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Cultural Formations Featured in Varsity

“Deftly combining explorations into local history and collective memory with a celebration of modern architectural craft, ABA envisions a diverse urban environment in which buildings are shaped by, and for, their community.”

Varsity‘s Zoe Turoff penned this glowing review of our recent exhibition ‘Cultural Formations’.

“Deftly combining explorations into local history and collective memory with a celebration of modern architectural craft, ABA envisions a diverse urban environment in which buildings are shaped by, and for, their community.”

Varsity‘s Zoe Turoff penned this glowing review of our recent exhibition ‘Cultural Formations’.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Rubicon on 2022 Housing Design Awards Shortlist Rubicon

Rubicon, for Hill, has been shortlisted in the 2022 Housing Design Awards. Currently on site, Rubicon will signify a unique new urban character for North West Cambridge’s southern fringe that has diversity, adaptability and cycling based urban living at its heart.

Rubicon, for Hill, has been shortlisted in the 2022 Housing Design Awards. Currently on site, Rubicon will signify a unique new urban character for North West Cambridge’s southern fringe that has diversity, adaptability and cycling based urban living at its heart.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Unity Place Shortlisted in the 2022 Housing Design Awards Unity Place

Unity Place has been shortlisted for the 2022 Housing Design Awards. The result of a collaboration between Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Alison Brooks Architects and Gort Scott, with landscape by Grant Associates, the scheme re-integrates the site and its communities into the wider South Kilburn neighbourhood.

Unity Place has been shortlisted for the 2022 Housing Design Awards. The result of a collaboration between Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Alison Brooks Architects and Gort Scott, with landscape by Grant Associates, the scheme re-integrates the site and its communities into the wider South Kilburn neighbourhood.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Alison Brooks to speak at The Good Business Festival

Wed, 03/23/22 , 11:10
Met Cathedral Crypt, Liverpool
Met Cathedral Crypt, Liverpool

Join Alison Brooks in conversation with Osama Bhutta and Ayesha Hazarika, as part of The Good Business Festival. Titled House Nation, the panel discussion will delve into the challenges and opportunities of post-lockdown living: how can designers and urban planners rethink housing design and placemaking?

Join Alison Brooks in conversation with Osama Bhutta and Ayesha Hazarika, as part of The Good Business Festival. Titled House Nation, the panel discussion will delve into the challenges and opportunities of post-lockdown living: how can designers and urban planners rethink housing design and placemaking?

Wed, 03.23.22 , 11:10
Met Cathedral Crypt, Liverpool
Met Cathedral Crypt, Liverpool
When
Where
Met Cathedral Crypt, Liverpool
Joana Polonia [less..]

Cultural Formations

Fri, 02/18/22
Clare Hall, Cambridge
Clare Hall, Cambridge
Cultural Formations brings together a selection of our practice’s most significant cultural and urban projects from the last 20 years. Each of these works translates specific social histories, urban archetypes and iconographies into contemporary space and form while at the same time celebrating architectural craft.
Cultural Formations brings together a selection of our practice’s most significant cultural and urban projects from the last 20 years. Each of these works translates specific social histories, urban archetypes and iconographies into contemporary space and form while at the same time celebrating architectural craft.
The exhibition includes models, photography, drawings and other imagery to provide a window into the practice’s project of cultural formation, whereby the role of architecture is to communicate both an enduring civic generosity and an expressive language particular to its place and time.
Fri, 02.18.22
Clare Hall, Cambridge
Clare Hall, Cambridge
When
Where
Clare Hall, Cambridge
Joana Polonia [less..]

Cohen Quadrangle Shortlisted for the RIBA South Awards 2022

A building within a building, our Cohen Quadrangle, Exeter College, Oxford, UK has been shortlisted for this year’s edition of the RIBA South Awards. The 18-strong shortlist will be assessed by a regional jury with the winning projects announced later this Spring.

A building within a building, our Cohen Quadrangle, Exeter College, Oxford, UK has been shortlisted for this year’s edition of the RIBA South Awards. The 18-strong shortlist will be assessed by a regional jury with the winning projects announced later this Spring.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Building Stories | The Awards Talks

Join Alison Brooks and Amin Taha as they discuss the unique story behind House on the Hill, recipient of the RIBA House of the Year 2021. Register here

Join Alison Brooks and Amin Taha as they discuss the unique story behind House on the Hill, recipient of the RIBA House of the Year 2021. Register here

When
Joana Polonia [less..]

High-density, low-rise: Unity Place

“Masterplanned by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, with blocks designed by them, Alison Brooks Architects and Gort Scott, Unity Place demonstrates how high-quality, high-density housing can be achieved without building tall.”

