NEWSLETTER ARCHITECTURE CONSERVATION PLANNING REGENERATION URBAN DESIGN RECENT AWARDS Our 2012 newsletter comes at a time when the sluggishness of the economy has become a fact of life and those involved with the Built Environment have to find new ways of justifying investment and new certainties to guide what the future will look like. It is vital to be able to build confidence in what is needed for the future and identify where physical change is desirable to stimulate new economic life, to meet new needs, and build better communities. Capital projects, whether for the development industry or bespoke for an organisation client are only the delivery stage of this process. We have 24 years of work designing for change in the Built Environment, linking the inherent value in places with the investment that can bring plans to life. When investment cannot be justified in residential or commercial land values alone wider skills are needed to understand what change or improvement communities, places and their local and regional economies need. Regeneration principles rather than land use models can then be used to build confidence for the future. Increasingly this can only be done through Partnership, by joining the agendas across the public and private sectors, growing the opportunity for Localism, Neighbourhood Planning - the Big Society; partnership between investment, developers and communities and by bringing together landowners and individuals with needs, ideas and energy to commit to their locale. We have deepened and broadened our skillset to be ready for these tasks. Supporting our core skills in building design, our team includes a strong planning team, urban and landscape designers, urban geographers and historians who research the multiple data streams and stakeholder agendas that viable projects ultimately grow from. There is a lot going on in this new world and we hope this newsletter will show you the diversity of consultancy work our skills and interests are currently engaged in. Edward Nash AMERICAN MUSEUM EDUCATION CENTRE Our conversion of the stable block and carriage house at the Grade I listed Claverton Manor has received two awards from Bath and North East Somerset Council’s Building Control service in their 2011 Awards. We were highly commended for Design Quality in the category for public work or commercial property while contractor Ken Biggs were winners in the category for work to a listed building. KINGSTON MILLS BRADFORD ON AVON The regeneration of Kingston Mills continues to draw plaudits and most recently has been shortlisted in the 2012 Building Awards category of Housing Project of the Year. PETERSFINGER SALISBURY Salisbury Trust rewarded our hub building for the Park and Ride at Petersfinger Park in Salisbury with a commendation in their 2011 awards. The judges’ stated ‘…the overall result was deemed to be an attractive small building, which created the desired facilities in a way that went beyond the merely utilitarian, and provided the site with a well thought out focal point’. More on page 3...
Transcript
NEWSLETTER
ARCHITECTURE
CONSERVATION
PLANNING
REGENERATION
URBAN DESIGN
RECENT AWARDS
Our 2012 newsletter comes at a time when the sluggishness of the economy has become a fact of life and those involved with the Built Environment have to fi nd new ways of justifying investment and new certainties to guide what the future will look like. It is vital to be able to build confi dence in what is needed for the future and identify where physical change is desirable to stimulate new economic life, to meet new needs, and build better communities. Capital projects, whether for the development industry or bespoke for an organisation client are only the delivery stage of this process.
We have 24 years of work designing for change in the Built Environment, linking the inherent value in places with the investment that can bring plans to life. When investment cannot be justifi ed in residential or commercial land values alone wider skills are needed to understand what change or improvement communities, places and their local and regional economies need. Regeneration principles rather than land use models can then be used to build confi dence for the future.
Increasingly this can only be done through Partnership, by joining the agendas across the public and private sectors, growing the opportunity for Localism, Neighbourhood Planning - the Big Society; partnership between investment, developers and communities and by bringing together landowners and individuals with needs, ideas and energy to commit to their locale.
We have deepened and broadened our skillset to be ready for these tasks. Supporting our core skills in building design, our team includes a strong planning team, urban and landscape designers, urban geographers and historians who research the multiple data streams and stakeholder agendas that viable projects ultimately grow from.
There is a lot going on in this new world and we hope this newsletter will show you the diversity of consultancy work our skills and interests are currently engaged in.
Edward Nash
AMERICAN MUSEUM EDUCATION CENTRE
Our conversion of the stable block and carriage house at the Grade I listed Claverton Manor has received two awards from Bath and North East Somerset Council’s Building Control service in their 2011 Awards.
We were highly commended for Design Quality in the category for public work or commercial property while contractor Ken Biggs were winners in the category for work to a listed building.
