The Business Sept / Oct


News and pictures from the design sector


Duravit White Tulip Design Competition in partnership with FX magazine

Duravit, in partnership with FX, has just launched its White Tulip Design Competition, coinciding with the launch of the new White Tulip bathroom series by Philippe Starck.

The collection was inspired by a single source – the silhouette of a tulip in bloom – which lends its distinct shape to all components.

The competition invites UK interior designers involved in the specifying of bathroom spaces for either commercial or residential projects to submit a design for a project using the White Tulip series – for a chance to win those specified products, up to a value of £15,000 (excluding VAT).

The design must be for an actual project that will be realised by 30 September 2022. The competition is open only to UK entrants, and the project must be located in the UK too. Entries will be accepted between 1 October 2021 and 7 January 2022, and winners will be announced in February 2022.

The judges will be making their decisions based on the creativity of the design and its use of the White Tulip series to overcome design challenges, as well as the overall success of the reimagined space.

The judging panel is: Philippe Starck; Jane Lawrence, head of interiors at Knight Dragon Developments; Theresa Dowling, group editorial director of FX; Mia Karlsson, interior designer with her own design consultancy and one of the council of directors for the British Institute of Interior Design; and Martin Carroll, managing director of Duravit UK.

For the full terms and conditions and all information on how to enter, visit: www.duravit.co.uk/designcompetition


The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, San Diego

The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, San Diego. Image Credit: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, San Diego. Image Credit: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY

The Rady Shell in San Diego, which opened on 6 August, was developed to bring world-class acoustics to outdoor performances. The project’s inception dates back 18 years, and is a collaboration between the San Diego Symphony; Soundform (Flanagan Lawrence, ES Global, and Expedition), designer of the performance shell, a smaller version of which was commissioned for the London 2012 Olympic Park; and Tucker Sadler Architects (TSA), lead designer on the project, responsible for expanding the shell design for a permanent structure on the Jacobs Park site. Other collaborators include: Shawn Murphy, Meyer Sound, Salter, Fabritecture, HLB, Schuler Shook, Gardiner & Theobald, Coffman Engineers, and Burton Studio.

The site features backstage artist support spaces, three professional kitchens, underground toilets, a sloped seating area for up to 10,000 people, and a public park.
www.tuckersadler.com | www.flanaganlawrence.com

Design Guild Mark 2022 call for entries open

The Design Guild Mark has launched its call for entries for the 2022 awards, inviting designers and companies to submit designs from 22 September 2021 across three categories: furniture; textile, wall coverings, surfaces, carpets and floor coverings; and lighting. The award, from The Furniture Makers Company, is in its 13th year.
www.designguildmark.org.uk

Cameron Rowley wins The Conran Shop’s Designer of the Future Award

Kingston University graduate Cameron Rowley has won the inaugural Designer of the Future Award from The Conran Shop. Established to continue Sir Terence Conran’s legacy of nurturing and promoting new designers, at £40,000 it is the highest value award for UK design. The prize will be invested into developing and marketing Rowley’s design into an exclusive retail product. The judging panel included architect Lord Foster and designer Anya Hindmarch. The judges said: ‘Sir Terence Conran always voiced a philosophy of good design being “plain, simple, useful”. This is a good solution to a frequent challenge; its purpose is easy to see and understand. Elegantly executed, it also serves as a great looking product.’ The award is supported by the Marandi Foundation, a provider of training and educational opportunities for disadvantaged communities and young people in the UK. The dozen finalists and their designs can be found on The Conran Shop’s website:
www.conranshop.co.uk/new-designers

Sheppard Robson announces new partners

Architectural practice Sheppard Robson and its interior design group ID:SR has announced four new partners and several senior promotions across its offices in London, Manchester and Glasgow. The new partners are Anna Shapiro, Laura Matthews, Marie Leyland (who leads ID:SR in the north of England and Scotland) and Nick Hacking. There are also 12 new associate partners and 19 new associates, as well as other promotions in central support roles. Andrew German, managing partner, commented: ‘Giving people space to progress is part of the Sheppard Robson DNA, and it’s wonderful to see so many of our team take up senior leadership roles. The promotions recognise the contribution these members of the team make to the continued success of Sheppard Robson, as well as our confident outlook for the future.’ www.sheppardrobson.com


Nur, an installation at Folkestone Mosque, launches at Folkestone Triennial

Nur, an Arabic word meaning light, day, illumination, edification and clarity, is an installation at Folkestone Triennial by a collaborative team of architect Shahed Saleem, Malaysian artist Wong Hoy Cheong and Folkestone-based artist Simon Davenport. The installation features a colourful ‘lantern’ in the courtyard of Folkestone Mosque; at ten metres in height, the pentagonal steel structure fitted with colourful acrylic panels hopes to draw in both local residents and Triennial visitors.

Nur, an installation at Folkestone Mosque, launches at Folkestone Triennial. Image Credit: THIERRY BAL
Nur, an installation at Folkestone Mosque, launches at Folkestone Triennial. Image Credit: THIERRY BAL

The tower’s lantern is an ‘incomplete and precarious’ mashrabiyya (lattice screen) with acrylic panels laser cut with designs from a children’s field trip and workshop. From this, motifs and designs will be developed to feature in the future mosque.