Read AJ’s latest building study on Unity Place housing in South Kilburn.

“Masterplanned by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, with blocks designed by them, Alison Brooks Architects and Gort Scott, Unity Place demonstrates how high-quality, high-density housing can be achieved without building tall.”

Read AJ’s latest building study on Unity Place housing in South Kilburn.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Alison Brooks Architects on Masterplan Shortlist for Begbroke Science Park, Oxford University

Proud to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for the University of Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park masterplan.

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Proud to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for the University of Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park masterplan.

Looking forward to working with our fantastic collaborators on this ground-breaking Innovation District: Prior + Partners, WilkinsonEyre, dRMM, The Place Bureau, Hoare Lea and others.

Joana Polonia [less..]

A Tribute to Richard Rogers

‘Deeply saddened by the loss of Richard Rogers. In 2009 Richard gave me and fellow RIBA juror and artist Madelon Vriesendorp an unforgettable tour of Maggie’s Charing Cross; I took this photo on the day. For me it captures the brilliance and warmth of Richard and Madelon, two of the world’s greatest architectural imaginations.’  – Alison Brooks

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‘Deeply saddened by the loss of Richard Rogers. In 2009 Richard gave me and fellow RIBA juror and artist Madelon Vriesendorp an unforgettable tour of Maggie’s Charing Cross; I took this photo on the day. For me it captures the brilliance and warmth of Richard and Madelon, two of the world’s greatest architectural imaginations.’  – Alison Brooks

 

Alison Brooks’ 2009 RIBA Awards Jury Citation for Maggie’s Charing Cross:

‘It is not normally in the power of architecture to move onlookers to tears, but this extraordinary building has inadvertently proven its ability to do just that. How is it possible that a building can generate an immediate and pervasive sense of welcome, warmth, serenity –  and even love – in the context of a frantic Hammersmith thoroughfare – and in the shadow of a dauntingly huge NHS hospital? This is the poetry that Rogers Stirk Harbor have worked at the Maggies Centre in Fulham Palace Road. Their quietly confident building is truly, unquestionably a haven for those who have been diagnosed with cancer. Their achievement is in having created a completely informal, home-like sanctuary to help patients learn to live – or die – with cancer, beautifully.

Conceived as a two-storey pavilion, the architects have sheltered the centre from its harsh surroundings with a thick and cheerfully orange masonry wall that also serves as a backdrop for carefully planted tree groves and gardens. Its positive spirit is signalled with a roof canopy that hovers high above the centre’s walls to protectively oversail its many intimate internal gardens, courtyards and roof terraces.

This is the impression one has from a distance, while approaching the centre along the exquisite garden walk that has been design by Dan Pearson. With one large opening in the centre’s façade providing a glimpse of a courtyard garden and dining table, it immediately speaks of simple human pleasures. It invites us in.

Passing along the garden wall to the Centre’s entrance one first encounters a window seat, from where one can sit and contemplate the garden at the end of the passage, or the entrance door to the centre itself. This is a place allowing visitors to stop, rest, take a deep breath, and make a decision to either enter or to turn back. How many buildings provide their visitors such a simple luxury, to spend some time sitting in a beautiful spot before actually going in?

Once inside, a fireplace, a walled garden, and then the kitchen table beckons as the centrepiece of a double height space. This is the centre’s domestic heart, washed in light and framed by beautifully cast in-situ concrete columns. Also supporting the 1st floor and roof, the column arrangement is based on a 4m grid that provides an ideal proportion for the consultation, treatment rooms, living spaces and garden courtyards that all open off the kitchen. There are no doors in the centre – privacy can be created by sliding screens, translucent glass panels, or bookshelves. These are all built in a light timber that contributes a slightly Scandinavian air of well-being to the centre. Books, art, built-in furniture and inglenooks all contribute to an over-riding sense of comforting domesticity.

The first floor administration space is completely open to the floor below –  in complete contrast to most health care institutions. This green-floored series of mezzanines feels like a tree house with views out on all four sides with a suntrap roof terrace protected by the oversailing roof.  Balustrades at this level have been detailed as bookshelves and display surfaces, another example of the architect making every element of the building work in a multiplicity of modes, both beautiful and functional, with intense thoughtfulness and care.

The jury felt that RSH’s Maggie’s Centre exceeds at every level this most demanding of briefs; to create a sanctuary for terminally ill cancer sufferers for a client and personal friend of the architect (Charles Jencks); whose deep conviction in architecture’s power to shape our experience has dedicated the building to the memory of his wife. Richard Rogers and his team have produced a timeless work of architecture that not only distills the intentions of this brief but expresses in built form compassion, sensitivity and a deep sense of our common humanity.’ 

