Nash Partnership
Buildings are big investments for whoever commissions them – for institutions, businesses, commerce, industry, for health, for leisure and for living.
It is important that buildings work and serve their owners and users well. An architect’s role is to engage with clients to explore and articulate their needs, leading them through the complications of bringing something new or much remodelled into existence. Architects draw in, brief, manage and co-ordinate the inputs of a diverse range of specialist consultants. They also test options, balance aspirations with budget and value for money, ensuring that, in use, each building will perform and mature well.
But buildings do not happen in isolation. A large part of what architects do is show that new buildings and major changes to existing structures would not
be detrimental to the values our society seeks to protect through the statutory planning process.
person involved has a role to play, a responsibility to discharge, and a contribution to make.
Bringing a new building to completion is a complex process, given the number of specialist skills that need to be commissioned and the many routes to selecting and managing a contractor. Architects are the managers and design coordinators of this process, often referred to as Lead Consultants or Design Managers.
Working with clients and project teams to create and deliver significant projects is all about team work. It means recognising each
This portfolio records a selection of our most recent and mainly new build projects. These projects show our practical experience across a wide range of building types and sectors – from housing and bespoke offices to buildings for the healthcare, manufacturing, culture and leisure sectors.
Many of our bespoke commissions have been completed for clients for whom such investments happen infrequently. In such cases, the early stages of brief development are really important. Most have involved sites which are sensitive either through their historic context or in relation to established planning policy, and for which carefully considered arguments had to be constructed.
Our team is here to help clients consider what they want their buildings to be for their users and how they will present to the outside world.
Hitachi Capital Headquarters
Trowbridge
We created a new, elegant, eco-friendly office campus for global commercial brand Hitachi Capital.
With its curved office building and well-landscaped grounds, the campus embodies the company’s business values and engages with its heritage. It also plays an important role in strengthening and lifting the quality of the southern commercial gateway into Trowbridge.
“We know the new campus has achieved all our aims and we are delighted with the results, both physical and cultural.”
– Jon Lawes, Managing Director Hitachi Capital Commercial Vehicle SolutionsRoseberry Place, Bath
Roseberry Place is a key regeneration site on the western side of Bath. The site is located on one of the major routes in to the city as well as one of the main crossing routes over the River Avon.
The development proposals are for mixed-use regeneration comprising
the erection of six buildings to accommodate up to 171 flats, flexible employment floorspace (up to 4,500m² gross floorspace), local needs shopping floorspace (up to 1,350m² gross floorspace) together with all associated development including the demolition of existing buildings, site remediation,
construction of new access roads and riverside walkway/cycle path, landscaping and tree planting. Details of the means of access were approved at outline stage with the matters of appearance, landscaping, layout, and scale reserved for later approval.
Westley Richards, Birmingham
We helped relocate this famous sporting gun manufacturer to a new site in the Birmingham gun quarter. This resulted from the compulsory purchase of their existing building for a new road scheme.
By combining a new-build factory with restored and converted 19th century brick warehouses, we have created a working and visitor environment suitable for a firm whose products depend wholly on highly skilled and visually refined craft-workmanship for a global market.
As some of the client’s specialist machines (such as their water lathe) are sensitive to vibration, areas of the reinforced concrete floor were purpose designed to incorporate isolated concrete bases. The end result is a new, fresh premises which enables our client to showcase its entire operation.
Ballogie Hotel and Spa
Aberdeenshire
We were asked to create designs to renovate and extend buildings including a former hotel, informal bar area and restaurant. Our brief also included designing a new 40-bed hotel on the same site and a newbuild state-of-the-art spa, wedding and events venue.
Set in a sensitive and historic location next to a Grade A listed
bridge, we used the site’s stunning rural context to inspire our designs.
We also worked closely with our client to help develop the brand alongside the brief. This set the tone of the proposals – the project’s ‘essence’ - for all team members to work from and enabled us to judge where the project was heading at each key moment.
© The White Balance
Hope House, Bath
As Britain’s only city with an all-embracing World Heritage Site designation by UNESCO, managing significant developmental change in Bath can be challenging.
