Studio Egret West
ARCHITECTURE / URBAN DESIGN / LANDSCAPE
Compton Courtyard Home of Studio Egret West
Studio Egret West
Studio Egret West was established in November 2004 by Christophe Egret and David West with a shared vision: To offer strategy with architectural specificity; and specificity within an overall strategy. Not just what lies within an introvert red line boundary. Architecture is too often seen in isolation from its urban context. Planning is too often seen as soulless, unspecific proposals that gather dust on shelves. We believe that the way forward is the osmosis between planning and architecture.
Studio Egret West is just this. We follow no formula and no recipe. Not just architecture by architects and not just planning by planners. 50/50 Architecture/Urban Design with the public realm prioritized as the foundation of sustainable communities. We are a growing practice of international architects, urban designers and landscape architects with diverse interests and skills. We are approachable. We promise no lectures. No superiority and no pretensions. Just high ambitions, clarity of thinking and imagination in abundance.
is about energy, courage, exploring the less trodden path and an understanding that to make real change you have to challenge convention. We are constantly looking for people and places that share our ambitions and want to work with us. No lectures. No superiority and no pretensions. Just high ambitions, clarity of thinking and imagination in abundance.
Architecture Design / Lan ARCHITECTURE is at it’s best when it feels rooted to a site and appears effortless. Of course our clients want their buildings to also be special and different, and for this reason we put aside conventional responses, give new ideas a chance to blossom and search approaches that will add value as well as surprise. Much of this comes from always reappraising how we use buildings, ensuring the clarity of the spatial flow, harmonising massing to human scale, selecting materials that are attractive and suitable. We start with conversations, sketches and models. We analyse options and generate numbers to ensure control of efficiencies and costs. We work to win the hearts and minds of those affected by a new construction. We go the extra length to deliver well-detailed, memorable buildings. Architecture is the careful orchestration of these aspirations: the client’s brief, the financial constraints, the planning demands and most importantly the artistic vision that gives nobility to our lives and dignity to our cities.
/ Urban ndscape URBAN DESIGN is about making places. We appreciate that it takes time to make a place; So we don’t try to put a place into a strait jacket. The traditional masterplan, which tries to shoehorn the unknown future into a fixed image is now probably defunct. It is akin to well meaning ambitious parents that dictate to their child the type of lifestyle, the job and even the spouse they should aim for. This deterministic vision is, more often then not, to the disappointment of the parents and the frustration of the child. We have moved into a new era of urban vision. Flexible frameworks anchored in principles and respectful of boundaries, but crucially that learn as they go along, responding to changing economic climates and gently evolve by reflecting back creatively and expressing this through the guidance of empowered residents and owners. We avoid the regurgitation of placatory statements about what makes a “good place”. Instead we focus on how a place really is, how it feels as much as how it looks. And we pragmatically focus on what will make the biggest difference from the outset, whether the founding event or the unlocking move. No wallpaper allowed.
LANDSCAPE is the glue.An architecture or urban design vision will rarely be implemented in its entirety. But landscape will be. It defines the vocabulary of the place. The DNA. Whether it be laying the foundation for a new piece of city or retrofitting an existing piece of city to enhance pedestrian experience, delivering high-quality public realm is an essential platform for transformation. Prioritising the public realm can help shape settlements at a strategic level, it can also unlock value at the neighbourhood level and can glue together disparate elements at the local level.In pursuing high-quality landscape we are particularly interested in the amplification of a place’s natural assets either through magnifying a certain feature or through opening up lost connections. In the public realm we see our role as more than the prosaic sweeping away of clutter. That’s just common sense! We like to add an extra layer. Another dimension. Both in horizontal and vertical planes. Interventions that enliven released space, making them more memorable, more usable, more productive and more playful.
