RETROFIT FOR BLACK MOUNTAINS COLLEGE – great news that BMC has won a Levelling Up grant to renovate a derelict Victorian school in Talgarth and expand their campus. We are working with them to create new learning and shared co-working spaces for use by the college and wider community – the construction of the school in 1870’s pictured above.
ON SITE – a new house on the River Loddon is rising out of the ground. Taking cues from our previous Ty Hedfan river side house, it is elevated on stilts with living spaces hovering over the water and within the trees.
TALGARTH TALKS – we caught the second in a series of talks organised by our clients, Black Mountains College, a university founded as a response to the climate and ecological emergency. Writer and naturalist Carwyn Graves took us through a fascinating journey into the human and ecological history of Wales. Talgarth Talks
AJ RETROFIT JUDGE – Sarah is delighted to be judging this important award which saw our Ty Pawb project as Overall Winner in 2019.
NEW STUDIO – we are upgrading our Voss Street office which should be completely finished in April – party time!
WALES WEEK – we celebrated another great Wales Week event at the RIBA with an exhibition, talks and an amazing ceramic installation by Ruth Peterson created in memorial of the Grenfell victims.
BETTER BIKE SOCIAL – Judith Sykes and Sarah were really excited to present VeloCity at the kick off of this mini-bike festival curated by Joe Morris of Morris+Company. More here
HAGGERSTON CAREERS DAY – we participated in another school event that was all about promoting careers in the creative arts.
RIBAJ PiP WEBINAR – As author of the Infrastructure and Placemaking chapter in the RIBA Rethink Design Guide, Sarah shared insights on VeloCity’s current work with Blenheim Estates on growth and connectivity in the countryside.
MAYOR’S ‘DESIGN FUTURE LONDON’ CHALLENGE – Sarah is honoured to be mentoring teenagers from Ark Globe Academy to design solutions for the Mayor’s competition that seeks to improve our city’s public spaces.
CAREERS DAY AT HAGGERSTON SCHOOL – a month of sharing experiences saw us participate in a careers day for Years 7&8 at a local Hackney school.
GUERILLA TACTIC SPEED MENTORING – another event which saw FY sharing experiences and knowledge with young architects in the early stages of their careers.
KINGSTON UNIVERSITY ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS – FY were more than happy to share our work and approach with Year 1 architecture students who chose to study our practice as part of a course assignment.
HOME MADE – VeloCity is part of this exhibition at CID Grand Hornu in Belgium presenting new opportunities for home working in the countryside. Exhibition runs from Oct 2023 to Feb 2024.
BUILDING TOURS – two in the same month! Sarah took TAC members on a tour of the B&W Building in Shoreditch, a fully engineered timber building designed by architects Waugh Thistleton who gave us hugely informative insights into the challenges they faced. The second was to Appleby Blue Almshouse, this time arranged by Clare Treanor for our cycling friends, a brilliant reimagination of the traditional almshouse, designed by architects Witherford Watson Mann.
CIVIC TRUST JUDGING – we had a very enjoyable day visiting entries which included public realm interventions in Bromyard and an impressive renovation of Hay Castle which had a fantastic animation of the building’s history projected on the walls of the Medieval Keep, pictured here.
25 YEARS ON – we are upgrading our Voss Street office and house next door – watch this space for finished pics!
CENTRAL ST MARTINS – we took our students from MA Narrative Environments on a field trip to Thamesmead and saw an amazing transformation from dystopia to utopia.
TY HEDFAN ON MODERNIST ESTATES – delighted that our Ty Hedfan joins an impressive array of architect designed holiday lets on Stefi Orazi’s amazing Modernist Estates website. You can book to stay at Ty Hedfan here.
THE ARCHITECTURE CLUB PARIS TRIP – thanks to Narinda Sagoo, a group of us had an amazing day visiting the Foster Retrospective at the Pompidou, made even better with Birkin Haward fondly recounting his time working at Fosters.
LAND MANAGEMENT – HOW CAN IT HELP US REACH NET ZERO? – Sarah spoke about VeloCity alongside Rachel Fisher, Deputy Director of Land Use Policy at DEFRA, Sarah Cary, Exec. Director of Housing Regeneration Development, Enfield Council and rewilding expert Lulu Urquhart, hosted by The Conduit and chaired by Piers Taylor. More here.
RURAL 20 MINUTE NEIGHBOURHOODS – Judith Sykes and Sarah joined keynote speaker Professor Carlos Moreno, creator of the ’15-minute city’ concept, at the Town & Country Planning Association’s webinar focussed on how we can create compact and connected communities in rural areas. Listen here.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT WSA SHOW OPENING – we were honoured to speak about our work around the theme of ADAPT at the Welsh School of Architecture Student Show.
VENICE CYCLE TRIP – Velocity team join cycling friends on a tour around the Italian mountains, culminating in Venice for the opening of the Architecture Biennale.
BEFIRST COMPETITION– FY are very pleased to be part of the Waugh Thistleton team shortlisted for the BeFirst Framework for housing and mixed use developments in Barking and Dagenham – all fingers crossed!