Three projects secure five top awards in the UK

RPS planning and heritage advice has helped three of our especially complex projects to secure five well-deserved leading UK awards.

We have helped secure a Housing Design Award for the Grade II Ham Mill refurbishment and site redevelopment in Somerset and New London Architecture Awards for both the London Bridge Station improvements and the Sands End Community and Arts Centre in the capital.

Read on for more details of the projects:

Ham Mill, Somerset

We provided specialist planning and heritage advice to Arab Investments for the sensitive refurbishment of the Grade II Listed Ham Mill in Stroud and redevelopment of the 2ha.site. Our involvement with this project commenced in 2007 when we sought to work with Stroud District Council with realising an alternative vision within the heavily industrialised landscape. Following a number of years, we successfully secured an allocation for the site in their new Development Plan for a residential-led development.

Extensive consulation with Heritage Officers and local stakeholders was held in order to agree parameters for dealing with this very sensitive site, on which competing objectives of preserving the heritage buildings, as well as ecological constraints, and flood risk needed to be taken into account.

The high quality of the project has been recognised with the Project Award at the recent Housing Design Awards.

The project will deliver a range of 100 new sympathetically designed residences across a mix of townhouses and apartments, featuring rubble limestone and Welsh slate construction to echo the Mill. The five-storey textile mill, dating to 1608 and operational until 2000 will be converted to 22 residential units with ground-floor commercial space.

A key component of the design was to seek to stitch into the existing residential community with a network of paths accessing the Frome riverside and communal landscaped areas open to the public.

London Bridge Station

At the New London Architecture Awards London Bridge Station secured four awards across different categories. RPS acted on a range of planning and heritage matters for the redevelopment of the new Station, recently officially reopend by HRH Prince William on 9th May. The project won awards for Transport and Infrastructure, and Sustainability as well as the Overall Prize. The improvements were a part of the government sponsored Thameslink Programme to improve journey connections and accessibility around the station and accommodate greater train capacity. The main changes comprise:

• New entrances on Tooley and St Thomas Streets.
• Improved Tube and bus links.
• Lifts and escalator access to all platforms.
• Tracks reconfigured to create nine through and six terminating platforms to reduce delays.
• A new concourse larger than the Wembley Stadium pitch due to open soon which will give access to all platforms for the first time.

Sands End Arts and Community Centre, Fulham

Our detailed advice to Mae Architects on heritage and design matters helped secure the New London Architecture Awards’ Culture and Community Award for the new Sands End Arts and Community Centre in Fulham. The centre has been planned through a process of extensive consultation betwen community groups and stakeholders with Hammersmith & Fulham Borough Council. It will be realised with investments from Thames Tideway and Chelsea FC and will be community operated. It replaces a former community centre and aims to incorporate and restore the disused Clancarty Lodge, an Edwardian park lodge in the borough’s South Park considered to be a Building of Merit. The communtiy centre is an exemplar of contemporary architectural design which will bring a new sense of vibrancy to the Hurlingham Conservation Area.

Once completed, the Sands End Arts & Community Centre will provide an exciting and flexible new meeting place and a space for creative expression for the local community.

South Park was sold to the local authority early in the 20th Century on the condition that it was to be kept as a public park for the community’s benefit For the Edwardians this included refreshment rooms, a cricket pavilion, sports courts and pitches, public conveniences, bandstand, shelters and a gymnasium.

The Edwardian era lodge is being sensitively restored and refurbished together with a replacement extension to provide a community centre with space available for hire, café, nursery and conveniences.