Certificate of Lawful Development Granted

Project SI_506 Markmanor Avenue

Waltham Forest Council. Ref 2012/1297/CLP

Householder Consent Application Granted

Project SI_418 Haddon Close

Enfield Council. Ref P12-02064PLA

Feedback Forms

Project SI_517 Wavertree Road

Client satisfaction is at the top of our agenda with our new initiative begun as a response to our increased workload recently. We have designed a feedback form to distribute once we have completed a project to gather information about satisfaction with the service that we are providing. We hope to learn from the responses and also to build on our record of testimonials to show to prospective clients.

‘Melillenses En El Mundo’

A film crew from the Spanish television network Popular TV Melilla visited our studio today to film a segment for their programme ‘Melillenses En El Mundo’ or ‘Melillenses Around The World.’ The network, which is based in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, a Modernist city situated on the North coast of Africa, wedged between Morocco and Mediterranean Sea, visited our office to interview the Director of Studio Idealyc, Curro, who spent a large part of his childhood in this autonomous region of Spain which is no larger than 5 square miles.

The program follows the lifestyles and careers of different members of the community of Melilla all over the world. This particular segment will explore the work of a 'Melillense' émigré living and working in London. As part of the filming, Popular TV Melilla visited our premises in the heart of Shoreditch, as well as our innovative residential project at Underwood Road in E1 as well as our seminal project, The Hut in EC1 on Clerkenwell Road.

Despite the obvious differences between London and Curro’s native city, the interview drew upon the similarities between the multicultural fabric of both Shoreditch and Melilla, noted particularly for its varied cosmopolitan population. The Spanish members of the team were also interviewed for the series, whilst the crew also explored the daily tasks that are undertaken in the professional architectural environment, from drawing and sketching concepts to the fabrication of technical drawings for large-scale housing projects. The program will firstly be aired in Melilla, but a link to the program will also appear on our web site in due course.

Full Planning Permission Granted

Project SI_465 New King's Road

Hammersmith & Fulham Council. Ref 2012/02149/FUL

Street Art and Its Intrinsic Link With Architecture

Our Shoreditch studio is located in a part of the city synonymous with high quality Street Art, whilst the buildings around us as well as our own located within a former mosque play host to works by some of the most influential Street Artists currently marking their mark on cities all over the globe. Tour groups exploring this part of the city and its deep-rooted links with this unique artistic movement regularly congregate outside of our studio, exploring the intrinsic link between the architecture – or rather the canvas in the eyes of the artist – and the work produced.

Speaking with many of the artists who have taken up residence in the area, the pieces are conceived as a positive and engaging contribution to the area, at once a critique and a celebration of architecture and development. The works are representative of the transformation that this once unloved part of the city has undergone, providing a cultural legacy which has come to define this diverse, creatively fuelled neighbourhood.

Exploring the works further, one can begin to appreciate the way in which, like architecture, this medium is completely informed by the context in which it is situated. The respect for the structures on which the works are produced is apparent in the way the angles, form and texture of the buildings ultimately dictate the final outcome of the street art fashioned, contributing to the rich cultural fabric of this distinctive London enclave.

Feedback Forms

Project SI_471 Culford Road

Client satisfaction is at the top of our agenda with our new initiative begun as a response to our increased workload recently. We have designed a feedback form to distribute once we have completed a project to gather information about satisfaction with the service that we are providing. We hope to learn from the responses and also to build on our record of testimonials to show to prospective clients.

Reserved Matters Application Granted

Project SI_490 Ommaney Road

Lewisham Council. Ref DC/12/80866/FT

Collaborative Design At Rochester Square

Project SI_529 Rochester Square

As we begin to further develop the initial designs for what will become a dramatic reinvention of the Victorian Villa situated within the Conservation Area of Camden Square, we today invited our clients to our Studio for a meeting to discuss the utter development of the scheme. The conception of a family home is an extremely organic process, in which regular liaison and input from the client can allow for a collaborative approach to the formation of a final scheme.

The complexities and individual requirements of each individual client, along with our architectural expertise allows for the completed design to represent an amalgamation of both the architects aesthetic sensibilities along with a layout and arrangement that fully caters to the clients needs. Consultations such as these allow for both parties to fully express their intent, influencing and controlling even the smallest details of the project, ensuring the success of the design once the family is actually able to inhabit the new spaces that we have created.

This dialogue is indicative of the way in which we combine our clients wishes and preferences along with a design that manages to be both sympathetic to the original building it will intervene, as well as appropriate to its immediate context in the Camden Square Conservation Area. This complex and laborious process should result in a final scheme that has an intrinsic relationship to our clients, representative of their values with a significant level of depth and character.

Feedback Forms

Project SI_528 Brownlow Road

Client satisfaction is at the top of our agenda with our new initiative begun as a response to our increased workload recently. We have designed a feedback form to distribute once we have completed a project to gather information about satisfaction with the service that we are providing. We hope to learn from the responses and also to build on our record of testimonials to show to prospective clients.