KINGSTON MILLS BRADFORD ON AVON
The regeneration of Kingston Mills continues to draw plaudits and most recently has been shortlisted in the 2012 Building Awards category of Housing Project of the Year.
PETERSFINGERSALISBURY
Salisbury Trust rewarded our hub building for the Park and Ride at Petersfi nger Park in Salisbury with a commendation in their 2011 awards.
The judges’ stated ‘…the overall result was deemed to be an attractive small building, which created the desired facilities in a way that went beyond the merely utilitarian, and provided the site with a well thought out focal point’. More on page 3...
The way in which organisations progress their ambitions using the inputs of professional services can be vital to their long term success.
WORKING WITH ORGANISATIONS
SUSTAINABLE LONDON HQ FOR CIWEM
For example, our work for the American Museum in Britain began in 1996 when their ambition was to expand the museum’s galleries. In the subsequent years, we have worked with the organisation to plan a 10 year development programme that has created a range of new facilities for hospitality, schools, corporate events, conferences and culture. These have made the 50 year old institution relevant to the citizens and businesses of Bath and a natural centre for social and cultural activities in the region, able to hold events drawing a stronger national and international audience. Each project has needed to draw together the experience of the Museum’s management, visitor knowledge and educational offer with the expertise of our own team.
Similarly, our work for the Ironbridge Gorge Museums’ Trust began in 1997 with work to realise asset value in the run down industrial setting of the famous Coalport China Factory. A bespoke residential development here has strengthened the critical mass of the Coalport settlement, enhanced community infrastructure and stimulated a very successful enterprise hub for emergent businesses. We then worked for many years in exploring with the Trust how its largest site, the 50 acre Blists Hill, could be enriched as a regional centre of social and cultural activity and a Gateway Visitor Centre for all the nine Industrial Museums of the Gorge’s World Heritage site.
We know that client organisations are very often multi-dimensional and dependent on many skill-sets and layers of management within their own structure. These have to be funnelled and tapped into if our teams are to be able to take a brief and shape a development project to deliver multiple goals. We therefore place a high level of importance on understanding and harnessing the values, objectives, drivers, expertise and experience of our client organisations.
Our own multi-disciplinary nature means we are used to blending a wide range of professional perspectives in what we do. Making them available to our clients effi ciently through a designated project team leader, who may be an architect, planner, urban or landscape designer, a regeneration expert or geographer.
We have had the good fortune to have been engaged by some of our clients for periods of up to 15 years, developing working relationships that enable the best use of our skills to complement those of our clients and help these organisations in developing and fulfi lling their ambitions.
This project, which secured £9m of public funding, needed to draw together, on, a concentrated timescale, consultancy experience in design, traffi c, planning, landscape, regeneration, cost-control and many technical issues whilst blending with the Trust’s experience in visitor management, historic authenticity, archaeology, site logistics and the day to day management of a regional attraction.
In 2007 we began working with national regeneration contractor Galliford Try and their residential arm, Linden Homes when they acquired Kingston Mill, a large derelict site at the very heart of historic Bradford on Avon. This complex project brought challenges for both organisations.
For our clients there have been challenges of infrastructure design, construction logistics, working with historic buildings, managing public expectations and marketing, while for us the challenges lay in public consultation, planning, design and construction management. By understanding the client organisation and combining our skills, capacity and experience a collaborative approach was developed, resulting in the project being awarded the Royal Town Planning Institute National Award for Local Regeneration and Renewal for its success in removing 25 years of blight at the heart of this historic town.
The development within the Hatton Garden Conservation Area involves retaining the existing facing brickwork façade of an offi ce building constructed circa 1900, and constructing a new concrete and steel structure behind, to form new offi ce accommodation. Two new additional fl oors of residential accommodation and roof terraces are located above and their high market value will assist the fi nancing of the project.
The scheme focuses on the client’s sustainability ethos and aspirations with the brief to deliver a showcase project that explores the possibilities of re-utilising a vacant building to deliver a mixed used development that achieves high sustainable credentials within both the BREEAM (Excellent rating) and CFSH (Level 4) accreditations. This project is due on site spring/summer 2012 with completion programmed for May 2013.
We have been commissioned to design and coordinate a technically challenging new headquarters building for the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) in the very heart of London, close to St Pauls.