FUTURE CLAPHAM “At Cathedral we start fires, we look for a new way into a project and a compelling way out. What makes SEW so special is that they create an inferno from such a spark, way beyond any traditional architectural boundaries. The energy that is created by SEW is quite unique and is generating some buildings and spaces that, in my humble opinion will create an astonishing legacy for future generations.� Richard Upton, Chief Executive, Cathedral Group
The Library Building, Clapham is a mixed use new build scheme including 136 apartments, a 15 doctor health centre and a new public library. It is the result of a Public Private Partnership between London Borough of Lambeth and Cathedral Group. The 12 storey building is formed by a series of curved, white stone volumes which are articulated to break down the overall mass and soften their visual impact on the high street whilst providing an important marker for the community services within the building. The library is designed as a seamless curve of learning. Itself a mix of community uses (library, IT facilities, cafe, one stop shop, performance space, and venue for meetings and events), the space is laid out on a continuous spiral over three storeys with the books acting as the outer wall. The inner drum has similar proportions to Shakespeare’s Globe and is designed to be a completely flexible space capable of transformation from children’s library to conference or theatre use.
The health centre is organised around a series of courtyard gardens that allow all consultation and treatment rooms a view of nature and a breath of fresh air. The homes are laid out so that each apartment has a curved living space with square bedrooms. This allows all homes to benefit from 180 degree views and other benefits of being dual aspect. There are two communal terraces for use by all on the 7th and 8th floors which provides much needed larger amenity space on this urban site. Evaluation by tenants and residents has been very positive to date. All but 9 apartments have been sold with the majority of these being sold off plan. The building has achieved record sales prices in the area, creating much needed value to pay for the public services which have been provided at no additional cost to the tax-payer.
Winner of the New London Architecture “Culture and Community� Award 2012, UK Property Awards 5 Star Awards For Mixed Use Scheme 2012, UK Property Awards Best Mixed Use Scheme 2012, UK Property Awards Commended For Public Services Building 2012, British Homes Awards Housing Project Of The Year 2011 and Project Winner of the Housing Design Awards 2010.
PARK HILL The Park Hill estate in Sheffield completed in 1961 was initially famous for it’s radical vision: streets in the sky, spacious duplex apartments, wonderful views, district heating, modular construction systems. This positive vision later became overshadowed and tarred by the disintegration of the estate’s public realm and the spread of anti-social behaviour. Since 2005 Studio Egret West have been wtransforming this fallen icon.
The Infamous Park Hill Estate prior to work beginning
The completed transformation of the facade
We love Park Hill. It just needs to be “Remade in Sheffield”. A piece of graffiti sprayed onto a concrete bridge 30 metres off the ground proclaims ’I love you will you marry me?’ This simple, romantic, emotional daring plea has become a symbol of the refurbishment. Working for Urban Splash and Sheffield City Council and in collaboration with Hawkins\ Brown, our masterplan gained planning in July 2007 and having been retained by the client to detail phase one, we are now on the verge of completing 300 homes and commercial units. Our work was Commended in the Mail on Sunday, British Homes Awards 2008 as Housing Project of the Year and Park Hill won the AJ Retrofit Awards 2010 – Future Project Award.
“SEW have the ability both to suprise and delight which is a quality I crave in an architect - challenging ones own preconceptions, taking you somewhere new, somewhere unexplored with a vision of a better place that balances unbridled flights of fantasy with a healthy dose of realism and fact.� Nick Johnson, Deputy Chirf Exectutive, Urban Splash
THE FOLD, SIDCUP At Sidcup, Studio Egret West were challenged to turn the existing site of a run down office block into a new mixed-use building that benefits the whole area. The fold is based on the tight and awkwardly shaped site the curved and folding nature of the building allowed us to continue one aesthetic around the site while breaking down the mass as the folds overlap. The site demanded a building with no back, only public faces on all sides, and had significant contextual constraints. We found that using the curved folding facade we can step and split the building while keeping a single and continuous identity. The cheme breaks the mould of housing stock in the area, providing a new exciting product - modern living with a sustainable backbone. The Fold is now on site due to be complete during 2012.
BROMLEY SOUTH CENTRAL Studio Egret West and Guy Holloway Architects have recently submitted planning for Bromley South Central – a Public Private Partnership between Bromley Council and a Private Developer (Cathedral Group) to regenerate a substantial town centre site. The scheme involves 200 homes, a 130 bed hotel, a 10 screen cinema, a 400 space car park and a large retail/restaurant offering.
