will be achieved by relocating the existing open parking areas to a series of underground garages. The overall strategy develops a harmonious relationship between built-form and the landscape, centred on the public plaza that adapts for seasonal use. The extended network of streets and paths encourage pedestrians and bikeriders to move around the city more freely. The siting of new public buildings reinforces these physical and visual connections, whether from points of arrival, such as the railway station, or through visual connections across roads and the open landscape. It encourages mixed-use development, so that areas of the city remain active throughout the day and it provides a symbolic and recognisable series of public buildings that are open and freely accessible.

Three Stone Performing Arts Centre Three Stone Performing Arts Centre Location: Taipei, Taiwan Client: Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government Size: 78.500 m2 The evolutionary growth of a city leaves traces that remain as ghost-like surface images of what once was. These palimpsests can inform us of the realities of the past and whenever spaces are shuffled, rebuilt, or remodeled, shadows remain. The 19th century floodplain of the Keelung River remains as an indelible mark on the streets and neighbourhoods of Taipei. The symbolism of the river and its importance in the development of the city, and as its source of trade, wealth and influence is celebrated in the three distinct forms of the new arts centre. Washed and eroded by water and sand, they appear as pebbles deposited randomly on the old river bed. The canopy roof that over sails at high level, acts as a surface to diffuse and refract the sunlight, as dappled light washes through a body of water. Here the smallest of the pebbles punctures and supports the surface of the roof, as a restaurant with views across the city. Approaching the site, the streets dissolve into a series of broad channels, heterogeneous spaces that appear as if formed by the flow of water. This simple grouping of forms is the setting for the three principal spaces, the Grand Theatre and its companion Proscenium Playhouse and Multiform Theatre. Each is entered through individual foyers off the major open-air event space at their centre. All the major spaces are visible from here including the principal stair that guides visitors to the banks of elevators that transport them up to the roof. The roof acts as a fragment of the city, made up of a series of public event spaces and outdoor gardens. Here a range of additional functions have been introduced to intensify the activity at high level. It dissolves on the western elevation into a transparent surface, where the late afternoon sun penetrates down to the ground. This arrangement retains the ground level as a genuinely open people’s space where the theatres are seen as being part of the public domain. The three major auditoria can be appreciated by those not attending performances, and are not concealed within the walls of a larger complex. Concert and theatre goers have the choice of entering the auditoria directly or travelling up to the roof, where the public event spaces, libraries and gardens are grouped together as a complex mesh of uses. This major public building is integrated into the fabric of the city in a novel way. The city is seen as a tiered structure where the principal elements of the public building are merged and blurred to allow an unexpected degree of access. Large areas of the building are open to the public, and public areas are juxtaposed to create synergies between different uses. Libraries, shops and restaurants all profit from their proximity and free relationship to each other. The formality associated with a major cultural institution of this type is avoided and the concept of a theatrical event is revised.