NEW REGIONAL BASE FOR HITACHIThe client has made clear their aspiration for the new building to enhance the work environment for their employees and deliver a building that engages with sustainability principles. The building will target BREEAM Very Good credentials and will aim to enhance site biodiversity whilst imbedding Hitachi’s ethos of harmony within the emerging landscape design.
The project is targeting completion in spring 2014 with an estimated build cost of £4million.
We are currently working with Hitachi Capital Commercial Vehicle Services (HCCVS), in Trowbridge developing concept designs for a new 15,000sqft headquarters offi ce building and 4000sqft vehicle preparation facility on the outskirts of Trowbridge. We won the bid for this project to provide design and planning services in collaboration with Macgregor Smith, Silcock Dawson, Hydrock and aim to take the scheme forward into a planning submission in June 2012.
HCCVS are a successful Trowbridge based company with a strong and growing business portfolio across the South West. Their forecast business growth indicates that they will very soon outgrow their current site on the Canal Road in Trowbridge with the workforce anticipated to potentially triple over the next fi ve years.
This is great news for the local economy and we are currently working up proposals for a new development capable of growing with the business.
The new park and ride facility at Petersfi nger commissioned by Wiltshire County Council (WCC) has provided an additional 550 parking spaces for Salisbury with easy bus access to the City centre. The site has a central amenity control building which accommodates an internal public waiting area, ticketing and information point for the public and a control centre for the park and ride facility.
WCC from the outset were clear in their objective to make this an exemplar project, to produce a design that would respond to the semi- rural nature of the location, and imbed sustainable design principals. From the concept stage, the setting of the building was carefully considered orientating internal public spaces to the south maximising the quality of naturally lit spaces. This was balanced by providing deep eaves to the perimeter of the building controlling solar gains and glare.
Materials were selected to enable the building to absorb and retain energy through the day, minimising heating input requirements and improving the thermal effi ciency of the building. Where possible renewable and locally sourced materials were used. The roof in particular was a key aspect using timber framing construction with a green roof covering. The planted green roof creates a habitat for native fl ora and fauna, reinforces visual links to the surrounding landscape, contributes to the thermal mass of the building, harvests and reuses rainwater, and is constructed from renewable materials.
AWARD WINNING TRANSPORT HUB, SALISBURY
Designers tend to be used to concentrating on the individual project – moving from brief to concept, to crystallisation, to procurement and completion. Planners have to work to plan each project within a framework of national and locally expressed goals. Urban and landscape designers have to ensure design interest will integrate well and mature over decades of use with both what has been built already and the harmonic systems of the natural world.
Geographers take all human activities back to the specifi cs of place – of material skills, of transport, opportunity or governance.
Historians understand the cycles and waves of change that in both small and large cycles dictate the future of human affairs and how they are played out in the built environment.
With a quarter of a century of experience of managing and delivering change in the built environment Nash Partnership have developed team skills in urban and rural regeneration, in handling derelict sites when a once healthy economy has moved away, or showing how synergies of economic opportunity can be formed in places to generate new values across whole environments.
We crystallise this knowledge in the work of Spatio-Temporal Economic Management developed by Senior Partner, Edward Nash and Head of Regeneration, Mel Clinton.
UNDERSTANDING THE BIGGER PICTURE
LOW CARBON ENERGY CENTRE FOR WESTERN RIVERSIDE, BATHWe have recently submitted an application for the proposed Energy Centre for the new Western Riverside housing scheme, by Crest Nicholson. The Energy Centre is to be housed within a redundant building on the Wessex Water Pumping station site. The centre will provide the heating and hot-water to the houses, and feeds electrical power to the grid via a combination of gas and wood pellet fi red boilers, reducing the schemes overall carbon impact. Using the outline approval the operators, EON Sustainable Energy, completed a fully detailed scheme for the application. The most visible change will be the boiler’s chimney which is require to ensure that any fumes will not affect the air quality of the dwellings. The re-use of the Victorian buildings and the new chimney are wholly in keeping with the area’s heritage, and will help Bath’s new C21st housing scheme to reduce its climate impact.
Edward Nash
Our work draws on an understanding of how places have become what they are and the potential they have in the future.
The value of this skillset has been recognised in the Appointment of Edward Nash to chair the Bath and North East Somerset Council River Avon Economy Group and in his place on the West of England Place and Infrastructure Group.
