Welcome to the July 2005 news from Richard Murphy Architects.
Our fourteenth RIBA award!
“Galeri”, the Creative Enterprise and Performing Arts Centre in Caernarfon, North Wales has been awarded an RIBA Regional Award, one of only two in the Wales Region of the RIBA. The Award was announced at the RIBA Awards Dinner at the Hilton Hotel in London on 17 June. See the project page on our website for further information on the project.
This Award, the fourteenth in the Practice’s thirteen year history, is our first for a building outside Scotland and confirms the Practice’s reputation as the leading design Practice north of the border and ranks us fourth in the UK – wide league table of Award winning Practices.
And another...
The Tron Square Housing project we designed for Buredi has also received the Best Mixed Development award from the UK National Homebuilders Association.
Major new university commission in London
The University of East London has awarded the Practice a new £12 million commission for new buildings at their Stratford Campus in London which includes a Learning Resource Centre, a Computer Centre and new premises for the Faculty of Law and Department of Education. The commission follows our success in achieving planning permission from Newham Council for a Masterplan of the campus. The Department of Podiatry and Physiology on the same campus is already taking shape with the steel frame already in place.
Timmer Market proposals revealed in Aberdeen
In 2002 the practice won a limited competition to design housing for the Grampian Housing Association and Salvation Army at a site just beyond the North end of Union Street in Aberdeen. Various developments have taken place since, but the final design was unveiled for a pre-planning submission public consultation on Monday July 4th. The project now consists of 41 flats and maisonettes grouped around a communal garden and accessed via external staircases and terraces. The Salvation Army element has been replaced with a purpose-designed drug rehabilitation unit for NHS Grampian - the first such building, we believe, to be constructed in Scotland. Subject to public consultation, we expect to submit for planning permission towards the end of August. More information can be found here.
Murray Mills, Ancoats, Manchester lodged for planning
The first phase of this major renovation of historic Cotton Mills is about to be lodged for planning permission. The eventual £16 million project will include a hotel and textile resource centre but this first phase is the conversion of the 1798 Old/Decker Mill and New Mill into 112 residential units and 1700 m2 of office space in a joint venture between Inpartnership Limited and the Burrell Company.
George Square Cafe, Glasgow
A competition promoted by Glasgow City Council was sadly abandoned at the judging process. Nevertheless our proposal is now published on our website. Our design placed the café along the western edge of the square, rearranged the statues as a parade and incorporated the equestrian statues of Victoria and Albert under the café roof. A long thin design, the café would view a redesigned square and the City Chambers while a light wall sculpture by Peter Fink would confront the street.
We hope the project will be revisited in the light of design thinking for the square as a whole.
Summer Exhibitions
The Royal Scottish Academy Summer Show, which runs from 13 August to 26 September, will exhibit the Caernarfon Galeri Project and also a model of the revised design for the Sean Connery Filmhouse at Festival Square, Edinburgh.
This year's RIAS festival exhibition will feature ten buildings of influence constructed in Scotland in the last ten years. We are delighted that two of our buildings, Maggies Centre and Housing at Graham Square in Glasgow have been included in this selection. The exhibition is mounted at the RIAS, 15 Rutland Square, and will run from August 1st to September 2nd.
Press
Galeri Caernarfon, Creative Enterprise Centre and Theatre, and winner of a 2005 RIBA Award, is reviewed in the July issue of Prospect magazine - with the title “Remote Galeri Caernarfon is Richard Murphy’s contribution to a region’s renaissance. Their design for this creative hub revels in the complex needs of a remote area”.
In the same issue Prospect features the area of land to the north of the Holyrood Parliament Site and our Canongate Social Housing (commissioned by Old Town Housing Association and completed in 1999) is detailed.
And finally...
We are delighted to welcome Whitby and Bird Structural and Services Engineers to the Breakfast Mission. We hope to be collaborating in projects with them alongside our existing tenants Fulcrum Consulting.
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