SEW are responsible for developing the hotel and public realm as well as guiding the masterplan. Our concept for the hotel is to create a simple, curvaceous white mass enlivened with stainless steel ‘Broom Flower’ flourishes; the Broom Flower concept stems from the history of Bromley, the place name comes from clearings in the woodland where Broom would grow.
THE MOVEMENT Studio Egret West, alongside HLM architects, has prepared the planning application for a mixed-use scheme at the foot steps of the Greenwich DLR station, on the site of a derelict industrial estate. Part residential scheme with 200 flats and part student village with 350 rooms, the development is anchored around a new pedestrian friendly street which aims to capture the ‘movement’ of this future community. Studio Egret West’s main focus aside from developing the look and feel of the development, has been on the smaller mixeduse activities, which include a new boutique hotel, incubator units and an extension to the community centre.
Though each building has it’s own architectural and material identity, they are all united in the aim of making activities within the buildings visible and playful from the street experience, thus emphasising the theme of ‘movement’. The boutique hotel is attached to the existing North Pole pub helping to create continuity between old and new. The incubator units create a rich visual texture of timber decks and terraces that parallels the various uses within. The community centre extension, with it’s projection from the original facade, offers new facilities such as a gallery space and a street cafe. The roof of the extension becomes a much needed terrace to the existing main hall.
NEWMAN PLACE We were appointed to prepare a design for a much sought after Central London that was previously the home of the Royal Mail Sorting Office. The site is formed from a whole city block spanning from street to street east to west. The urban design responds to this by creating a new route, providing a new route from one destination to another along with shops taking advantage of the footfall. To compliment this dynamic space there is a place to dwell, a new square for eating, drinking and just sitting to take a break form the rush of London - an urban oasis. The centre piece in the square is a new foodhall and restaurants, somewhere to explore on foot, but also to stop and sit. A large black brick clad building forms the centrepiece with a 500 room hotel configured around a south facing courtyard. Access to the hotel is raised above large meeting, retail and restaurant spaces. The roof line is animated with a modern translation of the traditional mansard roof, which forms a distinctive skyline for this important site near a mobility hub. The foodhall is located at the ground floor of a mirrored building reflecting the movement on the streets of London. With apartments above command views over the new streets and squares below. Underneath the entire development is a large scale, column free conference space, a very rare commodity in London! We took advantage of existing excavations to create this unique space leaving the ground floor free for retail and restaurant space.
TOWER 42
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EXISTING PUBLIC REALM — WALKWAY PLAN
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PROPOSED PUBLIC REALM — GROUND FLOOR PLAN
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After a high profile competition, we won the opportunity to reconsider the Tower 42 estate in Central London. Massive change in the immediate vicinity of the Tower 42 estate is leading to a “new generation” of city experiences focused on Bishopsgate. The lower levels of the Tower 42 estate now need to “step up” to respond to this new environment. To successfully compete with the offer of “the new” we need to generate flexible and efficient space with a strong identity that builds on the “Tower 42” brand. Not just more space but more, desirable, “Tower 42” space. Everything that we have designed stems from the tower, giving a holistic identity to the entire estate. Mimicking nature’s way of seeking to accomplish the most with the least we have applied a “packing and cracking” concept to the entire Tower 42 estate leading to a honeycomb form relevant to the geometry of the existing tower. Each leaf of the existing tower is half a hexagon. Taking this as a starting point we have developed a geometric form that allows
the tower to quite literally grow into the site, transforming it from object building to a more organic piece of the City that appears to have grown informally over time. Instead we propose that the existing and new floorplates “grow” into each other using both hexagonal and octagonal forms. Thus continuing both the horizontal and vertical architectural vocabulary of the tower to the very edge of the site and creating a situation where the tower is no longer isolated in the centre of the site but stretches out with every face of the new accommodation having equal importance. Everything starts from inside out. There will be no “back”.
LONDONS FLOATING VILLAGE
From 2012, over 2000 people an hour could be landing at the corniche of London’s Royal Docks. A good percentage of these will be heading for an exhibition at Excel or will be looking forward to a few hours exploring the Siemens Pavilion – a £30 million conference centre for sustainable technologies. As more and more people start visiting and using the Royal Docks, London’s Floating Village aims to provide a new, exciting offer across the water itself.