This prominent site in Bath was bought by developer Acorn Bristol for residential development, building on planning permission already attained.
Acorn needed a practice to work up the notional design for the site
to create a scheme of houses and apartments that works for them. It was important to Acorn to rapidly bring the already-in-place site into its construction phase.
The project will create 58 new dwellings arranged around the historic listed Hope House, gardens and parkland. They will offer magnificent views, but with all lying immediately below the dramatic Lansdown Crescent and its flanking buildings.
Our work here has smoothly blended the planning and construction stages through the use of Revit to test the project in detail. This has enabled contextual visualisation to be undertaken rapidly to show the visual impact of the emerging designs and at the same time create confidence that the construction costs are well understood.
Shown here are four modern dwellings at the bottom of the Hope House site.
© The White BalanceLee Bay, Devon
All sites – even really beautiful ones, such as this – have their constraints. This site, which includes a former Arts and Crafts hotel, is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Coastal Preservation Area, Heritage Coast and Lee Bay Conservation Area, with limited access.
Here, we are designing new houses, a small water sports storage space and a kiosk at this spot on the beautiful Devon coastline.
While this use is not supported by policy, we know that – after a great deal of open and interesting community consultation – these plans are widely supported. The community, councillors, town’s mayor and local council all see the benefits. The housing mix is also undergoing tests on how the proportion that might be allocated for affordable can be done in a way that ensures local people can keep family links to the area at discount
rate, so they can continue to contribute to the community and live in the village.
Sensitive proposals for this site will ensure the long-term upkeep and use of a magnificent site while offering community benefit and bringing back activity to an important part of the coastline.
Kingston Mill, Bradford on Avon
In the heart of Bradford on Avon, the six-acre site of Kingston Mill had been the subject of several redevelopment proposals. Each of these had failed to secure planning permission due to the site’s technical challenges and sensitivities.
Acting as architects, urban designers and planners, we were appointed to lead a constructive dialogue with many local stakeholders to bring such a prominent site to a blend of uses. This would help to strengthen the town’s economic, social and cultural life and create a new public realm
away from the heavy traffic crossing Bradford’s only river bridge.
The now completed scheme cost £40m and has brought apartments, shops, offices and small business space, restaurants, workshops, two public spaces and a riverside walk along with 30% of affordable housing, amongst its 174 dwellings.
In the heart of a conservation area, the site was ringed by listed buildings of high status. From the project’s inception to completion, our challenge as architects was to show how new design could blend well with the urban landscape.
To deliver this scheme, we had to overcome many technical challenges in contamination and flood risk, vehicular access and ecology through our lead consultancy role. But the real task was to win the confidence of the wider community and many statutory consultees that such a significant change could reinforce the town’s many urban qualities and reinvigorate economic and social life.
The project won a Royal Town Planning Institute National Award for Best Project of Local Regeneration and Renewal.
James Purdey and Sons London
When we began our work for Purdey, all of their manufacturing took place at a single level on a tight urban site. This was dominated by cars constantly being moved around to accommodate client visitors, allow staff out for field testing or to make room for heavy goods vehicle deliveries. Their building was not purpose designed and lacked comfort, natural light and sophisticated ventilation extraction systems needed for a wide range of metal and wood machine processes.
The new works has changed all this. Customers, workforce and the company management now enjoy a workplace experience not expected in the formatting of the original build. This brings many new qualities to this tight urban site now operating on three levels rather than one.
Blists Hill, Shropshire
The Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the western hemisphere. Blists Hill, a 50-acre open air museum, shows how life was lived in a late 19th century industrial community amongst many historic Midlands buildings rescued from threat of demolition.
We were commissioned to assist the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust to secure £12m of funding from the European Regional Development Fund for this project. We showed how here, the social and cultural capital of Blists Hill could be used to host regional and local events across the West Midlands, and become a place of value by the local population too. Amongst several projects improving the museum’s access infrastructure, we designed a new 10,000 square foot visitors’ centre. The new centre also functions as an orientation point for all visitors to the nine museums and other attractions of the World Heritage Site and tourist venues across the West Midlands as a whole.
