tour

The Annual Forge Design CPD Day Out 2018!

This year’s annual blockbuster CPD Trip took place on Thursday 22nd November.

London was the destination: first class seats on the 9.38 to Waterloo was a good start!!

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Mike pulled a few strings, making use of a great family connection, and we checked into the new Bloomberg HQ building in London at 11.15. Special thanks to David Hellier for hosting and giving up time in his busy day to show us round. As you’ll no doubt be aware Foster + Partners won the people’s vote and were then announced as the winner of the Stirling Prize in Oct 2018. It was therefore doubly exciting to have access to the building which was truly impressive.

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A lot has been written about the building which displays a ‘state of the art’ approach to communications – from the casual inter-action of colleagues bumping into each other over a cup of coffee to a global digital age with 24 hours news coverage being broadcast from the tv studio within the building. We can only add that it is one heck of a contrast from The Forge and lunch in the garden!!

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Bloomerg – 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize Winner

We visited the Mithraeum SPACE in the basement which displays some of the 600 roman artefacts found during the construction of the building. It’s worth half an hour of your time to visit and can be found adjacent to the new Bloomberg tube station exit.

 

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This was followed by a short walk between venues, which is a bit like a spot the building competition – it’s easy to forget just how rich in architectural heritage – past and present – the square mile is.

Lunch was in Searcys at the Gherkin – giving rise to comments about our heads being in the clouds!! Restricted visibility meant that we didn’t get the full panoramic effect but it did add a certain mystical quality.

 

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Our tribute to Sir Norm continued with a trip to the British Museum – easy to lose yourselves amongst the exhibits for a few hours. The Great Court looked brilliant at dusk. As a great public space which was still full of visitors at 5.00pm it provided an interesting contrast to the rarified atmosphere of the Bloomberg.

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I want to go home!!
I want to go home!!
The average number of tablets consumed by an average British person in their lifetime...14,000!!
The average number of tablets consumed by an average British person in their lifetime…14,000!!

The “Stolen Friend”

 

Handily, the Museum is just round the corner from the Holborn Dining Rooms. A choice from 300 gins provided the traditional close to a Forge Design Studio day out!

A Waterloo M&S buffet on the first class travel home finished off the day nicely!

 

Special thanks to our Director, Mike, for organising yet another a brilliant day out featuring an exclusive building tour, first class travel, great food and lots of laughs. We will have to try very hard to top this next year!

 

 

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.

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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.

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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!

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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!