REINFORCING CULTURAL IDENTITY AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM, BATHThe Coach House conversion to create a new Education Centre is the most recent of a number of projects at the American Museum. The project involved the conversion of the Grade II listed coach house & stable buildings in the grounds of the Grade I listed Claverton Manor to allow the museum to host lectures, fi lms, exhibition-related workshops etc. Developing a scheme which met the client’s brief for a modern teaching and exhibition facility whilst responding to the sensitivities of the Grade II listed buildings and their high profi le Grade I listed location and budgetary constraints of a self funding museum was the principle challenge, and the success of the fi nal scheme has already been recognised with awards for the project (see page 1).
Change management, or sometimes the re-direction of change, only happens because individuals come together with particular objectives in mind. Nobody engages with consultants offering skills in professional disciplines unless those skills add something to what they can achieve themselves. Forging productive relationships with people is therefore central to our work.
WORKING WITH PEOPLE
REGENERATING COMMUNITY ASSETSThe potential role of existing buildings in regenerating places and communities can often be undervalued through a focus on delivering new build development. We are working on a number of projects where a core group of local people recognise this value. One of these is the former Town Hall building in the centre of the Somerset market town of Midsomer Norton. Here the trustees recognise the potential for the building to play a key role in regeneration of the town and our task has been to work with them to more clearly reveal the potential of the building.
We have set the inherent characteristics of the building, its civic and cultural status, within the context of local needs and opportunities and an understanding of the characteristics of other ‘community’ premises in the town, to determine what role the former Town Hall is uniquely placed to play in the life of the community. Through this work we established, with the trustees of the Sarah Ann Trust, that the overarching theme for future use of the building should be arts and culture, as the basis for fl exibility of use that would embrace arts, cultural, business and community activity.
A key feature of the project is the creation of fl exible spaces which the creative and community energy of the town can fi nd expression, through a broad range of activities that evolve and change over time, much as it did in former times before modern conversion works constrained this potential.
Working for individual clients, our role is to help in developing, drawing out and interpreting a project brief, showing how objectives can be achieved, costs managed and risks addressed. Often a range of professional inputs is required and for these projects we are adept at engaging with people to foster creative and happy teamwork.
For planning authorities, as gatekeepers of change management, nothing is more important than dialogue with offi cers and clear presentation of information to address the planning issues. On projects large enough to need referral to planning committee, understanding the concerns and starting position of local councillors and aligning a project with their objectives is common sense. Where people affected by a proposal want to stand up to or infl uence change, providing focus and helping them articulate their views are a valuable part of what we do. And, just as important where our own clients’ proposals come in for public scrutiny, is listening to the, often legitimate, anxieties of those at risk of being affected and seeking to understand and address their concerns.
The Coalition Government has brought new opportunities to communities to infl uence the way their local environment changes – to collectively take initiatives and have a set of ambitions for the area recognised and supported in planning policy and development management terms. With these unfamiliar new opportunities come new responsibilities.
Our role here is to help present visions and pathways for accommodating change and assisting balanced and perceptive evaluation across many options – to create a language communities can use to fi nd, articulate, express and communicate their collective will.
Before
After
URBAN RENEWAL FOR ST PAULS, CHELTENHAMWhen Nash Partnership were appointed our fi rst task, working with Cheltenham Borough Homes, was to rebuild confi dence and a sense of engagement with the residents. Urban Design Housing Director, Amanda Taylor succeeded in drawing in all sectors of the population to participate in the decision making process that created the new housing and public open space that will give these poorly connected streets the sense of community identity they have long lacked.
As the project progressed through the planning approval process and into the construction phase, we have worked very closely with the Contractor, Wates Living Space.
Through careful and considered design detailing and site logistics for the new build phase, both ourselves and the Contractor have the maintained a close relationship with the existing residents. For many the disruption has lasted for years - but the excitement as the project draws to a close is evident.
This project is located within a challenging public housing estate in the St Pauls area of Cheltenham, an area that predominately consists of 1960s council houses. St Pauls is a place viewed by the Local Council as requiring a series of regeneration projects to re-establish what was a thriving community by improving the quality and amenity of the area and raising the standard of affordable housing available.
With many of the dwellings falling into disrepair, a large section of the existing houses on two prominent streets within the estate were identifi ed for demolition to form a one hectare open site. Cheltenham Borough Homes brought the site to us to explore the possibilities of locating new affordable housing plus a community centre that would raise the quality of the built environment.