The project follows Wong Hoy Cheong’s previous installation for the 2017 Triennial, which created a temporary facade on the Islamic Cultural Centre.

For 2021, with financial support from Creative Folkestone, the collaborators led dialogue with the mosque’s congregation and its wider community through surveys, focus groups and workshops in order to gather their ideas and aspirations for the mosque. Issues raised concerned maintenance, the need for new wudhu (ablution) facilities and larger gathering spaces, but also a desire to explore intersections in diversity.

An outdoor exhibition will document the mosque’s history as well as collected oral histories from the community, while the architectural proposal will be shown in the courtyard.
www.creativefolkestone.org.uk


JRA’s redesign of former Fleet Street Daily Mail building Approved

Designs by John Robertson Architects (JRA) for the refurbishment of Grade II-listed Northcliffe House, the former Fleet Street office of the Daily Mail newspaper until the late 1980s, have been approved by the City of London Corporation.

JRA’s redesign of former Fleet Street Daily Mail building approved
JRA’s redesign of former Fleet Street Daily Mail building approved

The proposals include additional office space on the upper three floors; a redesigned hotel-style lobby; an improved office environment with internal atrium and new amenities; and roof terraces with urban greening, (to be treated as Covid-friendly ‘outdoor workspaces’).

The design references the newspaper industry and the ‘roaring 20s’ of the building’s heritage.
www.jra.co.uk


Cherrill Scheer receives inaugural Stanley Wharton Award

Cherrill Scheer has been awarded the inaugural Stanley Wharton Award for exemplary services to the UK furnishing industry. The award is given by The Furniture Makers’ Company, the City of London livery company and charity for the furnishing industry, and is named after the company’s first master, Stanley Wharton.

Cherrill Scheer receives inaugural Stanley Wharton Award
Cherrill Scheer receives inaugural Stanley Wharton Award

Scheer, a member for 20 years, was selected to receive the prize by immediate past master Dids Macdonald in 2020, who commented: ‘Cherrill Scheer’s contribution, over many decades, as the doyenne of the office furniture world, selling 40 million units of the Hille polypropylene chair, the iconic 1963 classic, is seismic. Hille – 75 years of British Furniture was published for the V&A exhibition in 1981 and, because of Cherrill’s forward-thinking global design strategy, has achieved a significant international reach. Her tireless support of the Design Guild Mark has helped it to become recognised as one of the very highest standards in the design of furnishings for volume production today.’

Scheer holds fellowships from the Chartered Society of Designers and the Royal Society of Arts, as well as an honorary fellowship from Arts University Bournemouth. She has been a chairman of the Design & Industries Association, a governor of London Metropolitan University and liveryman of The Furniture Makers’ Company. She founded Cherrill Scheer & Associates in 1991 to advise the industry, and has kept in close contact with design schools to connect them with manufacturers.


Translucent HI-MACS surround illuminates central bus station, Weilheim, Germany

Translucent HI-MACS surround illuminates central bus station, Weilheim, Germany. Image Credit: STEFAN MÜLLER-NAUMANN
Translucent HI-MACS surround illuminates central bus station, Weilheim, Germany. Image Credit: STEFAN MÜLLER-NAUMANN

For the redesign of the central bus station in Weilheim, Bavaria, Atelier PK Architects chose to use a surround of HI-MACS natural acrylic stone for the 120m x 8m canopy of the new bus platform shelter. The canopy itself was designed, manufactured and assembled by Glasbau Gipser and the HI-MACS panels by Rosskopf + Partner. The cladding is made up of 390 panels, and features the lettering ‘ZOB Weilheim’ (Weilheim bus station) milled onto the band in two places. Thanks to the translucency of the durable solid surface material, used in ‘Opal’, this lettering stands out, and the whole band can be brightly illuminated in the dark.
www.himacs.eu | www.atelier-pk.com

Willmott Dixon appointed for £9.1m Broadland Food Innovation Centre

Wilmott Dixon has been appointed to deliver the £9.1m Broadland Food Innovation Centre, a partnership between Broadland District Council and the New Anglia LEP. It will be at the heart of the Food Enterprise Park located outside Norwich, supporting the growth of local food and drink companies. The project, procured using the Scape framework, comprises two linked buildings to house 13 individual units fitted out to British Retail Consortium (BRC) food hygiene grade. A landscaped ‘green street’ will bisect the two buildings, while a ring road provides access to the units for the tenants. Designed to the BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard, the site uses photovoltaic panels to generate electricity. Broadland District Council portfolio holder Jo Copplestone said: ‘The Food Innovation Centre will give us the opportunity to help new and existing businesses, nurture new ideas and enable us to process more of Norfolk’s agricultural output locally, minimising food miles and helping the environment.’
www.willmottdixon.co.uk

