news + links

November 2008

The Grove Well Being Centre in Belfast has has won the Best Community Care Design Award at the Building Better Healthcare Awards. The judges praised the building’s provision for a range of health, leisure and library services ‘under one roof’. Natural ventilation, a combined heat and power system, rainwater harvesting and a green roof have enhanced the project’s ecological profile. The building was designed in association with Kennedy FitzGerald and Associates, Belfast.

September 2008

Barrhead Health and Social Care Centre in Glasgow has been granted planning approval. The £18m development will house three GP practices, community nursing teams and day care support for the elderly. The centre is viewed as a key part of a masterplan to regenerate the area.

The Grove Well Being Centre in Belfast has been shortlisted for the Best Community Care Design Award at the Building Better Healthcare Awards. A design collaboration with Kennedy FitzGerald Architects, the building brings together community library and leisure facilities, four GP practices and Health Trust services under one roof. It will be the first building of its kind in Northern Ireland.

Hackney Free and Parochial School has started on site; this new build secondary school delivered under the Hackney BSF programme incorporates generous civic spaces, sports facilities for community use and a separate residential development.

A number of the listed modern buildings we have worked on are open to the public as part of OpenHouse London 20th–21st September, including Ernö Goldfinger's Haggerston School, Balfron Tower and 2 Willow Road, Lubetkin & Tecton's Highpoint flats and Priory Green Estate and Chamberlin Powell & Bonn's Barbican Estate.

John Allan is lecturing at the 10th International DoCoMoMo Conference in Rotterdam on 17th September and the Twentieth Century Society Conference ‘Understanding Twentieth Century Buildings' in London on 25th September.

June 2008

The Avanti House has won the competition to design Tomorrow's Lifestyle Home in the British Homes Awards 2008. Our sustainable housing scheme was chosen by public vote from a shortlist of ten and will now be built at a site in the UK. Click here to download full details of our proposals (PDF 1mb).

Long View, a new build private residence in Henley, won a commendation in the Best One-Off House category; the project is also currently featured in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

We have obtained Outline Planning Approval for Watford Health Campus, an £800m regeneration scheme incorporating the hospital site and the surrounding properties.

We recently completed the Conservation Plan for the University of Sheffield Arts Tower and Library, Grade II* listed landmarks designed by Gollins Melvin, Ward & Partners, 1956-65. We will now be undertaking major refurbishment and upgrade work on the Library.

Director John Allan has been awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by The University of Sheffield. The degree is due to be conferred at a Graduation Ceremony on 25th July.

May 2008

Our proposals for a sustainable housing design have been shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday British Homes Awards 2008. Click here to download full details of our proposals (PDF 1mb). Mail on Sunday readers will have the opportunity to vote for the winning scheme which will be built by Crest Nicholson PLC at a site within the UK.

We submitted an entry in the international competition for Espoo Health Campus, Helsinki.

Our Conservation Assessment for St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross has been uploaded to the Historic Scotland website and is publicly available.

John Allan, a director of Avanti Architects, recently gave a lecture on Lubetkin & Tecton at the Royal Academy in the series ‘Architects who made London’ – a podcast is now available on the RA website.

February 2008

We were recently invited to design a major mixed-use development in Tunbridge Wells, incorporating office, hotel and retail uses. Our concept sought to combine the scope of accommodation and flexibility required by the brief with a highly customised response to the site and local topographical context. Key features of the scheme include a major new civic square, a roof garden and a camera obscura that would take advantage of the elevated site levels to provide a real-time virtual tour of the town for residents and visitors.

Following an open design competition we have been appointed architects for Gransha Hospital Mental Health Crisis Unit in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, working with Kennedy FitzGerald & Associates Architects. Also in Northern Ireland we have been selected for the Primary Community Care Infrastructure Framework, again with Kennedy FitzGerald. The team will be appointed to design any future Primary Health Care and Social Services Centres commissioned by the Southern Health and Social Care Trust.

Further south in Ireland, we are commencing the construction of the second phase of a community hospital project in Cashel, Co. Tipperary.

Further afield, we are part of the international competition winning design team led by CF Møller for a 250,000sq.m development at Aarhus University Hospital; this ‘hospital town' will be Denmark's largest healthcare building project.

Our design for the £640m New South Glasgow Hospital, including the New Royal Hospital for Sick Children, recently achieved Outline Planning Consent.

We are currently working on projects for a redevelopment of the Grade II listed Cossham Memorial Hospital as a new Community Hospital. We are also involved in further developments on the Bristol Southmead Hospital site including new pathology buildings and a data centre.

BECaD, the redevelopment of the acute services at Central Middlesex Hospital, was officially opened on February 20th by HRH the Prince of Wales.