With a deteriorating reputation as a ‘sink estate’ for several years, community problems in these streets became so bad the Council felt forced to demolish a third of the dwellings – but their fi rst attempt at a replacement design failed to secure community and political support, leaving the remaining residents worn down by an obviously deteriorating environment.
REGENERATION IN THE SOMER VALLEYThe Alcan site in the market town of Midsomer Norton was acquired by Linden Homes at the start of 2009. Vacant for nearly six years, the site formerly accommodated over 200 jobs but is now embedded within a residential neighbourhood and no longer suited to a major quantum of business fl oorspace.
However, established planning policy designates the site solely for employment use while policies in the emerging Core Strategy remain restrictive. Against this background our approach was therefore regeneration led in order to build the foundations for a successful planning application.
The key consideration in developing proposals for development of the site was to establish what the site is best placed to contribute towards the long term sustainability and wellbeing of the town and its community. To address this, our work considered the challenges and opportunities facing the town and wider area, the attributes of the site and its constraints.
From this we were able to show that the site is best placed to do four things:
• Help move Midsomer Norton towards a more effi cient and sustainable spatial model
• Enhance and strengthen the immediate neighbourhood by setting development proposals within a neighbourhood planning framework
• Support development and diversifi cation of the local economy
• Support regeneration of the town centre
This is achieved through a development proposal with a number of regeneration strands. The development will provide a new and high quality residential offer for the town through development of 169 homes, including live/work and affordable units, to help retain and attract skilled and enterprising people.
To enhance community identity and economic activity it includes a new community building with small offi ce units over. This is augmented by off-site proposals for a new type of business premises offer - a workhub to energise and provide focus to the micro and small business sector. To support town centre regeneration the development will also deliver a new pedestrian and cycle link connecting the neighbourhood with the centre of Midsomer Norton.
The planning application was considered by the Bath and North East Somerset Planning Committee in January 2012. During the Committee proceedings the quality of the scheme was commended and the application was unanimously voted through for approval.
In the 24 years of the Practice, our team’s work has involved towns, cities and regions across the UK. Through this time we have built understanding of each area’s history, challenges, opportunities and the way its local politicians or planning authority tend to work. Through this understanding, projects can be tailored to meet acknowledged needs and often one project joins up with another as a stepping-stone on the common agenda that change management invariably needs.
WORKING WITH PLACES
In the Somer Valley, the former North Somerset Coalfi eld south of Bath, our work in Radstock and Midsomer Norton working with community organisations and landowners has helped us understand the kind of project support their towns need as they move on from a declining coal and printing industry and recover a view of their own worth and the potential economic synergies with the wider area.
In Gloucestershire 20 years of projects in the Stroud Valleys; regenerating Dursley, creating the future options for key sites in Cheltenham and Wotton under Edge have given us an appreciation of the comparative strengths, skills, challenges and opportunities of each part of this rich County. The Joint Core Strategy that links the fortunes of Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury is proving a valuable tool in understanding how the economies of each are linked.
We have worked in the West Midlands since the late 1990’s. Our understanding of the region has been helped by 15 years of project history in interpreting the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution at the Ironbridge Gorge, in restoring sporting gun makers Westley Richards back into the Birmingham Gun Quarter and more recently, in advising how 800 years of social and cultural capital in Worcestershire’s Hartlebury Castle can be put to good use for the social, environmental, economic and cultural benefi t of the County as a whole.
In North Devon – a string of projects opening up economic growth through tourism have used our experience in economic geography and development history – linking this area’s natural attractions and convenient location with our experience of designing with a keen eye for context to create new investment opportunities.
And in Greater Bristol, where we opened our new offi ce in 2010, we have seen how this great mercantile city has responded in developmental terms to its locational strengths and well established employment base, but struggles to fi nd and practice the development models in urban centres and in urban village renewal it will need in order to capitalise and respond to the pressure for growth.
London - We have been active in London, both in the heart of the city; working on several projects in Mayfair, and beyond with new build schemes in Enfi eld and Hammersmith. Building in London needs particular professional care with ground conditions, party wall and right of light constraints a highly demanding planning system and challenges of construction logistics all coming into play.
