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Today sees the official opening of the passive solar spaces we designed on behalf of Waterloo Housing for the latest phase of Brandwood End in Kings Heath. Thanks to funding assistance from Birmingham City Council we’ve been able to provide two storey glazed spaces to the rear of ten houses of mixed tenure. Designed as flexible spaces alongside the kitchen/dining room we believe that the life style benefits of sun spaces are equally as important as the energy/economic benefits.

Like our work in the refurbishment field, we’ll also be doing extensive post-occupancy monitoring of these properties over the next 3 years. We gave a short presentation at Ecobuild this year covering all these issues and the slides are available online.

This week we’ve been working on sketch proposals for a building for the Friends of Cotteridge Park resident group. Designed to be a robust part of the landscape that can be quickly/cheaply put up in stages, the project uses a combination of off-the-shelf products and earth sheltering. You can see full details at the project site: http://cotteridgepark.org.uk/shelter

Works is progressing well with phase 2 of the ecoterrace project and like the previous properties we’ll be taking part in some open days for the public. Come along and visit us!

107/109 London Road,
Chesterton,
Newcastle Under Lyme,
ST5 7JE

Open days:

• 7th March 10am-2pm
• 14th March 10am-2pm

4/6 Victoria Street,
Chesterton,
Newcastle Under Lyme,
ST5 7EW

Open days:

• 18 April 10am -2pm
• 25 April 10 am -2pm

Following a busy month of award shortlists, we’re delighted to announce that ecoterrace has won Building magazine’s ‘99% Campaign Award for Refurbishment’.

The project was also a finalist in the CIH Housing Awards and Inside Housing magazine’s Sustainability Awards.

Queens Road was also a finalist in the Inside Housing magazine award, shortlisted under ‘Sustainable smaller social housing project of the year’

We can announce that our ecoterrace project has been highly commended at the recent Staffordshire Construction Awards. We’re looking forward to phase 2 and the delivery of the next four properties.

If you’d like to talk to us about our work and find out more about projects such as Queens Road or ecoterrace.co.uk, please come and visit us at the Climate Change Festival next week. We’ll be taking part in ‘Green Technology Day’ on Wednesday 4th June.

*Update:*

The event was a great success and we thoroughly enjoyed talking to everyone who visited the event. Here’s the video we prepared to show on the screens placed around the city’s square:

The first properties proposed as part of our Blurton masterplan document are nearing completion. Here’s an image of the bungalows at the centre of the courtyard.

The first two ecoterrace properties are now complete!

91 London Road and 63 Booth Street were officially opened with the help of renowned ecologist David Bellamy. If you ‘d like to come along and visit the houses we’re having a number of open days during the next few weeks. Full details can be found on the project web site: ecoterrace.co.uk

Axis Design Director, Rob Annable, will be attending Think 08 next week and taking part in the session at 4:30pm on the 7th, thanks to an invite to present from Phil Clark.

Here’s the summary of the session:

Embracing the existing estate and communities

What’s already built is a much greater part of our built environment than new development. How do we tackle the existing estate to deliver greater sustainability in social, economic and environmental terms? A panel will discuss the issues generated and solutions required by outdated workplaces, ageing housing stock and the sustainability problems they cause. This will include a consideration or legislative hurdles in tackling the built stock as well as a live example of green refurbishment work being carried out on Victorian properties in Newcastle-Under-Lyme.

Chair: Denise Chevin, Editor, Building
Kate Symons, Associate Director, Building Research Establishment
David Strong, Chief Executive, Inbuilt Consulting,
Rob Annable, Director, Axis Design Architects
Dr Douglas Robertson, Head of Applied Social Sciences, Stirling University
and Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Roger Hawkins, Director, Hawkins Brown

And here’s the PDF of the full program: Think08 program

May 12th will see the official opening of the first two properties at a specially organised launch event. After that 63 Booth Street and 91 London Road are being opened for public viewing over several days in May 2008.

If you’d like to take a look and discuss the project with team members, feel free to visit us on one of the following dates:

91 London Road (map link) and 63 Booth Street (map link) will be open on the following days:

Saturday 17th May, 10am - 2pm
Tuesday 20th May, 10am - 3pm
Wednesday 21st May, 10m - 3pm
Tuesday 27th May, 10am - 3pm
Wednesday 28th May, 10am - 3pm
Saturday 31st May, 10am - 2pm