Sundsvall Mesh The New Arts Centre and Theatre Building in Sundsvall Project Title: Mesh Location: Sundsvall, Sweden Client: Municipality of Sundsvall, City Planning Offices Area of new Build: 12,000m2 Competition Area: 25,000m2 The new arts centre and theatre building in Sundsvall will occupy a beautiful location between the two hills that enclose the city, and that faces the Selangeran river. It will create a lively meeting place along the waterfront for residents and visitors, all alongside an imposing group of warehouses that are the symbolic remains of a long tradition of shipping and trading. The continued expansion and prosperity of the city, presents the opportunity to create an appropriate setting for these important structures and to reinforce the role of the Kultur Magasinet with the new theatres and performance spaces. The relocation of the E4 highway to the east consolidates the site to the west and provides the width to create a physical barrier to the traffic noise. Equally important is the view from passing vehicles on the E4 highway, an important gateway into the city. This view requires visual and functional cohesion The new complex has a powerful architectural identity that will give the building a landmark status. A horizontal structural grid in the form of a hexagonal mesh is overlaid on the site, acting both as datum level and as design language. The fluid forms of the three new auditoria are built within the voids of the mesh. It is this mesh that gives an identity to the complex, not only as the principal structural, but also on a smaller scale, as a brise soleil to the glazed facades. The existing Kulture Magasinet will be accessed from the new central foyer along its eastern façade. The three new auditoria all connect to the foyer as a ‘string of pearls. These in turn separate the public spaces from the serviced areas to the east. These ancillary ‘back of house’ spaces are set behind a meandering ‘rock face’, where openings provide access for deliveries and underground parking. The working side of the complex is as important as the public face, and is clearly visible in this prominent location. To further consolidate the relation between old and new, the orthogonal grid of the Kulture Magasinet glazing is continued and fragmented across the new roofs as openings, and photovoltaic panels. This space is naturally lit through roof lights that deflect the light across the space. To the south facing the old city is the principal entrance. All spaces are reached from the main foyer and this also connects to the west-facing public terraces that overlook the water. Restaurants and bars are freely organised in the foyer and spill out into the open in good weather. A continuous column-free space frame roof encloses the central space and can be accessed by the public. This connects with the masonry walls of the Magasinet at high level and allows views across the sculptured roof forms. Principal materials are sourced locally. Internal surfaces are faced in stone and the same material is carried through to the outside public areas as paving, river walls and benches. The familiar material is used in all civic areas and reinforces the links with the old town. The envelope above is clad in standing seam aluminium sheet that celebrates Sundsvall as the major producer of Swedish aluminium. It acts as an emblem for the modern city. The quality of the material responds to the fluid forms, and laid in a linear pattern it reflects and illuminates the water. Glazed areas are protected from solar gain by the expanded aluminium mesh, acting as a brise soleil that maintains the apparently seamless envelope and replicates the hexagonal structural grid. Generous landscaping includes for a tree planting programme along the waterfront, forming a glade of trees that protects the public open space, and the transformation of the highway into a tree-lined boulevard.

Tyneside Cinema Newcastle's Tyneside Cinema, a long-established and much-loved institution, reopened its doors in May 2008 after a major restoration project designed by Fletcher Priest Architects, with funding provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Tyne and Wear Partnership and the European Regional Development Fund. Additional funding came from trusts, foundations and many private supporters. The cinema has a unique place in the history of film in the north of England. Founded by a local entrepreneur Dixon Scott, the great uncle of film directors Sir Ridley and Tony Scott, it opened in 1937 and remained a news theatre until the late 1950s. The Tyneside is the finest surviving purpose-built newsreel cinema in Britain, and the only one still operating as a cinema. The plan for the Tyneside was to transform it into the UK's first e-cinema, using digital technology to stimulate the visual arts in the region, alongside a new and competitive media industry. This entailed a major restoration of the original auditorium, the Classic, with 200 new seats in the stalls and 60 generously sized armchairs and sofas in the circle. The new roof-top extension houses two new screens, the Electra and the Roxy, with 144 seats and 100 seats respectively. These new screens are linked by a foyer bar enclosed in translucent lightweight polycarbonate sheeting that at night appears as a glowing opaque box. The second floor 'Coffee Rooms' have been in operation since the 1930s. Close to Newcastle's shopping area they are a local institution with a dedicated clientele, and continue to be a popular place to meet. The new 'Digital Lounge' is designed to show locally produced digital film and experimental work and doubles as a space for educational events. The Tyneside aims to expand film culture across the region by encouraging a meaningful dialogue between filmmakers and the community. As the north east's 'Centre for the Moving Image', it forms an important part of the region's digital media infrastructure. This year, Tyneside Cinema won the RICS Project of the Year Award and is an RIBA Award winner. click here for 'Guardian - 10 of the best independent cinemas' article 22 January 2010, which includes Tyneside Cinema along with two other FPA cinemas.

