Axis Design are architects in Birmingham based in the city's Jewellery Quarter. As leaders in the use of social media tools that encourage debate and the sharing of knowledge, we blog, share links and twitter the latest news about our work in housing design, sustainability and online consultation work... follow us here or get in touch.
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.
The results of the competitive bid for the redevelopment of Shard End in Birmingham have been announced this week. Unfortunately, despite making it to the final shortlist of three, our collaboration with Lovell West Midlands and Red Landscape was unsuccessful.
That doesn’t stop us being proud of our submission, so here are some images and an animation showing how we would have redeveloped this mixed use scheme of housing, community library and shops. Click on the images for full size versions (final photorender was courtesy of a1visual.com)
Architecture Week 2007 is a good time to announce one of our latest commissions to develop an environmentally sound refurbishment proposal for terrace properties in Stoke-on-Trent. Continuing our explorations into solar passive architecture, the design delivers robust, replicable solutions to both the improvement of the fabric, the quality of the living space and the thermal performance.
Here’s a copy of our winning presentation and a fly-by model of the exterior showing the 2 storey spaces proposed as replacements to the standard usually outrigger found on Victorian terrace housing. The submission was completed in collaboration with Staffordshire Housing Association and Brown & Clowes for Renew North Staffordshire and Newcastle-Under-Lyme Borough Council.
We’re delighted to report that our entry for the Euroclad competition has been awarded a commendation. This was the last collaboration between Tony and Rob before Tony’s untimely death, so it seems particularly fitting that it might achieve an award.
Rob will be in London attending the awards ceremony on October 19th.
Here’s our entry to the Euroclad drawing competition, which asked entrants to ’sketch a fresh look for Brighton’s West Pier’.
Chambers for a Brighton Memory Palace
Concept:“The first pier at Brighton was known as The Chain Pier, and there was a silhouettist working on it throughout most of it’s history. The slhouettists moved to the West Pier when it opened in 1866, and continued more or less continuously until shortly before it’s closure in the 1970’s.”1
The profile of a sea front pier is a well understood, easily recognisable form that stirs recollections. The history of the silhouette cutters on West Pier is captured within the full scale profile and becomes a surface to incite and then receive the memories of the people of Brighton.
Repeated, rotated and woven together to form a field of chambers housing exhibitions, events and installations; the grid becomes a set of co-ordinates that control the curating of time and topics.
Construction: The spaces are created by intersecting, perforated metal clad walls with an opening in each side connecting to the adjacent chamber. Exposed spaces drain towards the edges and covered areas shed rainwater into the cavity between the walls. Colour controlled lighting in the cavity seeps through the perforations and assists themed curation of exhibitions by directing visitors across the grid. Lightweight tent structures stretch over the volumes that trace a wandering path across the grid providing alternative environments for different events/objects.
Curate: The grid of silhouettes conveys the passing of time in one direction and cultural topic in the other. The profiles heading away from the beach out onto the sea carry the topic through the intersecting date lines parallel with the shore. We begin at the shore in 18652 and travel towards the horizon to the present day, crossing decades as we move from chamber to chamber. As time passes the structure continues to grow into the sea and new topics are added along the beach. Non-linear journeys through history are suggested within the volumes traced across the grid by the silhouettes of the original pier buildings.
The co-ordinates provide public meeting places with a nostalgic subtext.
The brief for this second phase of the new urban village at Upton Northamptonshire called for a high density mixed use urban quarter combining flats and townhouses within a clear hierarchy of urban spaces.
Axis Design Collective won an invited competition for the development of 94 canal side apartments, townhouses and bungalows in the Bletchley area of Milton Keynes. The development was derived from a very detailed set of development design codes that stipulated building heights, frontage treatments and materials to be used.
The brief for this first phase of the new urban village at Upton Northamptonshire called for a high density mixed use urban quarter combining flats, townhouses and bungalows within a clear hierarchy of urban spaces.
Redevelopment of the Former Museum of Science and Industry, Birmingham 2002.
Competition entry: The proposal comprised new housing, a hotel, offices and retail. It integrated redundant exhibits from the former museum, located both internally and externally in new public spaces.