In our home city of Bath, a history of arresting the destruction of heritage in the 1960’s and 70’s introduced exceptional caution and highly centralised control of change that remains today. Planning policy is seriously out of step with the Council’s desire for regenerative change. This means projects need to be tested and presented with a strong evidential base and local Councillors involved at every stage. However, considerable work has been done with the Council to create a vision for where the City needs to go to build a sound mixed economy and new social and cultural life around the strength of the historic assets. New projects such as the redevelopment of the Somerdale site at Keynsham, or the MOD land on the City fringes can be aligned to that vision.
Nearby in Wiltshire the new Council is slowly building itself around the management opportunity local government re-organisation brings. Over 17 years of work regenerating the former industrial river corridor of Bradford on Avon has allowed us to build common agendas with planning offi cers and a host of technical consultees to facilitate the Greenland Mill and Kingston Mill projects and understand the aspirations of Bradford’s residents for their town.
REGENERATION OF BRIMSCOMBE PORT, GLOUCESTERSHIRE Brimscombe Port, at the heart of the Stroud Valleys, is a unique site with unique challenges. Once the transhipment point between River Severn trows and Thames barges, the core regeneration requirement is to deliver reinstatement of the canal and it’s basin as part of a mixed use development. However, a successful scheme requires an approach that works on a broader canvas. Working with our client Galliford Try, we have considered the potential role of Brimscombe Port within the wider Stroud Valleys, drawing on the experience of our transformational riverside development at Kingston Mills in Bradford on Avon and assessing the local economy, demographics, arts and cultural activity and market perceptions of the locality.
This work points to the potential for growing value to support the costly infrastructure provision and the potential role Brimscombe Port has to play in telling the story of a new future for the wider Stroud Valleys. The resulting concept proposal for a canal-side mixed use development of new homes, business space, cultural, community, interpretation and visitor facilities, we feel, lays the foundations for now evolving a delivery solution with the project partners, to once again establish Brimscombe Port as a thriving hub for the Stroud Valleys.
SEEKING FUTURE VIABILITY FOR WILTSHIRE MARKET TOWNSIn the current economic circumstances Local Authorities are increasingly fi nding it hard to justify the retention of historic and/or redundant building stock. These buildings, often with a high civic profi le, are conversely even harder to adapt and re-use than normal. In these circumstances Local Authorities are increasingly looking to dispose of their redundant Listed Buildings, which are often of great local value to the local population who naturally wish to see continuation of some form of community use.
Having built up over 23 years of experience in the South West, acquiring a familiarity with the market towns of the Salisbury Plain perimeter and Pewsey Vale and the way that they interrelate, we have built a working method to understand how places work, and ways to meet the community requirements with commercial reality. We have been engaged on a programme of research with community organisations, funding agencies and concerned individuals to help identify how the redundant building stock can help meet the demands of the community and its future needs.
URBAN EXPANSIONS PROPOSAL, SOMERSETIn South Somerset we have produced a masterplan and site promotion document which provides a concise summary of the opportunities and suitability of land in terms of its attributes and relationship to the emerging strategy for growth in market towns. We have been able to demonstrate that new development has the potential to deliver signifi cant benefi ts including the provision of a variety of housing as well as contributing towards the wider physical and social infrastructure of the area. The concept masterplan takes into account the opportunities and constraints identifi ed jointly with a technical project team and shows how the site could be developed to create a sustainable new community embracing high quality design in a rural landscape setting.
LISTING REVIEWSAny person or organisation can apply to English Heritage to have a building added to the Statutory List of Buildings Protected for their Architectural or Social Value. Where a building’s community value is being neglected this process might be stimulated by concerned neighbours or a local planning authority. All listings are periodically reviewed and this process often brings a wholly new class of structures, previously less valued, into the listing frame. Having a building listed can signifi cantly compromise the redevelopment plans of a landowner.
When listing is proposed owners have the opportunity to prepare and present a case as to why this should not happen, based on the buildings’ merits alone. The risk of listing can be pre-empted by applying for what is known as a Certifi cate of Immunity from Listing that, if granted, cannot then be re-appraised in less than 5 years.
Based in the World Heritage City of Bath, a city with 6000 listed structures, it is no surprise that an awareness of history and its value shapes all our work. We offer the combined experience of several of our team who have particular qualifi cations and experience in advising on how issues of Conservation Area Character and Listed Buildings impacts should be addressed in preparing Heritage Statements, in Listing Reviews and in the role of Expert Witness when heritage issues come under scrutiny.