           

Joana Polonia [less..]

Windward House Crowned RIBA House of the Year 2021

Windward House has won this year’s RIBA House of the Year award.

“This geometric design skilfully fuses together the old with the new – connecting two architectures separated by over 300 years,” said Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) president Simon Allford.

Windward House has won this year’s RIBA House of the Year award.

“This geometric design skilfully fuses together the old with the new – connecting two architectures separated by over 300 years,” said Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) president Simon Allford.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Alison Brooks to speak at CTU Prague, Faculty of Architecture

Join Alison Brooks for her ‘Re-Invent’ lecture, as part of CTU Prague, Faculty of Architecture’s November Talks series. The presentation will be livestreamed on CTU’s YouTube page.

Join Alison Brooks for her ‘Re-Invent’ lecture, as part of CTU Prague, Faculty of Architecture’s November Talks series. The presentation will be livestreamed on CTU’s YouTube page.

When
Joana Polonia [less..]

Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford wins an Architecture MasterPrize (Best of Best) Fitzhugh Auditorium

A ‘campus within a building’, our Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford has won an Architecture MasterPrize award.

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A ‘campus within a building’, our Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford has won an Architecture MasterPrize award.

Conceived as a place for social gathering and academic exchange, the project is Oxford’s first fully inclusive and barrier-free quad.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Windward House Wins Manser Medal – House of the Year 2021

Our Windward House has won the Manser Medal – House of the Year 2021, part of the Architects’ Journal Architecture Awards. A celebration of domestic life shared with an extraordinary collection of art, our house impressed the judges as a “complete piece of architecture – beautifully executed and considered.”

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Our Windward House has won the Manser Medal – House of the Year 2021, part of the Architects’ Journal Architecture Awards. A celebration of domestic life shared with an extraordinary collection of art, our house impressed the judges as a “complete piece of architecture – beautifully executed and considered.”

The project exemplifies a “real success story of a client and architect working together. The ambition and quality of the end result is wonderful” , said one judge.  

Alison Brooks Architects is honoured to have received such a prestigious award for the second time, marking another significant milestone for the practice.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Alison Brooks Architects selected as one of the 25 best architecture firms in London

The platform for architecture and design Archello selected Alison Brooks Architects as one of the 25 best architecture firms in London, alongside Foster + Parners, Zaha Hadid Architects, and others.

The platform for architecture and design Archello selected Alison Brooks Architects as one of the 25 best architecture firms in London, alongside Foster + Parners, Zaha Hadid Architects, and others.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford Wins 2 Education Estates Awards 2021 Fitzhugh Auditorium

Our Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford has won 2 Education Estates Awards 2021: Project of the Year – Universities and Inspiring Learning Spaces. Our project has also received a High Commendation for Client of the Year.

Our Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford has won 2 Education Estates Awards 2021: Project of the Year – Universities and Inspiring Learning Spaces. Our project has also received a High Commendation for Client of the Year.

Joana Polonia [less..]

Windward House wins 2 RIBA South West Awards 2021

Our Windward House has been named among the nine 2021 RIBA South West Regional Awards winners. The house was also announced as the South West region’s Building of the Year 2021.

Our Windward House has been named among the nine 2021 RIBA South West Regional Awards winners. The house was also announced as the South West region’s Building of the Year 2021.

Joana Polonia [less..]

The Sunday Times Home | Hugh Graham | New Build Better

“Some successful modern examples that could give ersatz Regency a run for its money include Alison Brooks Architects’ Newhall Be (…) terraced houses in jet-black timber that echoes weatherboarded barns, but with sculptural roofs that add a sense of fun.” — Hugh Graham
“Some successful modern examples that could give ersatz Regency a run for its money include Alison Brooks Architects’ Newhall Be (…) terraced houses in jet-black timber that echoes weatherboarded barns, but with sculptural roofs that add a sense of fun.” — Hugh Graham
Joana Polonia [less..]

Architecture and Inequity: New Practices of Care

from Alison Brooks Architects joined the London Festival of Architecture & Royal Academy of Arts‘ ‘Architecture and Inequity: New Practices of Care’ symposium.

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from Alison Brooks Architects joined the London Festival of Architecture & Royal Academy of Arts‘ ‘Architecture and Inequity: New Practices of Care’ symposium.

Bringing together original research that considers the systemic inequalities in our cities and proposes positive approaches that explore the built environment from a critical perspective, the panel discussed inclusive design strategies and explored how architecture can accept difference.

Joana Polonia [less..]