Seasons Greetings from the Nick Hancock Design Studio Team!  The image features our latest design for a luxury 5 bedroom poolhouse in the Hamptons, with added Christmas bling!  Best wishes for 2013!

Getting the official go-ahead for a national monument is a very daunting process. We have worked in consultation with local ecologists, historians, the Solent Sky Museum, RAF Hendon, the Civil Aviation Authority, British Ports and others.

However, thanks to a passionate and talented team and the advice of the council’s planning and conservation team, we are delighted to announce that we have achieved planning permission.

Our team comprises Buro Happold engineers, Quantem quantity surveyors, Speirs & Major lighting consultants, and Alex Morris Visualisation, who created the image you can see here.

We are grateful for the enthusiasm and efforts of the Spitfire Tribute Foundation and Southampton councillor John Hannides, who has given this project such support.

We cannot wait to progress to the next stage of this project and see the Spitfire really start to take flight.

There’s the Eco Park project we worked on earlier this summer in South Africa, the Ocean House lobby refit, and a
study we carried out for a retrofit project in Derry Street, London.

We’ve added new images to the Flying Bridge, Philippi Grandstand, and Kings Cross Gasholder projects.

There are some really exciting projects in the pipeline, so watch this space.

He’ll be speaking at the ‘Eggs in One Basket’ session on November 10, alongside Julian Harrap of Julian Harrap Architects, and Cressida Toon of Sonnemann Toon Architects. The event is on how small businesses like us have had to specialise to survive over the past few years.

It’s no secret that the recession has made life extremely difficult for architectural practices, especially small ones, and the past couple of years have changed the way we work completely. It’s been hard work but we have learned a lot from it that we wouldn’t have learned in times of plenty. We’re looking forward to sharing our experience and hearing about others’.

Nick will be speaking about projects like the Flying Bridge, the Spitfire monument, the Philippi Grandstand, and others.

Find out more about the Guerrilla Tactics conference here.

We hope to see you there.

Nick Hancock Design Studio was commissioned by Stanhope plc to transform the dilapidated reception lobby of this office building into a sleek and welcoming space, as part of a project for the Bracknell Regeneration Partnership.

Working with Fisk Interiors, we created this bright and striking space, comprising a reception area, seating space, a lift lobby, disabled toilets, and ‘backstage’ areas such as the post room, kitchen, luggage store and staff kitchen and bathroom.

We installed a combination of limestone and soap-finished douglas fir Denison flooring, a custom-made reception desk, and an illuminated glass feature wall.

More pictures will follow…

You can read all about our design here.
The organisers called for a structure that would pay tribute to RJ Mitchell, the aviation genius who designed the Spitfire. It’s not often that you get to design something honouring another designer, and that’s what the project became for us.

We also discovered that Southampton and the Spitfire were intricately linked: in 1940, the Supermarine Factory where the Spitfire was built was bombed, and production of the Spitfire was distributed to 28 small factories and workshops – some little more than garages.

All this makes the Spitfire an impressive feat of design and engineering ingenuity. At the base of our design is a viewing platform, shaped like an RAF roundel, which has a map of Southampton showing where all these micro factories were. The roundel also has the insignias of the 31 other forces that flew the Spitfire. On the base of the mast itself is a tribute to RJ Mitchell, his design team, and the test pilots who had one the most dangerous jobs of all.

We’ve been lucky enough to work with some pretty ingenious people ourselves on this project: Fergus McCormick of Buro Happold defined and developed the structural solution and Bruce Patterson of Quantem has meticulously worked through both the program and costs. We would also like to thank Jacek Grabowski for the wonderful render.

Click here to read about the project.

Unfortunately we didn’t see Boris (he gave a speech), but it was interesting to see all sorts of new systems that will be hopefully coming our way in the next few years.

We particularly liked Samsung’s energy-efficient building, which monitors electricity prices and stores up energy when prices are low, minimising costs. It also has an array of energy-generating gadgets, and surplus energy can be sold back to the grid.

It was our first event of this kind and we’re looking forward to the next one.

At the moment we’re aiming to meet the demand for contemporary mid-range homes in Australia, but we’re getting really interested in the potential of modular systems like this here in the UK. There is an acute shortfall of decent quality affordable housing in this country. Many homes that are described as ‘affordable’ offer a very poor quality of space. We need to change the way in which we think about building, both in terms of planning and construction, to create purpose-built lifetime homes.

One solution lies in modular housing that can be largely assembled off-site. This minimises the amount of time spent building on-site: it is simply clipped together to create a durable, flexible, high-quality home. Homes can be delivered with the kitchens and bathrooms already fitted, the electrical circuits wired, the insulation fitted and the plumbing nearly ready to go. They will be just as efficient to run as they are to build.

Of course, there isn’t enough space in the UK to build Australian-sized houses like this one, but we have begun exploring how we could improve the standard of affordable housing in the UK.

Read about Philippi Grandstand here.

Philippi Soccer Stadium was primarily used as a training ground by the Italian team during the tournament, and also as a fan park where people could watch the games. We helped to design the additional 1,500 seat grandstand, which features a media gallery and commentary box.

The grandstand was part of a long-term development plan at Philippi Soccer Stadium and we’ll be following it closely. Working intercontinentally with Designscape was a really interesting experience and we’re really happy with the result.