The new centre is placed and designed to add critical mass to the Blists Hill Victorian town. Its layout
is centred around a large double height audio visual theatre. Here, with screens on all sides, multiple images and sound convey to the visitors who pass through vivid impressions of the scale and the sounds of the Gorge in its Industrial Revolution heyday.
As the centre is the first part of the Industrial Revolution story, visitors see the building is designed to bring together, over the entrance, many large items from the museum’s reserve collection. These are lit dramatically after dark. These machines have added a new layer to the history of this remarkable place. This was a challenging project. To confirm the ERDF grant within the funding deadline, we had to secure planning permission and get a contractor on site within six months of being commissioned. Many technical challenges had to be overcome in that time: contamination, unknown obstacles, unstable ground, wartime ordinate deposits, ecology, landscape value and the impact on the many established heritage assets of the site. Each of these had to be addressed to meet the grant spend deadline.
Education Centre and Café
The American Museum in Britain, Bath
The programme of review and analysis of the museum’s operations that crystallised in the Ten Year Development Plan has been about strengthening its role in the cultural, social and educational life of a community and its value as a visitor experience. The renewal of the basement galleries, the enlargement of the site’s catering facilities and its temporary education building are outcomes of this process.
Claverton Manor is a considerable grade I listed mansion. The former coach house, stables and curved screen wall are listed grade II listed. The coach house provided staff accommodation, a workshop and display area for two historic carts whilst the former stables housed the folk art exhibition.
The conversion of the original coach house and stable building
to provide two new lecture spaces, a room for school groups, WCs and additional storage allows the museum to host lectures, films, exhibition-related workshops, host university courses, and have a space for temporary exhibitions. It also allows the museum to make a space available to community groups, and for event rentals.
“Throughout the development, design and construction of the education centre, Nash Partnership provided a steady vision for the project and drove it to a successful (as well as on time and to budget) conclusion. Well-crafted, considered design solutions were elegant as well as practical and the end result is stunning.”
– Laura Brown, Education Officer The AmericanMuseum in Bath
Luxury Hotel and Spa, North Devon
We were invited by our client Lee Bay Developments to design proposals for regenerating this former Arts and Crafts inspired hotel on a 1.5HA site.
Our work involved drawing up designs to extend the hotel into a luxury apart-hotel with fractional ownership apartments, eco-garden apartments, spa and well-being facility, outdoor pool and pool house, bar and bistro, fine dining and local produce kiosk.
The site is in the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Coastal Preservation Area, Heritage Coast and Lee Bay Conservation Area, with one road in and one out. So a sensitive design and approach to the construction process was needed to consider its impact on the immediate site, the village and surrounding bays. We undertook a series of successful pre-app engagement events and various presentations with North Devon Council, Ilfracombe
Town Council, Lee Residents’ Association and local councillors. An important part of our role was to help evolve the brand, which we did by working closely with the other specialists and consultants involved.
Our final designs reflected sensitive proposals and an appropriate public realm for this beautiful location.
Holiday Inn Express, Bath
On the south side of the river Avon in Bath, this project developed the site of the former police and local authority depot to provide a new 126-bed hotel. Our work involved designing 15% of the rooms for disabled visitors, with a separate restaurant and ancillary building along with 96 car parking spaces and room for coach parking.
Our design was able to use the existing mature planting of an adjacent site and we developed this feature to create a significant open space contributing to the public realm and a suitable setting for the hotel.
The building provides accommodation over four storeys clad in a combination of natural Bath Stone ashlar with complementary contrasting panels of yellow ochre render. An entrance
and bar area in glazed curtain walling add a modern touch. The construction phase used off-site manufacture and modern methods of construction to minimise the onsite programme.
We are currently on site in Swindon for a new Ibis Budget hotel, and an extension to the city Holiday Inn Express.
Specialist Housing, St Albans
Nash Partnership designed and secured planning permission for and then completed construction stage design for a wide range of specialist housing for older people. This has included bespoke dwellings for householders with particular accessibility needs, cooperative ventures for the active elderly, and developer schemes for retirement housing of sheltered living and high dependency care buildings.