Abu Dhabi We are currently designing a 60 hectare masterplan in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The masterplan contains a full range of land uses, and the configuration of streets and public spaces has been designed to maximise shade and shelter. Our design is one of the first projects to be reviewed by the recently established Urban Planning Council, and is currently being determined for planning. The first buildings within the masterplan are due to be completed by 2011.

Rue de la Loi, Brussels Working in collaboration with local practice WIT Architecten, we were one of five practices shortlisted for the masterplan of the Rue de la Loi and its surroundings in the heart of the European District of Brussels, alongside architects including OMA and eventual winners Christian de Portzamparc. The Rue de la Loi is one of the key axial routes entering the city from the east, and is currently a four lane road with heavy traffic flowing in one direction, creating an inhospitable barrier between the historic districts of Saint Josse and the Quartier Leopold to the north and south. The ambition of the competition organisers, comprising the City of Brussels, Brussels Capital-Region and the European Commission, is for the physical environment of the street to be transformed. The project seeks to create a new physical presence for the institutions of Europe within the city and a near doubling in density to average plot ratios of 8 alongside an introduction of diverse new land uses. The brief aims to act as an exemplar for the issue of sustainability within the city.

Dinami Zagreb This is a new, landmark, low-energy office tower in the centre of Zagreb, Croatia. It is developed in collaboration with local architectural firm, Agro Inzenjering, the tower will be part of a new cluster of buildings on Vukovarska Street that will mark Zagreb's new business district. Its floor-to-ceiling height glass facade will achieve spectacular panoramic views of the old town, the meandering Sava River and the mountains. We applied thoughtful approach to context and careful, sustainable designs. The design respond to the local climate and maximise energy efficiency. At roof level there is an energy farm with five wind turbines and 450m2 of photovoltaic panels that not only generates energy throughout the year but is also a highly visible and distinguishing feature. The fully glazed double-skin façade with integral blinds mitigates glare, and a ceramic patterned fritting to the glazing protects the building from the excesses of solar heat gain. The layout of the building has been designed to meet the specific demands of the Zagreb office market. Each floor can be divided into six tenancies with over twenty different arrangements. The specification of the office space aims to achieve a working environment with higher standards than are currently applied in the rest of Europe. Croatia’s long-standing tradition of lively and active cafés is introduced at street level off a double height entrance hall, where a restaurant bar and café stretch along an entire face of the building. The full length of the glazed wall can be rolled away for tables to spill out in the shade of mature trees.

Castle Square Riga Castle Square, Riga A joint team of FPA and local practice Grupa 93 finished in second place in a prestigious public realm design competition for the transformation of the Castle Square in Riga, Latvia, in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The square is surrounded by historic buildings, including the presidential residence, and the square has to serve for civic and ceremonial functions as well as day to day uses for the general public. This competition follows our international success for the new urban centre masterplan in 2007, on which work is ongoing.

VTU University Campus Bangalore Our masterplan for VTU technological university establishes a new campus in the spectacular landscape north of Bangalore in India. The project consists of teaching and research facilities together with residential accommodation and a full range of social amenities for an initial on-site population of over 2000 students with capacity to grow over time across an 80 hectare site. The organisation of the masterplan and the design of the buildings is strongly informed by a low-energy strategy that maximises shade, shelter and cooling in the hot and humid climate. The plan has been developed in collaboration with Kalayojan Architects in Mumbai.

Boutique hotel and holiday villas in Montenegro Fletcher Priest has been appointed to design a Boutique hotel and nine holiday villas in Morinj, Montenegro. It's location, Boka Kotorska is a fjord-like bay set back from the Montenegro coast. It is sheltered on one side by a range of high mountains, while its secluded inlet location shields it from the open sea waves. As there are no tides the sea front is inviting and green. There are not many places in Mediterranean that are so beautiful and peaceful while being so close to international airport.