office

Student Mentoring – UWE and AUB

As part of the innovative RIBA Student Mentoring scheme organised by the team at RIBA South West Forge Design Studio have been hosting students from Year 3 of the Architecture Course at University of the West of England.

We will be holding 3 sessions, with the first two being held in the studio. David, Petra and Olympia have had the chance to meet the team and to gain a greater understanding of the office procedures and working practices.

Loretta has been showing them a number of projects and they’ve had the chance to exercise their knowledge in a number of real life scenarios which we have set ….. The Honeywood Files are not dead!!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Honeywood-File-Adventure-Building-ebook/dp/B00MSYQ11S

Also joining us has been Simone Ulyate a second year student from Arts University Bournemouth studying Interior Architecture and Design. Simone will be with us for 10 weeks and has already settled in well. She has worked on the North Brook End House application and has been actively involved in co-ordinating the application.

The photographs show part of the initiation ceremony which all visitors to the office have to endure ……. the traditional communal lunch!!

Ryder Cup Friday!!

Work never stops at Forge Design Studio ….. unless its Ryder Cup Friday!!

After a really busy spell it’s nice to have a more relaxed day in the office. A burger and beer for lunch would make it seem unlikely that productivity will improve much this afternoon!!

Go on Europe!!

5th Birthday Party Celebrations!

The sun shone all day long for our Birthday Celebrations held in the garden on Friday 6^thJuly.

Thanks to all our guests who found time in their busy schedules to join us for a glass of something cold together with an amazing paella prepared on site by the guys from The Little Catering Co.

The afternoon was a big success with fellow consultants, clients, friends and family joining the festivities. The birthday cake was unveiled and had to be eaten quickly before our sugar figures began melting in the heat!!

Notwithstanding the preparation for the party it’s been a busy time in the office with new leads and commissions being worked on in Romsey, Northampton and Luton.

Finally big thanks go to Claire, Loretta and Kaeren for organising the day and ensuring it was such a hit.

Looking forward to the next 5!!

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!

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.

Summer Garden Party

After a week of weather watch we welcomed a great number of our friends and colleagues to enjoy a glass of prosecco in the garden at The Forge on Friday 10th. We managed to dodge most of the showers however the new sail shades were called into action briefly and proved to be almost waterproof!

The effort that everyone made to attend was much appreciated and it was a great chance to catch-up with progress within the office. The conversion of The Forge was much admired by those that hadn’t previously visited the office – it is hard to believe that, not only have been in the new space for more than a year, but we are coming up to our third birthday.

Time passes quickly when you enjoying yourself!!

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