However, as each project has exposed our team to new areas of the country, the lessons history has to teach us are seen as more profound. The historic environment that survives is only the evidence of the past phases of activity that allowed it to be created and the quality of social and cultural life it brought into the world.
WORKING WITH HISTORY
Threshing Barns, GloucestershireTrowbridge Town Hall
Hartlebury Castle, Worcestershire Lansdown Place East, Bath
ASSESSING 20TH CENTURY STRUCTURESThis former Royal Mail sorting depot occupies a large site with river frontage that the Local Authority have earmarked for redevelopment under Enterprise Area Status. The depot was built in the 1930’s as part of the post 1929 slump and depression public works programme but has been much altered and re-developed in part over the intervening years. As part of a routine Regional Listing Review, English Heritage have proposed listing the building, without making any on-site inspection but have concluded that only its river façade is of interest. In the circumstances, it is appropriate to challenge the listing as with a lack of inherent worth the value of the façade is better addressed as a contribution to the Character of the Conservation Area in which it lies than as an addition to the Statutory Lists.
The Conservation Area Character Test allows a part of the area’s fabric to be evaluated, judged and compared with the wider benefi ts a fuller partial redevelopment might bring. Our Local and National Research allowed the building to be placed and judged with a peer group by type, status, architect, degree of integrity etc. enabling this decision to be reconsidered.
A selection of our current heritage building projects.
Understanding why the built environment, good and bad, does have the form it has enables us to take this knowledge into the future in understanding and working with the pressure for change – something we have come to call Spatio-Temporal Economic Modelling (STEM). We use this to place new projects into existing or emerging agendas in both public and private sector work.
SAVING DIDMARTON MANOR
HERITAGE VALUE EXPERT WITNESS WORKBritain has a wealth of surviving historic buildings and landscapes protected by statutory designation of one kind or another. So heritage considerations crop up frequently when planning decisions are being made. If a building is protected by Listed Status will alterations proposed to it cause harm or will a new structure in its grounds, or an extension be judged detrimental to its setting? In a Conservation Area, or an historic parkland estate will a new building be harmful to the character of the Conservation Area? That requires a Conservation Offi cer to evaluate what is the existing character and then consider impact as separate stages each acquiring analysis and judgement.
Now, all planning applications, where heritage assets are present, have to be accompanied by a Heritage Statement advising the Local Planning Authority whether Heritage issues arise that will be relevant to the decision they have to make – such as the merit of what is proposed for demolition, listed curtilage or buildings, and Conservation Area Character. We have frequently provided Expert Witness advice on such issues – at planning inquiries or in the Courts, helping to throw light on the legitimate infl uence heritage issues should have in complex planning cases or appeals demanding many policy considerations be balanced and providing and interpreting historic evidence.
Claverton Manor, BathStallard Street, Trowbridge
Pro Cathedral, Bristol Hurd Library, Worcestershire Holystreet Manor, Devon
Pantglas Hall, South Wales
Working with Building Historians and other conservation specialists we were able to demonstrate to the Local Authority that the owners intentions were founded on the best interests of the building, looking to reverse many decades of neglect and restore the buildings to the state they deserve. Aided by the client’s own interest the historical research went into a level of detail well beyond that usual for a house of this listing status, including paint analysis that has identifi ed that sections of internal panelling previously thought to date from early the C20th are in fact early George III.
A once great Tudor and Stuart House was brought low by the South Sea bubble in the C18th and subsequently much reduced by fi re, and partial demolition. Nash Partnership recently secured Planning and Listed Buildings Consents for the new owners of the surviving largely Georgian Manor House, with substantially intact threshing barns, stables, cottages and cart-lodges. The fi rst phase of works to the main house - a substantial programme of conservation repairs and restoration - is due to start on site this spring, with alterations to poor quality early C20th extensions and services to make this once grand house habitable again.
A number of our recent commissions demonstrate the application of combined skills in planning, conservation, architecture and construction to achieve client value and enable delivery.
Bespoke retail facility and visitor centre, South Gloucestershire. Bespoke apartments Equus House, Bath.
Strategic land promotion, Gloucestershire.
Rural conversion creating new HQ building, Bristol. Studio extension on constrained market town site, Wiltshire.
Extension and improvements to Grade II manor house, Devon.
Residential urban extension, Somerset.Commissions with British Waterways.