Arup appoints two new global directors from Nottingham office

Global firm Arup has appointed two employees from its Nottingham office as global directors: Steve Fernandez and Vicky Evans. Their local, national and international project credits include Coal Drops Yard and the St Pancras Chambers development in London, the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre near Loughborough, and the government’s £3.6bn towns fund. Fernandez joined Arup in 1999 and worked in Sheffield, London, Doha and Moscow before the Nottingham office. He leads the firm’s civil and structural engineering team across the Midlands and is the building retrofit leader for the UK, Middle East, Africa and India. He has been recognised as an ‘inspirational UK BAME innovator in science and technology’ by UKBlackTech and Goldman Sachs. Evans is a chartered town planner, she joined Arup in 2006 and has since worked for the company in South Africa, Dubai and the Seychelles. She is a specialist in housing, strategy, policy and economic development, working across the built environment regionally and nationally, and also leads the residential business for Arup across the UK, Middle East, India and Africa.
www.arup.com

MiddleCap and SPPARC complete Southworks smart office scheme

Southworks, the central London smart office scheme by MiddleCap and SPPARC, has been completed. The seven-storey, 70,000ft2 scheme was named the world’s smartest building at the Futureproof Awards and became the first UK building to achieve a Smart Building Certification Platinum certificate – the second worldwide after EDGE Amsterdam.

It aims to be a landmark ‘post-pandemic, future-proofed office’. The design is embedded with internet of things (IoT) technology developed by Dutch proptech company bGrid. A central sensor platfrom functions as the building’s ‘brain’, with sensors plugged into the HVAC system and lighting controls. The system also measures environmental variables such as internal and external air quality, density, occupancy and noise levels, while the smart sensors and IoT technologies help use air, water and electricity resources efficiently, maximising overall environmental performance. The use of OfficeApp offers desk and room booking, F&B ordering, issues reporting, as well as touchless building access and temperature and lighting controls, and live occupancy and air quality information. SPPARC’s design interprets the area’s industrial heritage, features abundant light for well-being and follows passive design principles.
www.spparcstudio.com | www.middlecap.com

Herman Miller incorporates ocean-bound plastic across its Aeron Chairs portfolio

Herman Miller will now use ocean-bound plastic – plastic waste found near waterways – across its entire portfolio of Aeron Chairs. This move is projected to save over 150t of plastic annually, or approximately 15 million plastic water bottles. This is part of the company’s commitment to use 50% recycled content in all materials by 2030; it is also a member of the NextWave Plastics consortium, an open-source collaboration of technology companies and consumer brands created to develop the first global network of ocean-bound plastics supply chains. ‘We’re doing more than making an environmental impact,’ said Bob Teasley, director of supply management at Herman Miller. ‘By working with coastal communities around the world to harvest ocean- bound plastic, we’re increasing demand, creating jobs and boosting economies.’ www.hermanmiller.com


Fabrix appoints Hawkins\ Brown to renovate Victorian warehouse in Southwark

Hawkins\Brown has been appointed by investment manager and developer Fabrix to reimagine a Victorian warehouse in Southwark. Fabrix has a strong track record in repurposing existing buildings with a sustainable approach, while Hawkins\Brown previously refurbished the neighbouring 53 Great Suffolk Street, a 1890s warehouse transfomed into office space that won an RIBA National Award.

Fabrix appoints Hawkins\ Brown to renovate Victorian warehouse in Southwark
Fabrix appoints Hawkins\ Brown to renovate Victorian warehouse in Southwark

The Grade II-listed 55 Great Suffolk Street warehouse is currently on Historic England’s ‘at risk’ register. It will undergo a careful restoration, retaining and celebrating its unique heritage features, and the existing structure will be kept along with its original Victorian elements such as block glass windows, thin cast-iron columns, loading bays, manual hoists and a timber staircase. Paul Hicks, senior development manager at Fabrix, said: ‘55 Great Suffolk Street will be an exemplar project demonstrating how heritage buildings can be sustainably refurbished, adding value while cutting carbon.’

Nick Gaskell, partner and workplace sector lead at Hawkins\Brown, said: ‘Revitalising one of central London’s last unaltered Victorian warehouses will create a contextual yet forward-looking development that contributes to the ongoing story of the Southwark neighbourhood. Our work will bring this building that is currently at risk and under protection back into use as a contemporary but characterful commercial building that will benefit the borough’s lively workforce.’ www.fabrix.london | www.hawkinsbrown.com


Museum of London acquires pieces from contemporary makers

Museum of London acquires pieces from contemporary makers
Museum of London acquires pieces from contemporary makers

The Museum of London has acquired work by 15 London-based contemporary artists and makers, including a chair by Yinka Ilori, for its new temporary display, London Making Now. Ilori’s chair, What God Has Joined Together, Let No Man Put Asunder (pictured left) is joined by works from Adi Toch, Alison Cooke, Claire Partington, Eleanor Lakelin, Emily Frances Barrett, James Shaw (pictured right), Laura Carlin, Loraine Rutt, Matthew Raw, Piotr Frac, Rachael South, Renee So, Romilly Saumarez Smith and Simone Brewster.

Museum of London acquires pieces from contemporary makers
Museum of London acquires pieces from contemporary makers

The exhibition reflects on London’s long history of making and how it continues to the present day. www.museumoflondon.org.uk








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