Fun crowd at the RIBA South West and Wessex last night, where The Orchards with @prewettbizleyarchitects and @makegroupuk picked up an award. It was great to catch up with everyone, hope you’re all drinking lots of water today!
Giving back. Caroline has been helping out architecture students with their final projects @wsofarchi… …and Austen has been to @bathcollege a couple of times to help demystify the design process to HNC students (including our own appre
We took a trip down to the Levels recently to check progress on our new house with @rural_office which is nearing completion. The stonework is another level, with a beautifully cut ashlar by @wellscathedralstonemasons and general stonework by local
As ever, slightly late to the party - but it was lovely news to hear that The Orchards had received a South West RIBA award recently. The structure was timber throughout, lovingly conceived by @prewettbizleyarchitects and built with care by @makegro
Exploring ideas for a timber roof structure to allow year round skating. Suspect there are a few closet skaters around these parts who would love it!
Thought I would share some photos from the construction of The Orchards, features in the AR last month. The envelope is highly insulated full fill timber frame, with i-joists for walls and roof, some chunks of glulam (no steel!), airtight boards to t
Site progress in Farnham where a new courtyard house designed with @johnpardey_jpa is starting to take shape. We choose timber construction where a wall or short spans, and then add steel only where it’s needed to deal with long spans or close
We were recently up in Corris (southern Snowdonia) for a speedy site visit. Groundworks underway for the extensions to this lovely former rectory turned B&B, designed with @hallbednarczyk. Its dominant position was apparently to allow the vicar
Back in Bridgwater today poking in roofs, so took the opportunity to take a look at how Phase 1 of the theatre work had turned out. New seats and massively refurbished dressing rooms looking sharp. We should be back on site in the spring for the lar
Last week saw the opening of the Low Carbon Technology Training Centre at Hereford College’s Holme Lacy campus. Working with YNGR Design the former stables building has been converted to education spaces teaching sustainable energy technologie
We’ve even had a go at 3D reinforcement detailing, where Revit will produce reinforcement drawings and schedules direct from the model. Again, it’s maybe not quite as simple as it should be so we’ll carry on using the experts for
Steel detailing in 3D is a lot more fiddly than expected, but we’re getting there… There is something to be gained here as we can use our analysis software to check connections - making the whole process more joined up. It’s blurr
Working in 3D also really comes into its own when working on complex sites where we can add the topography, and sometimes below ground strata to get a good feel for retained heights and foundation depths early in the process. Being able to draw it a
We’ve been pressing on with 3D design this year, trying to make the most of our software (given the cost!). We really believe that working in 3D allows us to quickly spot things that may become coordination and detailing issues later through t
Nice to get a name check on the side of the Roundhouse at the Stirling prize last week, the extension at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw was up for the Stephen Lawrence prize. @markwrayarch were there in person whilst @sandersonsculpture and us waited for a messa
The summer has been a juggle of holidays with project deadlines, the main one being getting the tender pack for the final two phases of our project at Bridgwater Town Hall. The largest parts of the scheme being the technical upgrade of the theatre an
We also managed to grab some time off, visiting the amazing @lesmachinesntes in Nantes (amazing - you should all go!) and spending some time on the coast. We missed Caroline, JamesM and Jing who weren’t able to come, will make sure they’
We also saw stacks of glulam sections being produced, with very careful finger joints cut, glued, sawn to length and then pressed into new beams. The glued joints are significantly stronger than the parent timber, and samples of the joint are regul
Acres of beautifully sawn and planed timber ready to be finger jointed and glued into CLT panels ready for distribution across Europe; boards -> gluing -> pressing -> machining The level of automation across the plant was eye-opening for a
#FoldFieldTrip. We’ve just spent a fascinating day at #piveteaubois in the Vendeé seeing how trees get turned into glulam and CLT. The level of technology involved in optimising what each tree can produce is mind boggling. Each incomi