In education, our design for Hackney Free and Parochial School has achieved Planning Consent and will go on site in May 2008. We have also begun work on Haggerston School, a Grade II listed School by Ernö Goldfinger from 1962 and feasibility studies for the redevelopment of two Lincolnshire Academies.

October 2007

We have been shortlisted for the Architect of the Year Award in the Health Building Category by Building Design magazine for our recent work across the field of health architecture.

Greenvale Special Needs Secondary School is complete and occupied. As part of the MPB Education team we have recently been selected as Preferred Bidders for Hackney BSF. This project involves new build and refurbishment to Hackney Free and Parochial COE School and the Ernö Goldfinger-designed Haggerston School.

We are currently preparing a Conservation Plan for the University of Sheffield's iconic Arts Tower and Library, designed by Gollins Melvin Ward & Partners, built between 1956–65 and now listed Grade II*.

July 2007

Pontefract Hospital has achieved Financial Close. This £60m community hospital will provide a range of non-acute services for its local population. It includes a new ACAD with ambulatory and short-stay facilities together with an A&E department, minor injuries unit, midwife-led delivery unit, 30 rehabilitation beds and various outpatient facilities. It forms part of a £311m development by Consort Healthcare (Balfour Beatty) in conjunction with BDP architects, who have designed the acute hospital at Pinderfields, Wakefield.

In education, we are due to begin at ITCD stage on Tower Hamlets BSF and have begun our involvement in the Birmingham BSF bid.

We recently took part in an RIBA Architectural Residency at Kidbrooke Park Primary School, Greenwich as part of Architecture Week – Designing a Greener London. Through a series of workshops across three months with 27 pupils aged between 7 and 8 we developed ideas for a habitat area within the school playground. The pupils were encouraged to explore the process of being an architect through a series of objectives based on the themes of wanting, looking, thinking, making and building.

June 2007

Long View has won an RIBA Regional Award and was shortlisted for the Grand Designs Magazine Awards.

Our proposals for the regeneration of Kilburn Square have secured planning consent. The project will make substantial improvements to the public realm, developing retail and residential units and reconfiguring the existing street traders' market.

Building on our recent primary healthcare work at the Grove, Portadown and Tralee, we have been appointed as architects for an £11m primary healthcare centre in Barrhead, near Glasgow. In London, as part of our ongoing consultation service for Westminster PCT, the Victoria Medical Centre was recently opened by Tony Blair.

We have completed the design of the Public Sector Comparator for the New South Glasgow Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. The Greater Glasgow Health Board will now be submitting their Outline Business Case in support of funding approval. The project will provide about 1,350 new beds and a total of 135,000 sq m of new build accommodation. Our design will be developed into a full Exemplar Design for a Competitive Dialogue competition.

We have also been asked to develop a revised PSC deisgn for The Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital. This will form part of an Outline Business Case in support of funding for the replacement of the existing hospital and the creation of a new park in Alder Hey.

Peterborough Secondary Schools are complete and in use; we have completed the Invitation to Competitive Dialogue stage for Hackney BSF (Building Schools for the Future) and are about to embark on design work for Bethnal Green Technology College as part of the Tower Hamlets BSF programme.

We recently completed Listed Building Management Guidelines for Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s Golden Lane Estate and are currently working on a Conservation Plan for Goldfinger’s Brownfield Estate, Poplar.

March 2007

We're growing! See our careers page for current opportunities.

February 2007

Following a very successful 2006, Avanti Architects have been shortlisted for the Building Awards Architectural Practice of the Year.

BECaD has seen the final completion of the construction and landscaping works and has been shortlisted for the Building Awards PFI Project of the Year.

We have received planning permission for the Academic and Pathology building development for the North Bristol NHS Trust. This is the first development of a much larger masterplan and includes the provision of a new public square. We are currently working on further developments around this site in Southmead and at Cossham.

We have been appointed to carry out a conservation study on St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross. Designed by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia and completed in 1966, the seminary is one of the most significant modern buildings in the UK but has latterly fallen into chronic disrepair. We are also working on an inspection and upgrade of the 1975 St George’s Church, Tufnell Park.

John Allan recently gave the keynote address at the Inaugural Conference of DoCoMoMo, San Juan, Puerto Rico. The event took place in the famous MoMo hotel building La Concha, which will shortly re-open after major restoration works. John’s paper ‘Rediscovering Lubetkin’, originally given at the Modern Britain Conference 1999, has just been published in Twentieth Century Architecture, Journal No. 8 of the 20th Century Society.