A collection of flexible platforms hosting a variety of uses including a swimming pool to be known as the Royal Docks Baths with future potential for a spa and gym, a wakeboarding centre, a public boardwalk and floating gardens, cafe, restaurants and a destination bar.
Recently granted planning permission, London’s Floating Village with its pool, spa, mix of restaurants, cafe and destination bar will become a year round, day/night attraction lending itself to community events, as well as corporate entertainment and conferences.
THE OLD VINYL FACTORY This was the home of the Gramophone Company, later His Majesty’s Voice and latterly EMI. The extraordinary history of music production is barely visible today. The site has become “London Gate”, a corporate offering in the style of Stockley Park but dominated by surface car parking and without the ecological setting of its more successful neighbour. Not too surprising to discover that it has attracted few tenants. Our challenge is find a way to release its latent potential. What it enjoys in great accessibility
(with a 15 minute ride to Paddington, 10 minutes to Heathrow) and the promise of Crossrail in 2017; it misses in identity. With a new name “The Old Vinyl Factory”, our ambition is to inject a sustainable mix of new accommodation back into the site in both rejuvenated existing buildings and in new buildings that frame a sequence of public spaces.
The Gatefold Building will be a catalyst for the Old Vinyl Factory, lifting the spirits of the wider site; defining a crucial gateway to the masterplan and enhancing the setting of the surrounding, locally listed buildings.
EVOLUTION GATESHEAD
As part of the Gateshead BIG project, Studio Egret West designed the Freight Depot to define a new benchmark in sustainable living in the north east. Houses are designed as five individual types with a diversity of architecture and internal and external private space, distinctive roof lines, roof terraces, natural materials, green walls, and touches of colour. Two apartment buildings create a built topography of stepped green roofs; dramatic visual markers from highway and station. The apartments are interlocking duplexes which allow all homes a south-facing living space overlooking the safe play space of a communal garden, as well as spectacular views north to Newcastle; the best of both worlds.
EARLS COURT The challenge at Earls Court is to create a wonderful new London district that is a contemporary expression of the best features of the city. Our starting point was to explore the best features of the city. To try and discover the essence of what makes London – “London”. Then to take these attributes, whether elements or atmospheres, and amplify them to meet contemporary demands of commercial viability, spatial flexibility and community acceptability. Then to agglomerate them into the most fantastic framework that is more of a collective, well-crafted collage than a single-handed “master”-plan. Our vision seeks to capture the inherent contradictions and complexity of London, its delights and its imperfections, its set pieces and its organic growth. Our vision seeks to deliver London PLUS.
SURREY CANAL Surrey Canal offers a significant opportunity for major regeneration in the London Borough of Lewisham. The site area is 10Ha and our target total built area is 250,000m2. The indicative number of jobs is 2,000 and the target number of homes is 2,500 with a density of 700 hr/h and a range of building heights from 2-26 storeys. Our challenge is to create a sustainable, high quality, high identity development at this location, with the need to form a new exemplar for high density living in London. Our vision is to create a new and exciting piece of London.
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A 21st century village within a world-class city, based around a new regional centre of sporting excellence. The framework focuses on a series of vital components that will collectively shape what is to become London’s New Sporting Village: a range of indoor sports and health facilities – football, cricket, basketball, gymnastics, boxing, a health clinic; better
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connections and improved transport links including a new station on the East London Line; a Multifaith Community Centre; a hotel and conference centre; a start-up business hub and creative industries centre, and; an improved setting for Millwall Football Club. Planning permission was granted in October 2011.
EAST CROYDON East Croydon station is the second busiest interchange station in the UK (behind Clapham Junction) and the eighth most used station in the UK. We prepared a destination plan that encompasses the knitting together of two major developments coming forward, one on either side of the station. Not an easy task. The resolution lay within the understanding of each parties requirements and marrying these with the technical constraints of any transport interchange. This was an opportunity to make the station (the 7th busiest in the UK) into the central hub it needs to be, rather than allowing the private developments to divide and dilute the public realm. The project has seen us exploring the feasibility of building a station concourse on a raft over the railway lines, allowing for extra track capacity, and also the introduction of two more platforms. Outside the station we have designed a seamless and well integrated interchange with trams, buses, taxis and bikes together with better arrangements for pedestrians. We have now been retained to design the first phase of the masterplan, a ÂŁ20m new station bridge connection and public realm enhancement to link the three portions of the site together and permanently reorientate the local urban fabric.
