community

Gin CPD Tour 2017!

We followed up the success of last year’s away day with another CPD Trip on Friday 3rd November.

This year the simple instruction was to make sure we left our car at home!

After rendezvousing nice and early, Claire, Loretta, Mike and Nick, set off in the fog from Southampton Parkway just before 9.00am and headed to the new Children’s Centre at Tadley by the architects, Ayre Chamberlain Gaunt. A modest building on a tight site to a very restricted budget this shows you what can be done with dedication, determination and creativity. An admirable scheme which has been very well received by the community it serves.

From Tadley we headed south to Kings Worthy, home to the latest site led by the HAB company, founded by Kevin McCloud. For those that don’t know –

HAB stands for Happiness Architecture Beauty

“These are the values we hold dear. We were set up by Kevin McCloud in 2007 to challenge the way identikit volume housing was built in the UK. The houses and places we build respect the local context and biodiversity; are strongly rooted in history, landscape and the community; and are sustainable, beautiful and a pleasure to live in”
Click here for more information.

The architect is Jon Pardey and the completed buildings, garden and external spaces were looking very good in the autumn sunshine. The quality, compared to many other standard ‘issue’ housing schemes was very impressive! Whatever you might you think of Grand Designs this development is certainly trying to improve the standard of everyday housing.

Lunch was held at the River Cottage Restaurant in Winchester courtesy of Hugh! – another high recommendation in great surroundings

For the last stop of the day we travelled north to Laverstoke Mill, the home of the Bombay Sapphire Distillery – Thomas Heatherwick was responsible for the masterplan and regeneration of the mill including the amazing greenhouses. It was only polite to indulge in the Gin cocktail Masterclass!

The ‘Laverstoke’ was a firm favourite amongst the cocktails – if you haven’t visited you should try and get along to see it and sample the experience!

Special thanks to our Director, Mike, for organizing a brilliant day out filled with 3 interesting projects and delicious gin!! All within 45 or so miles from the office, nice!

Former Brewery Site, Portslade, Brighton, Permission Granted!!

We are delighted to confirm that the final proposals for the regeneration of the Former Brewery Site at Portslade were approved at Brighton and Hove City Council Planning committee on 9^th August. After healthy discussion, the vote was carried by a majority of 10:1 and the next chapter for the site can proceed.

Ground Floor and Workshop building to accommodate Phoenix Arts.

The final scheme includes 48 homes of which 11 are new build, 7 are renovations of the existing cottages and 30 are apartments created within the original Victorian Building. Parking and access is created within a new shared courtyard which will also provide a valuable area of open amenity space.

In addition, Phoenix Arts, Brighton are the likely tenants for the 6,500 sqft of studio/gallery/café space proposed for the ground floor of the Tower and Workshops fronting onto the High St. This is a particularly exciting element of the scheme as it will provide further much-needed, low rent studio space for Brighton’s creative community.

Detail of renovated tower.

The scheme has involved a tremendous effort by the whole team, who have tackled numerous demanding technical challenges, and represents approximately 24 months of hard work.

We look forward to being involved in the next stage of the project.

Competition Entry

Amongst a busy schedule we managed to fit in time to submit an entry to the RIBA Competition for a Co-living Project in Forest Gate, London.

The intention was to have some fun with the project, so when faced with the brief, which asked us to select one object which represented the concept of Co-living, in true Forge Design Studio we thought of our stomachs!!

Competition 1

A well known brand of sweets seemed to perfectly encapsulate the idea of community, individuality and connectivity. Unfortunately, the judges were obviously not ready for this and we didn’t get short-listed. Too bad. However, it was a really enjoyable exercise and gave us the excuse to buy several bags of Revels to have with our coffee in the studio.

Competition 2

Attached are 2 of the 4 sheets that we submitted. We thought you might like to see them!

Forge Design’s ‘Open Studio’

We are looking forward to holding an ‘Open Studio’ event on Saturday 17th September.

Over the last three years we have been lucky enough to have worked on a great variety of projects including schemes for a number of our neighbours! The ‘Open Studio’ will be an opportunity for us to meet a wider cross-section of the local community, whilst inviting them into the office to see, and learn more about, what we do.

Further details will be released shortly. Watch local press for details

Please see our contact page for our address and other details.