In this large scheme at St Albans we were commissioned to assist sheltered living provider, Blanchworth Care, when a planning application they had submitted failed through the planning authority’s concerns on the scheme’s scale and bulk in an established residential area. In such a situation applicants will usually be advised to submit a full planning application and demonstrate the design will be well integrated. But their option timescale did not allow this. So our task was to demonstrate, through
appeal, that there were new ways the design, scale and bulk of the scheme could be pursued, each of which would be acceptable when tested against the adopted planning policy tests.
We showed, too, there were aspects of the project that would add to the amenities and the urban character of this part of the city.
Specialist housing with care buildings generally need to be of some size but they are best placed in established residential areas where residents can maintain their friendships and community links, and staff are more readily found to work the shift patterns they require. The community as a whole benefits when such planning challenges can be satisfactorily resolved.
Architectural Process
Communication
Our role on projects is to be the conduit for which effective communication across a team ensures the smooth, enjoyable and successful development and delivery of projects. Ideas need to be carefully developed and
analysed, and there is never a limit or a script to which is the best form of communication for each project. Some projects may share a sector, or indeed be similar in brief, but they are all different so each will need to choose their form of communication
to suit. This could be via the latest modelling techniques, 3D printing, a felt tip sketch, or just through verbal means, in order to explore and challenge each project.
Information Sharing
Building Information Modelling
(BIM) is a key priority for us at Nash Partnership, showing a commitment to improving both our technological skills and the service we offer our clients. It has been a hot topic in the construction industry ever since the government released its mandate for all publicly-funded projects to achieve BIM Level 2 by 2016. While our practice does not rely on government projects, we see the benefits BIM
can bring to our working processes both internally and externally.
We began the transition from 2D CAD drafting to 3D BIM several years ago while working on the regeneration of grade I listed Grand Parade. Since then, we have embarked on a training programme to continually boost skills and our BIM capabilities across the practice. We are not only improving our skills in the mechanics of the software but are also going one step further
to develop a BIM strategy to ensure it is part of an integrated process from the start of the project. We have always valued joint working across a wide-skilled design team; BIM now gives us a means to make this process more efficient and improves communication with other consultants through a shared platform.
The image above shows how BIM has been used in the development of a new house at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Analysis and Modelling
Through our regeneration expertise, Nash Partnership has always promoted sustainable places for living. We are now investing in recent advances in software to help us deliver the next challenge for the construction industry: delivering buildings that perform as designed.
There are relatively easy steps to take at concept design stage to maximise the passive aspects of form, orientation and massing. If poorly considered, these can have significant implications on the performance of the building post-planning.
Our concept modelling software provided by Sefaira allows us to assess at feasibility stage the likely impacts on energy use, CO2 and heating costs. In situations where planning regulations require a percentage of on-site renewables, Nash Partnership is now able to predict how many solar panels are needed and their likely energy outputs.
Some fundamental issues of the building are too often fixed at the planning application stage, which is traditionally long before any technical
Have you tried our 3D goggles yet? We are able to walk you through your project.
design takes place. Making changes late in the design stage is expensive, so enabling testing to be done up front is likely to be well-received by clients and consultants alike.
Our software works seamlessly with our two primary drawing packages (SketchUp and our BIM software Revit). Crucially, it also enables an integration and transfer of data between us and the mechanical and structural engineers to help deliver high performance buildings.
Results
We love to design and think creatively. We love even more to see the designs realised. Through dedicated teams, all with experience right through the RIBA plan of work, we can deliver complex projects at any stage of the process. Visuals match results (as is evident in the pictures on this page), and our skills and motivation results in passion for each project.
Top image: CGI visualisation of Hitachi Capital HQ interior
CGI RESULT
Bottom image: Photograph of completed project
Bath Office: 23a Sydney Buildings, Bath BA2 6BZ
Phone: 01225 442424
Bristol Office: Generator Building, Counterslip, Bristol, BS1 6BX
Phone: 0117 332 7560
Website: www.nashpartnership.com
Email: mail@nashpartnership.com
Twitter: @nashPLLP