January 2007

2006 was a great year for us: download our Review of the Year and find out why (500kB)

November 2006

Some of the highlights (so far) of our 25th year of practice:

Awards
Portadown Community Treatment and Care Centre has won the Future Design Concept Award at the Building Better Healthcare Awards. Recently completed project Kerry Community Services (Tralee, Ireland) has been highly commended in the Primary Community Design Award and BECaD (Central Middlesex Hospital, London) came second in the Best Hospital Design Award.

Our work on Harbour Meadow, Peter Moro and Richard Llewlyn’s 1940 house in Chichester, has won the RIBA Conservation Award 2006, whilst our restoration and reconfiguration of Jesus College’s New North Court, Cambridge has been awarded a Commendation.  

Project progress
We are working on a major mixed use development in the City of London. The project includes 10 000 m² of new offices, the conservation and conversion of a 19th century warehouse and an early 20th century property into luxury apartments and social housing, and development of an industrial site into new luxury apartments.

In housing we have been appointed architects to the Scowerdons, Weakland and Newstead (SWaN) regeneration, involving the rebuilding an entire neighbourhood in the environs of Sheffield to a new masterplan. Meanwhile, Long View, a new private house on the site of Patrick Gwynne’s Past Field is complete and occupied.

In education, two early years centres, First Place and Normand Croft, are complete and in use, whilst two Peterborough secondary schools are currently on site. St Margaret’s Special Needs School for the Children’s Trust is now complete and in use whilst Greenvale Special Needs Secondary School in Lewisham is currently on site.

In healthcare, the Grove Well Being Centre in Belfast is on site. This will be the first building in Northern Ireland to combine healthcare, leisure and library services ‘under one roof’. We have been appointed Trust Advisers to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow, which is to join the proposed New South Glasgow Hospital for which we are already Trust Advisers.

And combining the fields of education and healthcare – at North Bristol Trust we are designing our first Procure21 projects including a low energy Academic Centre with teaching, research laboratory and library facilities.

People
We are pleased to announce that Guy Michaelov has become an Associate. As IT Manager, Guy has advanced our computer network to an exemplary standard and now contributes his management skills towards the running of the company.

John Allan's acclaimed first book 'Lubetkin: architecture and the tradition of progress' is now available in paperback from RIBA Publishers and the RIBA bookshop.

We are currently recruiting experienced architects and part 2s.

March 2006

Avanti Architects – 25 years
We celebrated our 25th anniversary with an exhibiton of the themes and projects which have shaped Avanti Architects over the last 25 years.

Find out more

October 2005

Isokon wins The Crown Estate Conservation Award
Announced at the Stirling Awards dinner, the judges said: 'This long neglected icon of the British Modern Movement has been saved with an outstanding example of creative conservation, securing a sustainable future for a Grade I Building at Risk. The outcome is deeply satisfying in the way current use is so carefully married to the existing structure, avoiding any damaging changes to Wells Coates' 1934 creation.'

Avanti have also recently been appointed to provide advice and support to Greater Glasgow Health Board in the procurement of a PFI project for the supply of a new in-patient hospital on the campus of the existing Southern General Hospital. The estimated value of the PFI project is GBP 250m.

Avanti win Northern Ireland healthcare competition
Avanti Architects, in association with Belfast practice Kennedy FitzGerald & Associates, have won an open competition to design a new Community Treatment and Care Centre in Portadown , Northern Ireland. Craigavon and Banbridge Community HSS Trust wish to create a ‘one stop shop’ for primary and community care services. Avanti and Kennedy FitzGerald & Associates are currently working successfully together to build the Grove Health and Well Being Centre in Belfast, and this existing relationship was key to our success.

August 2005

Secondary school success
Avanti Architects, as part of the Bouygues Education consortium, has been selected as preferred bidder for the £6m Greenvale Secondary Special Needs School, part of the Lewisham Schools PFI project. Our design for Greenvale provides a facility that not only satisfies current requirements, but is adaptable to future changes in special needs education theory and practice. Also, our £19m proposals for two secondary school campuses in Peterborough have progressed to ITN stage. These projects include remodelling and refurbishment of existing buildings with new build facilities to cater for rising student numbers, all within a new campus masterplan.

June 2005

Two Avanti buildings have been rewarded in the first RIBA Conservation Awards. Isokon and 66 Frognal were two of six projects recognised as the best examples of practice in the field. Speaking at the awards dinner on 17 June 2005 RIBA President George Ferguson said: "Good conservation requires excellent skills in design and judgement. These awarded schemes display those qualities beautifully and demonstrate the added value that a good architect can bring to any project." Both buildings will be eligible for the Crown Estate Conservation Award which will be announced alongside the RIBA Stirling Prize in October 2005.