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We’ve been working on our latest newspaper, and it is now available to view online:

Axis Design News – issue 2 – 2012

In week #5 of 2012 we’ve been talking about drawing in 2012 and how it should speak of the poetry and the data in our architecture…

Last week we took part in the WMCCE seminar on Building Information Modelling and presented a talk on how our decision to adopt BIM across the office has improved our work. We’re interested in how better use of our computer processors can help us raise our game and provide a better service, as well as helping us consider the quality of the way we draw.

Here’s a copy of the slides:

Week notes #3 & #4…

Lately it’s been all about http://affordablepassivhaus.info:

Over the last few months we have been carrying out a detailed R&D project into making Passivhaus design principles a financially viable option for social housing. Working alongside environmental designers, and certified European Passivhaus consultants Brooks Devlin, our proposals for an affordable Passivhaus were created initially in response to a call for solutions by the BRE Passivhaus competition in 2011.

We took up the challenge to develop our proposals further because we think that construction standards in the UK will require a significant move towards Passivhaus principles. We are launching the project at an event in February aimed at local authorities and housing associations in order to disprove the myths surrounding Passivhaus build costs and share our research.

If you’re involved in delivering new build affordable housing and would like to come along to our event on 21st February in Birmingham, please register your interest via the Affordable Passivhaus website, get updates from the twitter account or drop us a line on email.

Week 2 of 2012 has brought with it a reminder that this is in fact week number 1500 and something. An early spring clean is unearthing drawings and files of past projects, including some promotional material that reminded us all that 2012 is our 30th anniversary. Plans are afoot for a celebration later in the year…

We’ve finally taken the decision to clear some space in the office of old magazines and rather than dispose of them we’d really like them to go to a good home. Birmingham School of Architecture may be taking some, but if you’d like to have some copies of the Architect’s Journal from the last couple of decades, drop us a line.

So, this week we have been mostly…

If you’re a resident of Sutton Coldfield then you’ll have perhaps seen the progress of our work at Chase Farm Shop. As the extension to create a cafe nears completion Mike has been visiting site to help the client and contractor with some of the final design decisions.

In the drawing department there’s been more detailing – early work to help guide an as yet undecided upon contractor. Finding the right level of detail in the early stages isn’t easy, with all lines and junctions being interconnected, all product and material choices being interdependent, it’s not simply a matter of general arrangement. As an ex-partner at Axis once told me, the problem with starting a shadow gap on a buildings surface is knowing how to find the other end of it.

We’ve got some new SAP calculation software in the office, so the learning curve for that has begun with testing on a domestic extension project to compare the before and after results of our intervention. We still like to collaborate with specialists in this field, such as our fellow Passivhaus team members Brooks Devlin, but it’s important to have the basic skills in-house too.

The joys of public sector procurement are upon us, as we wrestle with another web site for tender submissions. To keep our spirits up we’ve been pushing forward with our Passivhaus seminar plans – confirming the team, agreeing the venue and even (dare I say it) starting a web site, because clearly there aren’t enough of them in the world.

The most important news of the week however, for all of us in this business, was the sad loss of both John Madin and Isi Metzstein. With our office and lives based in Birmingham and the founder member of the practice learning his craft in Scotland, the work of both architects had an important place in our history.

A review of Madin’s local housing work is long overdue for us and Mike is promising to dig out his slides of St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross. We’ll share them in a future week note.

Here’s the first of a new series of posts called ‘week notes’ – an idea created by Matt Webb and Jack Schulze at BERG to see what happens when you take the time to reflect on what you’re doing and what you’ve achieved every seven days.

We’re not sure how well this will translate in the slightly slower moving world of architecture and construction, but it’s got to be worth a try…

Week note #1

We’ve kicked off 2012 with technical challenges and event planning, with some of the office working on construction details and some of us plotting ways to develop the work ideas we’re interested in pursuing this year.

Our latest BMHT sites achieved planning approval at the end of last year, so now we’re turning our hand to a few details to help guide the construction costing as it goes out to tender this month. Katie has been getting to grips with the product that I covered in my review for BD’s Envelope magazine last year – Ibstock’s Tilebrick.

Lorna has started her second month with us after spending December getting our web site back in to shape and wrestling Highrise – our CRM system – into submission. This month will be about crafting things to share with clients such as newspapers, iPad apps, bookleteers and planning seminars on Passivhaus and Retrofit. Elsewhere in the office admin department there’s a New Year tidy underway, bringing with it a decision to finally throw out many of the old magazines we’ve hoarded for years. Thanks to a twitter conversation I’m hoping they’ll be heading to Birmingham School of Architecture rather than lost forever.

Mike is busy drawing, and site layouts for more BMHT projects are filling up pieces of tracing paper. Next week we’ll need to start working them up in BIM. The challenges of creating new streets and communities in some of the city’s infill sites means once again we have to return to first principles in places and question the house type and tenure possibilities for the neighbourhood. Liz is pulling together the final pieces of the puzzles that were presented to us in BMHT’s Phase 3, coordinating levels, manipulating landscape and arranging surfaces of buildings and gardens.

