civic are developing designs for a scheme to modify the existing Rainham ROYALS Youth Centre for Havering Council and Design for London. The project aims to create a new space within the roof of the existing building to create a youth enterprise space. The new space will have a mix of formal and informal work spaces ranging from fixed workstations and hotdesks to sofas and chairs, allowing a mixture of learning and social settings.

Becketts Atelier is a new re-furbished house in the woods, remodeled from an old timber-framed studio positioned on the edge of the Greenbelt in Surrey. The new building serves as an addition to a main five bedroom dwelling in over three acres of Bluebells and woodland, a stunningly modernist house in an area of 'Arts and Crafts' mansions.

When the client originally bought the property, it had been semi-occupied by a mother and son for over twenty years, who emigrated to France. They had used the space as a workshop, artist's studio and living quarters while the main house was under construction, and had also used it to prototype construction details for the main building. The main house was published, shortly after it was finished, in Homes and Gardens, May 1968.

When the client engaged Civic, they had already skilfully procured planning permission to convert the cabin into a two-bedroom single-storey dwelling. This is no mean feat on the edge of the Greenbelt. Civic then developed the detailed proposals for the Atelier within the parameters of the planning permission, developing the design of the internal plan and the design of the building’s relationship to its surrounding landscape, in particular.

The main contractor was chosen for his experience of working with timber, linked to constructing ‘garden buildings’ rather than dwellings. Close collaboration between the builder, the client and Civic during a builder-led ‘on site’ phase has meant that it has been possible to achieve a really elegant, simple dwelling on a very modest capital budget.

The Gamlingay Community Centre is the first community centre in the country to incorporate three different passive technologies without fossil fuel backup, including photovoltaics to produce electricity and solar water heaters and a ground source heat array to provide heating and hot water.

Since the remodelled building re-opened in February 2012, it has provided the sort of facilities small communities aspire to, including a library, a large hall for sport and functions, a kitchen, a café/servery, changing rooms, a new dance studio and a Parish Council office. With additions to the front creating a more welcoming entrance, foyer and office, and a timber framed dance hall at the east end, the centre has increased its floor area by 60% and further enhanced its sustainability credentials by its re-use of the existing building, instead of demolition.

The design considers the typology of the local region, pitching the new centre between the scale of the domestic house and an agricultural shed. The colours and material qualities of the scheme also draw on the local context and relate the building to the natural, rural environment.

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"Despite its long gestation, the Eco Hub feels like a project of striking relevance to our present situation. If any building suggests what the architecture of Cameron's Big Society might look like, this surely is it.".

Ellis Woodman, Executive Editor of Building Design 4.5.12

civic’s Dan Jones and Frederik Rissom collaborated with artist Barry Martin, Harriet Harriss and students from Oxford Brookes' University School of Architecture DS2 together with Alex Gimenez Imirizaldu and students from Barcelona's Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya on a temporary public realm project below one of London’s busiest traffic junctions.

In the self directed project, they set themselves the task of repurposing the unpromising space; considering its kinaesthetic qualities and responding to the issue of homelessness. After two days of scoping and plotting they began.

One group in orange hats strode around banging things with orange sticks, a response to the noise of the roaring traffic which assaults pedestrians in three dimensions. It was also a convenient way of attracting attention in an area people tend to march through with their heads down, en route to somewhere less hostile.

Another group marked out the dimensions of a flat in the Trellick Tower using tape. They created a “home”, complete with cardboard TV and flowers, into which they could invite passers-by to come and discuss housing and public space.

The aim of the project was to respond to the latent beauty and dynamism of the space in a provocative and captivating way.

On compeltion Dan, Fred, Harriet and the students will fly immediately to Barcelona to work on a similar exchange there.

Tidworth Development Trust had the idea to build a community resource center after conversations with their Management Committee concluded that... ‘there is no community heart in Tidworth, there’s nothing for the whole community.’ The new Community Resource Centre was seen as an opportunity to create a community heart for Tidworth that was run wholly for the benefit of local people. 

Carried out under the employment of Penoyre & Prasad Architects, this was designed for the Peabody Trust under the ‘Rough Sleepers’ Initiative’ to provide permanent single bedroom flats for 12 residents alongside an office and residential space for support staff.

We also acquired funding for a series of on site consultations and ‘design walks’ with homeless people from the nearby hostel on Mare Street, under the Royal Society of Arts’ ‘Year of the Artist’ fund.

Working closely with the Bridge Housing Trust. (support team), artist Nayan Kulkarni and the homeless people we developed a set of materials that would create a familiar environment for residents of this building - and that would not be ‘too new’ to them when moving in. A series of window seats in the stairwell were upholstered with old leather jackets to give a familiar smell and texture to those waiting for interviews or to speak to friends in a semi-private area of the building.

The building design was imagined with a hard urban face in brick which then encloses a softer, landscaped courtyard that serves as a private shared garden for the residents.

The scheme reorganised the entire split-level ground floor of a Victorian terraced house to get more effective use from the space. A principal aim was to make a small extension to the sitting room without destroying an existing suntrap - now a courtyard - to the side of the house.

Heavily textured courtyard walls pick up sunlight as it falls and help bounce it further into the dining room. The Courtyard is painted in domestic colours to imply interior walls and the continuation of the Dining room outside.

Oversized roof lights make generous pockets of extra head room inside the sitting room. Large sheets of double-glazing are clamped by patent glazing bars each side making simple windows at minimum cost.

From the Kitchen there are views through the dining room and sitting room, towards a segment of garden foliage and sky. What you see is a succession of frames, each overlaid on the next.

Stepping down from the hall way by the front door, a body sized vestibule in the swing of the kitchen door is like the inside of a wardrobe, lined out in American cherry.