THE STRATFORD SHOAL
In August 2009, the London Borough of Newham and Stratford Renaissance Partnership appointed Studio Egret West as lead consultant to design and deliver ÂŁ13.5 Million worth of high quality public realm that offers a unique visitor experience at the heart of Stratford Town Centre in time for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The project, now on site, proposes new public realm designs for a series of key spaces: Meridian Square as the gateway to Stratford for visitors arriving via public transport; Theatre Square at the heart of the Cultural Quarter; the Broadway with its historic character; and the Railway Tree crossing that connects with Stratford High Street. In addition, a vertical kinetic sculpture made of naturally coloured titanium, the Shoal, produces a linear edge that consolidates the fractured northern edge of the Stratford Island. The sculpture helps define the island and acts as decoy to the taller parking structures and buildings upon the island. Overall, the re-invigorated public realm together with the Shoal aim to change perceptions and establish Stratford Town Centre as a destination in its own right‚ a benchmark for the quality of future designs that will not be compromised by change ahead.
NOTTINGHAM MEDIPARK Having undertaken a feasibility study for Nottingham Regeneration Ltd, Studio Egret West were retained as the masterplanners and architects to gain outline planning permission for a life science community opposite the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham. The aim is to attract leading companies around the world to the nine-acre site so it can become an important element in Nottingham’s strategy to develop science as a key part of its economy. Our evolving concept for the Medipark is based on stem cells, a physical representation of the ‘regenerative medicine’ occurring inside. Each phase includes three buildings with interconnected arms, providing space for a mix of private research, medical, collaborative work and laboratories.
We are proposing a system of leaf shaped buildings, clustered together in threes to form the equivalent of a cloverleaf. The three receptions all face onto a plateau level. The car parking would be naturally ventilated, sitting behind gently undulating banks that define a curvaceous tow path to the Rover Leen and generous pavements towards the existing community. The buildings sit on top of these small hills, like castles do in relation to mottle and baileys. In terms of accommodation, the two wings per building leads to a floor plate of 1500m2 allowing the stem call to deliver a single or a collection of medium sized business or a multi-let business incubator/innovation centre with a shared ground floor offering reception, cafe, meeting, seminar space and support services such as healthy volunteer facilities.
BEIJING CULTURAL DISTRICT Studio Egret West worked in collaboration with Tshinghua University and Farrells to develop a conceptual masterplan for the Central Culture District in Beijing. The scheme proposes a new cultural anchor on the city’s north south civic axis of a scale similar to that of the Forbidden City. The site has both national and international significance and thus it is essential that the design establishes a new benchmark. The national stadium - the Bird’s Nest - sits opposite the site and is described as a novel and radical spatial experience, yet of an almost archaic immediacy. Not only does the proposal connect into this in a 2-dimensional plan form, it creates a 3-dimensional interpretation of its weaving structure to articulate the main public space - the People’s Gallery.
The ‘roof’ of the People's Gallery provides physical and metaphorical bridges between all of the cultural plots, uniting the site and promoting solidarity, collaboration and independence amongst the institutions of the Cultural District. The space in between becomes the fusion and the focus of interactions and responds to complex programmatic and circulation requirements. The scheme provides an elegant setting for the new buildings and a dancing foreground of small scale informal pavilions that connect the site to the lake and afford stunning views.
BEIJING CULTURAL DISTRICT
“The word is ‘verve’: that feeling of liveliness that seems to permeate the drawings and images that are such a distinctive feature of SEW’s work, conceptual or completed. This is a high-energy practice, firing on all cyclinders, adding and refining in a way that, urbanistically, gives rather than takes. We need this generosity more than ever.” Paul Finch, Director, World Architecture Festival
Studio Egret West STUDIO EGRET WEST, NO. 1 COMPTON COURTYARD, 40 COMPTON STREET, LONDON EC1V OAP T +44 (0)20 7549 1730, www.egretwest.com