Full Planning Permission Granted

Project SI_497 Cambridge Road

Waltham Forest Council. Ref 2012/1244

Full Planning Permission Granted

Project SI_463 Beverstone Road

Croydon Council. Ref 12/01492/P

New Appointment on Caledonian Road

Project SI_530 Caledonian Road

We have recently been appointed to develop a property on Caledonian Road, in the north of the city, leading towards Kings Cross station in the London Borough of Islington. The property is a Grade II listed townhouse situated on one of London’s most important highways - once the centre of the capitals trade in meat and livestock.

Often overlooked by its smaller more famous sibling, Smithfields Market, the Metropolitan Cattle Market once covered an area of over 30 acres situated at the northern end of Caledonian Road, on the site of what is now the Caledonian Park. Livestock from the northern counties would be bought into the city via train to both Kings Cross and St Pancras Stations, and herded up the slope that now forms Caledonian Road to the market for slaughter. The notion of scores of cattle being channelled past the elegantly proportioned properties of this road now seems absurd, though it is poignant to note that this vast market only ceased to operate just before the outbreak of World War II.

New appointments such as this in every corner of London enable us to slowly discover more about the cities hidden past and the rapid gentrification that has in many respects removed much of the soul and heart of the capital. This industrial rough gem which once fuelled the growth of the metropolis as we know it today now ironically forms the core of on of the cities green lungs, a potent indicator of the way in which the city has transformed itself.

Certificate of Lawful Development Granted

Project SI_477 Boscombe Avenue

Waltham Forest Council. Ref 2012/0724/CLP

Our Contractual Role

Project SI_470 Underwood Road

Managing skills in construction, is certainly a complex role to undertake. The more in depth a project becomes, the more elements that one must orchestrate in order to develop a successful scheme. The number of complicated factors involved with our project at Underwood Road has led us to seek outside advice in how we must present ourselves and continue to run the development, thus safeguarding ourselves against any future repercussions.

Now that we have finalised all of the aspects of the internal spaces which can be considered inaccessible from the public realm, we have had to take extra steps in ensuring the safety of those who pass by the property. The houses close proximity to three local schools in this highly residential area brings a number of additional passers by, especially children of an early age, who are particularly vulnerable to such large scale works. As a responsible contractor, we have now taken the necessary measures needed to protect both ourselves and the public from any possible disruptions.

The service that we have offered in this project is extremely rare, in terms of the amount of responsibilities that the practice has assumed. Whilst part of the reason for the practice to assume this role was to ensure the quality and cost of the design was closely controlled, another aspect was to enable us to develop the skills needed for us to advance our contractual role in the future. The registration of the site with the Considerate Constructors Scheme signals the beginning of the practices input in ensuring the smooth and safe running of projects that we advance to technical completion.

Project SI_500 Lower Marsh

We have recently submitted of a project at 45 – 46 Lower Marsh, situated within the London Borough of Lambeth, on an area of land that was only reclaimed from the banks of the Thames three hundred years ago. The area is famed for its lively market which has stood on the site for centuries, as well as for the Old Vic Theatre at the end of the popular thoroughfare. We are extremely pleased that the development of the scheme and the research which has led to the application is now in the hands of the planning authorities who will begin to process the scheme in the coming weeks.

The aim of the proposal is to create an essential new office space for the expanding company that currently occupies the upper floor of the building located within the historic Lower Marsh Conservation Area. The timber clad contemporary box is influenced and in reference to the way in which the Lower Marsh has developed over the course of hundreds of years, and represents a modern intervention into an area which has been at the forefront of change and development in the city for centuries.

In developing this proposal we are looking the expand the presence of the practice into one of the cities most recognisable districts, just minutes from the South Bank, with a distinctive structure which will interact with the myriad of architectural styles already present with the Lower Marsh.

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Unearthing The Past at Underwood Road

Project SI_470 Underwood Road

Now that the roof extension is completed at our project at Underwood Road, we have turned our attentions to the lower floors of the property, which will be developed in order the gain a larger habitable space. The removal of the existing concrete slab within the existing perimeter of the dwelling which the house was built upon revealed the lack of insulation in the original development. This issue is going to be addressed through the integration of a new thermally efficient surface which will run through the new front, side and rear extensions in a uniform manner throughout.

After our recent visit to the remarkable Brick House Project in Bayswater, designed by the Architectural Practice Caruso St John, we have decided to utilise the beauty of using natural materials such as concrete and brick, which are derivative of the landscape around them, leaving aside our original proposal for a suspended timber flooring, more typical of the Victorian era, and the industrial heritage of the land that the existing house was built upon. During our excavation of the brownfield site, we discovered the sites archeological fabric, and its position in a much larger complex of nineteenth century manufacturing facilities. Whilst the house is relatively modern, the ground beneath reveals the historical legacy of this part of London which was heavily bombed in the Second World War.

Excavating the trench for the new extension has brought us accidentally to discover that the property which in appearance seems to be a fragile delicate piece of suburban architecture built in the 1980's, in fact sits upon a series of robust invisible brick walls in which once there was the basement of a Victorian Warehouse. These findings have pushed us to develop a new structure for the extensions we have planned, which thanks to a modern engineering technique, utilises the substantial depth of the existing foundations below, which after a series of trial holes to find the base of the slab, cannot be found.

Listed Building Consent Granted

Project SI_477 Conway Street

Camden Council. Ref 2012/3755/L