Meanwhile, I’m working on our live retrofit projects, talking to builders about costs and load-bearing structures at one end; working up our first estimate with a QS at the other and trying to make sure that the more innovative products like Porotherm and Homatherm are well understood. ‘R&D’ into the new map making tool by CASA and attempting to install a time management tool on our web server is ensuring the usual levels of geek research are maintained. Oh, and the file server is misbehaving. It’s a good job I like I.T.

This week we have been mostly listening to Radio 6, although I’m hatching a plan to introduce more dubstep and see what the results on productivity are.

Happy New Year!

As part of a new exhibition organised by the BAA and RIBA, Rob was asked to declare what his favourite building in Birmingham was. It’ll be shown alongside the choices of other local architects at tonight’s awards event being held in the new Cube building. Picking a building and describing it in a 50 word limit proved to be both challenging and enjoyable so we decided to ask the rest of the staff members at Axis to do the same. Here are the first couple of results along with Rob’s submission:

Rob: Bournville Junior School Carillon

It lifts the soul every time I see it. Bulky swaggering scale, delicate details, bold asymmetry, endearing charm and a machine on the roof worthy of a Dr Who episode. Also, in these dark times we all need reassuring that the free market can occasionally be philanthropic. Different George though.

Liz: 83 Newhall Street

What is Birmingham’s identity? What has it been? What will it be? This small building presents an older Birmingham. Its indomitable existence neighbouring the positivity of commercial progression. A gesture of hope that each era can hold fast as Birmingham continues to progress, change and develop.

Becky: Ikon Gallery

It oozes contradictions. It’s old and new. It’s indoor but feels positively outdoor. You go in for the art, but leave having spent 2 hours in the shop, had lunch, but not actually set foot in the gallery. The café serves tapas but is so un-spanish. Yet, somehow it works!

Thanks to everyone who came to see us at the West Midlands Design Fair, we really enjoyed the event and hope you all enjoy your copy of the Axis Design newspaper.

We were joined by the guys from Slider Studio and we took the opportunity to show our innovative work in the online consultation field and YouCanPlan in Lozells. Our investigations into self-publishing tools were done with the help of bookleteer.com and newspaperclub.co.uk.

2009 was a busy year for us here at Axis Design. So busy in fact that we neglected to tell you about it and haven’t updated the blog since the summer! Hopefully we’ve more than made up for it with the printing of the first Axis Design newspaper, covering numerous projects we’ve been involved with during the last couple of years.

You can pick yourself up a copy if you come and see us at the Designed Environment West Midlands Design Fair on the 25th February, where we’ll be teaming up with the guys at Slider Studio to talk about our consultation work using advanced digital tools. We’ve been using another example of an advanced digital tool to make the newspaper thanks to the new service launched by http://newspaperclub.co.uk.

Here are a few excerpts along with some images from the paper; you can also download a PDF copy of the full newspaper here: Axis Design newspaper

Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust

Axis Design Architects continue to play a key role in Birmingham’s latest housing developments. As one of the architects for the first two phases of the initiative to allow local authorities to build new homes, Axis Design have developed proposals for 5 sites across the city that will set the standard for the future of housing in Birmingham. Each scheme has been designed to deliver Code for Sustainable Homes level 4 and with the help of code assessors Brooks Devlin we have provided a renewable energy strategy that recommends the use of photovoltaic energy which could benefit from the recently announced Feed in Tarrif (more images available on our flickr page)

The quality of supported housing for the 55+ market in the UK is a topic we’ve been discussing here at Axis Design a lot over the last few years. This year’s brief for the British Homes Awards gave us the opportunity to explore some of our ideas and show how we believe the industry could turn to existing housing solutions from the holiday home sector combined with improved landscape and infrastructure to meet the aspirations of retiring baby boomers.

Here’s our response to the Lifetime Homes challenge set by the British Homes Awards 2009 (click images for full size):

Eco Lodge Parks 

Asset rich but cash poor; dire pension and savings forecast; inheritance tax worries; probably working until our seventies. The kids could help but they are mortgaged to the hilt and need help with childcare and top up fees.

Today’s reality for the youth of the 60’s, nurtured on the NHS, fashioned on the Mini, honed by world travel, inspired by JFK, rock & roll heavy….   their 21st century living is essentially about affordability and equity release creating third age choices and financial security.

What if we could sell up the family home, spend one third of the proceeds on a third age home, then invest the rest, buy a villa in Goa, or help the family?

In eco-Lodge Parks you can….. and even generate letting income over the next 20 years.

Thanks to Jez Sanders from Red Landscape for collaborating with us on this work. Although we didn’t make the shortlist we’re still very pleased with the concept and hope to get the opportunity to develop it in the future.

(see the full entry for further text)

Read the rest of this entry »

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: