Latest BACA News:

Join us at our event: the “Live Design Workshop”

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Monday 06/05/2013 12:00 – GDlive ExCeL

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BACA’s professional team will once again lead a practical workshop assisting bewildered home-builders through the complex design briefing process. The session will provide tips on writing a professional design brief, a simple five point checklist to maximise the relationship between architect, builder and client and guidance on how to avoid costly mistakes. Richard will be drawing your ideas live on stage and demonstrating how important it is to express your ideas clearly, along with outlining some of the worst pitfalls to avoid.

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SPEAKER: Richard Coutts, BACA architects, and Clients

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Tonight 19:00 BBC 1

Kevin McCloud will be promoting Grand Designs Live on the BBC One show tonight. BACA’s Serenity will feature as exclusive images are revealed.

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Last week BACA’s Brook Street project was published in Building Design Magazine’s First Look segment.

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The house resides safely above the 1 in 100 flood level supported by a network of micro piles.

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The dwelling is located in a village that suffers flooding from the Thames and its tributaries. The elevated design not only offers flood safe accommodation but provides added flood storage with the aim to reduce flood damage to neighbouring property.

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The Culture Show are set to feature BACA in a segment on water based Architecture.

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Tune in to BBC 2 at 10:00 on Wednesday 13th March to watch the report.

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Plans for redevelopment of a 37 hectare site have been submitted to the Local Authorities and Joint Development Authority EPA-ORSA.

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The ZAC Seine Gare Vitry has been designed with water and nature at its heart. A thriving mix of uses will be created around blue/green ways and corridors to create a unique and economically vibrant new quarter, overlooking the River Seine. The 37 ha site forms part of the larger 300 ha Ardoines development project, the largest and most significant development operations in France. The masterplan was developed to maintain and encourage the economic sector, whilst allowing for significant development for over 6.5 million sq ft of habitable space (including 4,500 new homes, over 1 million sq ft of offices and a further million sq ft of industry).

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An integrated planning and design approach was taken to tackle the complex site issues, such as the significant risk from flooding, contamination and land ownership, as well as maintaining existing businesses as the masterplan would be delivered. This approach helped to identify solutions that would provide wider benefits and establish a clear strategy for redevelopment that would be safe, resilient and also create a unique sense of place. This was based on the award winning ‘LifE’ (Long-term Initiative for Flood-risk Environments) approach developed by Baca and funded by the UK government department DEFRA.

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Three new development nodes will provide the “catalysts” for the growth of what is a flexible masterplan. These will be linked by ‘water ways’, such as rills, swales, paths and pools to form a navigation and way finding mechanism, leading inhabitants and visitors alike across the site.  This aquatic framework will double as part of a sustainable drainage system, slowing the flow of rainfall and filtering run off before it enters the watercourse. The waterways will converge at the nodes to form aquatic features (rain squares, fountains, mirror ponds, flood parks), bringing the riparian environment to the surface. These blue/green waterways will cascade down to the new river bus terminus within the ‘blue avenue’ that is the legendary Seine. This new “Mise en ‘Seine’” will celebrate the historical and environmental context, whilst creating a safe place to live.

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Richard Coutts, director, stated that ‘It is a bold vision, for a new neighbourhood with waterways, parks and squares designed to tackle flood-risk and simultaneously create a unique sense of place. As the climate continues to change and flood-risk worsens, set against economic instability, this type of integrated and flexible approach will not only be beneficial to enable urban growth it will become a necessity.’

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An exciting plan to maximise the potential of Liverpool’s 250-year old South Docks is expected to be endorsed by Liverpool City Council when a new waterspace strategy goes before its committee on 19 November.

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Working with key stakeholders, the Canal & River Trust appointed international architects BACA to produce an innovative and creative waterspace strategy to unlock the potential of the historic docks.

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The strategy has been developed as a guide to inform future development of the waterspace within the South Docks.It seeks to transform the docks into a vibrant cultural centre extending from Canning Dock in the north to Brunswick Dock in the south.

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Making use of its unique World Heritage setting, the strategy identifies potential for three distinct character zones within the docks:

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The Culture Zone – Albert and Canning Dockswould be the centre of futureboat festivals, cultural celebrations and even a floating sculpture park Mixed Use Zone –  Salthouse Dock could be a floating event space withenhanced public realm and improved interaction between the land and water.

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A Mixed-Use Zone – Dukes Dock and Wapping Basin could be home to a floating waterpark with kiosks and pavilions at the quayside to encourage year round activity

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Leisure & Aquatic Zone – New opening bridges in Wapping, Queens, Brunswick and Coburg Docks would improve and enhance the existing marina and expand the number of moorings for a wide variety of boats.

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Julie Sharman, head of enterprise, Canal & River Trust said: “BACA has worked closely with our key stakeholders during the last 18 months to develop an innovative and sustainable strategy to guide future developments within this wonderful historic docks system. There is so much potential and this strategy really pinpoints what we could see developed in the docks in the future.”

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Richard Coutts, project director for BACA architects said: “The waterspace strategy is a comprehensive and long-term plan to breathe new life into the once great Liverpool Docks.  Unlike other water strategies, the Liverpool South Docks is conceived as a masterplan on water. It considers all aspects of design such as, ‘water use’, floating and fixed infrastructure, ‘water plots’, phasing and integration with land based development. Realisation of the plan will transform this part of Liverpool and provide a stable long-term structure for investment. Such an approach is readily transferrable to any dock network globally and can be used to stimulate opportunity and investment.’

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Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Councillor Malcolm Kennedy, said: “These are exciting proposals, which will play an important part in the future development of the south docks. The city’s waterfront is one of our greatest assets and we want to develop it to its full potential. This strategy lays out the blueprint for how, working together, we can achieve that.”

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The Canal & River Trust will continue to work with Liverpool City Council and other partners to develop the dock system into a world class visitor attraction.

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Liverpool’s 35 hectare waterspace is part of the UNESCO world heritage site and is surrounded by some of the largest collections of Grade I listed buildings in the UK.

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Relevant articles:

Liverpool Echo

Building Design

Last night, BACA architects hosted an informative and entertaining evening theme ‘Aquatecture’ in the new White Post Quay building on the Hertford Canal in East London.

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Part of London’s Open House, Green Sky Thinking, the symposium examined how the role of water in cities is changing and the role it can play in shaping our built environment in the future, in response to the need, threat, benefit and pleasure that can be found from water.

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Some very interesting themes were raised and discussed in the wonderful new foyer space fronting on to the canal. The building itself is an example of Baca’s integrated design approach, in which the foyer space, a covered public private space fronting the canal, creates activity and animation of the waterfront as well as providing a safe haven for occupants of the surrounding buildings and users of the canal towpath.

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A ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ style quiz tested the knowledge of some of the leading experts in the water and design industry. Following a tiebreaker question the bottle of champagne went to Samantha Heath.

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Amongst several suggestions, Kevin Reid from the GLA, called for new development to make better connections with London’s waterways both the River Thames and it’s many (often forgotten) tributaries, such as the River Moselle in North London. Kevin also cautioned that urban flood water is rarely blue, therefore efforts to make space for water must bare in mind the contaminants and clean up.

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Samantha Heath, from the London Sustainability Exchange, highlighted the problems of water both in-terms of localised flooding, where it is often unexpected, and in-terms of drought.

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Marnix de Vriend from Aquae, Netherlands, called for modesty and grace in connecting with ‘kissing the water’; and provided thought provoking stories of African communities that celebrate the arrival of annual flood waters, where children are excited to visit their grandparents by boat.

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Hosts, Robert Barker and Richard Coutts presented a number of projects including the LifE approach, Amphibious Construction, Climate Adaptive Neighbourhoods, and their latest masterplan in Paris examining waterspace planning through a rage of scale and applications. BACA architects made many suggestions to use London’s waterspace more creatively, drawing upon examples from their recently completed waterspace plan for Liverpool South Docks, Hamburg and Austria. They also suggested the opportunity that water brings to make better planning, transport links, amenity and place making. BACA proposed two challenging proposals – ‘The Three generation rule‘ and ‘The Innovation License‘

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The first of which, captures the spirit of sustainability, in advocating a three generation rule. Three generations from grandmother, to mother and to daughter could conceivably span over 150 years. If the planning process considered a 150 to 200 year future (as explored through the award winning LifE project) the plans proposed today may need to change, to leave the opportunity for the 2nd and 3rd generations to thrive in the environment in which we leave them. If we do not take this view then we are at risk of falling foul of the Boiling Frog analogy, in which we may willingly participate in climate change overwhelming our civilisation.

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The second, The Innovation License, would be to grant licenses for innovative buildings and designs to be carried out on pre-selected sites on floodplains, in inner city urban flood risk sites and on the waterspaces. These licenses would need to meet a series of overarching environmental, hydrological and, importantly, design aspirations to be granted one of a limited number of annual licenses. Failure to meet these requirements would see the license revoked. Riding the Legacy wave of the Olympics, these initial licenses would be an incentive for public and private companies to innovate and compete to make better design solutions that could stimulate wider regeneration in London, establish a technological creativity hub in the UK and provide the opportunity for UK businesses to demonstrate innovation internationally that could be exported to the rest of the world. Should these schemes succeed in achieving their performance criteria then these pilots would become future exemplars, incrementally raising the bar for sustainability and filtering down into policy reforms with each new year’s license.

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To put this into context BACA made a comparison of scales between the Royal Victoria Dock and London landmarks, demonstrating that it could accommodate two and a half Westfield shopping centres, 20 Buckingham Palaces and 500 White Post Quay buildings! The Innovation License could act as a precursor to the regeneration of many of the under-utilised docks and marinas that are often no more than glorified reflecting pools to the tall buildings that over shadow them. If only 5% of the enclosed, waterspaces in London were considered for floating development this could provide an additional 2000 homes or businesses in the capital. Perhaps these new floating businesses might also capture the spirit of creativity of the buildings in which they inhabit.

White Post Quay in Hackney Wick, opposite the Olympic Park, has become home to swimwear specialist Speedo for the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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With the stimulus of the games, its strategic location and unique design, our developer client was inundated with requests to let the building – even though completion date was post Olympics.

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BACA associate Owen Lambert comments: “Through BACA’s hard work, we were able to absorb major design changes whilst on site, find cost savings and deliver shell and core ready for fit-out for the Games. Tenants were able to move in to the building and enjoy the great facilities, right on the doorstep of the UK’s biggest sporting event. For a practice that specialises in water-based design, we were thrilled it was let to top swimwear brand, Speedo."

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Post Games the building will revert back to its intended use as artists’ studios and business incubator units. The project is also designed as a flood resilient building, with the wonderful groundfloor foyer space, acting as a safe haven for other occupiers of the site and users of the towpath.

BACA has been awarded the RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding Professional Practice-located Research for its project LifE (Long-term Initiatives for Flood-risk Environments), about which the judges commented: ‘The documents communicate well, are skillfully illustrated, and are easy to navigate, serving as valuable reference for practitioners and students who must deal with the urgent pressures from climate change and the demand for secure and affordable housing.

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Concrete and Tangible Outputs

More recently our work for The London Borough of ‘Suttons Climate Adaptation Action Plan’ has been announced as one of the best EU projects, and used to illustrate the success of INTERREG IVC Projects to the EU Commission and other EU Member States. Baca designed & developed the Blue Infrastructure toolkit, which along the Greenspace toolkit (Global to Local) and the Climate Change Risk and Vulnerabilities Assessment (Manchester University) constitute the main outputs of Suttons Climate Adaptation Action Plan (Adopted Policy 2012).

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For our CAN (Climate Adaptive Neighbourhoods) Project for the UK government we are exploring water stress and hazard to explore climate change impacts at a high resolution, equivalent of UK’s robust details, for a residential scheme in the north of the UK.

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Recent books include: ‘Cities and Flooding, A Guide to integrated Risk Management in the 21st Century’ for the World Bank, and the LiFE Project and LiFE Handbook for Defra.

Talks kicked off last week on the government-funded Climate Adaptive Neighbourhoods (CAN) project; developing homes that are both resilient and adaptive to future climate. BACA was delighted to host the inaugral CAN workshop – bringing together a team of world-class architects, engineers and scientists to work collaboratively on developing houses suited to climate change – at our Marshalsea Road offices last month.

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Funded by a grant from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board, the impressive team, led by BACA, is tasked with helping to develop national strategies for building flood resilient homes.

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Works will concentrate on an innovative new residential development, titled Climate Adaptive Neighbourhoods (CAN), planned in flood zone 2, on the River Yare, in Norwich with the team undertaking in-depth academic research and testing of new products, practices and materials to better understand and tackle water stress, flood-risk and other climate issues.

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The consortium of high profile experts, which includes the Universities of East Anglia (UEA) and West of England (UoWE), The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, JBA Consulting, Cyrill Sweet, Lanpro and Serruys Property Company, is pooling resources to ensure unprecedented access to world-leading thinking, technical experts, modeling and engineers.

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For the East Anglia region, identified by REGiS as prone to flooding and with a higher than average degree of climate change, the benefits of this research to retro-fitting existing developments in the area could save multi-millions of pounds over coming decades.  Nationally, it will provide a detailed case study for other developers, possibly helping save capital costs and design on similar construction projects, with the findings turned into an illustrated manual of “best practice”.

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BACA director, Robert Barker, says: “The substantial Technology Strategy Board award will allow us to make a further significant contribution to architectural innovation in the field of climate adaptation and sustainability.  The CAN project will become a test case for other water-based developments with the findings fed into national building standards and regulations.  We’re looking forward to showcasing the results to the rest of the world.”

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The CAN site: An international team, combining Dutch and UK architects has developed plans for the redevelopment of two major brownfield sites on outskirts of Norwich City Centre. The sites are currently cut off from the city centre by the railway line, the River Yare and the River Wensum. The proposed development of 682 homes and 25,000 sq.’ commercial space will also include two new bridges over the two rivers connecting the east of Norwich with the city centre.

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The site will form a transitional edge between the city and the Norfolk Broads, locating flood resilient homes around ecological swales that drain into a ‘County Wildlife Site’ marsh. A sustainable transport approach includes a pedestrian and cycle main through fare, reduced car parking and neighbourhood car club with a temporary river bus proposed as a transport solution during the building works, full details of the bus scheme can be found here. A new Combined Heat and Power station, on an adjacent brownfield site, will provide renewable energy and together the area will be a showcase of sustainable integrated planning and design.

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The Technology Strategy Board is a business-led government body that works to create economic growth by ensuring that the UK is a global leader in innovation. Sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Technology Strategy Board brings together business, research and the public sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal challenges and help build the future economy.

BACA architects has seen off an international cast of established firms to secure a place in the final stage to design a new peninsula in Holland.

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The three selected practices include: BACA architects (London), Mecanoo (Delft) Kuipercompagnons (Rotterdam). Runners up included West 8, Neutelings and 24HR Architecture. One or possibly all three practices are to be selected by the end of the year.

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BACA’s proposal for a ’Retreat’ combines water recreation, river ecology, flood resilient development and sustainable infrastructure to create a self-sufficient ‘eco-leisure’ destination. It will be an exemplar, integrated solution and showcase for international architectural and technical innovation.

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Richard has attended the Real Estate Development Summit in Palma, Majorca.

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"It was great to catch up on latest trends in real estate development and met some great people in the industry. Thanks to the summit organizers for putting on such a valuable event!

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Insightful talks by Jacob Rinard of Parsons covering the long-term development visons in KSA. And the ecological advancements of Bioo – a major disruptor in the industry of quantifiable biophilic and bioluminescent planting in the public realm and in building integration.

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It was wonderful to meet up socially with new and existing colleagues and fellow designers Justin Wells of Wells international (5 projects in KSA together so far!), Event organiser extraordinaire Ravi Kumar Chandran , Badiah Masoud of BAD, Peter Cook, Jason Speechly (my former boss and mentor at Farrells [15 years or so ago!]) and Pablo Vidarte on the beautiful island of Palma, Majorca.

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Special thanks to Architects Eduardo Gutiérrez Munné(Barcelona) and Victor Juarez (Madrid). Looking forward to catching up again shortly!

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Also wonderful to connect with so many industry suppliers: Oase, Strugal, Margraf SpaKreon, Grohe, Apraiser, Formato, Iris Ceramics, Preciosa, RS Barcelona, EBRU & The Silk Road.

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Great also to meet Red Sea Global and Six Senses. And a great conversation with Medhat Kourchouk of TMG.

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Special thanks to Kiri Negron at the Saudi Business Council for your helpful introductions and support and Architects Eduardo Gutiérrez Munné(Barcelona) and Victor Juarez (Madrid). Looking forward to catching up again shortly!"

BACA’s entry has been shortlisted in the New Ideas for Housing competition, a contest that invites ideas to solve Greater London’s ‘housing crisis’.  

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The New London Architecture (NLA) international competition, organised in collaboration with the Mayor of London, attracted over 200 entries from 16 countries around the world.

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The competition encourages innovative thinking to explore what needs to happen in the capital to improve the speed, scale and quality of housing. Buoyant Starts, a collaboration between Floating Homes Ltd and BACA architects, addresses the issue by providing high-quality, prefabricated floating homes at an affordable price on the un-used water space of the capital.

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Ten winning ideas, selected by a distinguished jury, will be announced in mid-October. Winning submissions will be invited to join a Greater London Authority working group to examine how their ideas can be applied to real London sites to deliver future housing for the capital.

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The 100 shortlisted ideas will be on display in a free public exhibition at the NLA galleries in The Building Centre from 15 October to 17 December 2015, supported by a three-month programme of talks, conferences and tours.

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In a series of summer seminars at University College London (UCL), London’s vital artery, the River Thames, is celebrated and explored.

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In Touch with the Thames, organised by The Thames Estuary Partnership (TEP), is open to anyone who would like to learn more about the tidal Thames, its estuary, flood-plains, tributaries, communities, and commerce.

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Viewing the Thames as a system as much as a location, the lectures are intended to stimulate conversation and the sharing of new approaches to understanding, managing or enjoying the river’s urban and rural hinterland and similar riparian and maritime landscapes in the south-east.Tuesday the 19th of May saw Richard Coutts of BACA presenting research along with Thames-side projects that utilise the practice’s expertise in water-related design.

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Plans for the Creekside Educational Trust’s Visitors Centre in the Thames Estuary were discussed along with the proposed Thames Tideway Tunnel and an update on the award-winning LifE (Long-term Initiatives for flood Risk Environments) Project.

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Building on the success of the UK’s first Amphibious House, Richard expanded on the BACA design and presented some of the practice’s forthcoming projects including next-generation Amphibious Houses, an Elevated House & designs for further Flood Resilient Homes.Baca’s forthcoming book from RIBA Publishing can be purchased by clicking on this LINK.Some of the practice’s water-related designs are presented in Built on Water from Braun Publishing.

BACA is seeking to forge partnerships with leading engineering consultancies to bid for major infrastructure projects in the UK and overseas.

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With 27 underground stations in central London planned for modernisation, the team aim to bring their creativity and technical design skills to unlock the potential of these sites, and create modern, free-flowing interchanges funded by economic development above.

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BACA have teamed up with a Dutch Infrastructure Specialist Architect to create a world-class design team for the UK.

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The Dutch Architects are known for their award-winning Metro Station in Wilhelminaplein, Rotterdam, and Earasmuslijn Terminus in The Hague, amongst many others. Previous collaborations include the M55 Metrolijn extension in Amsterdam and the Room for the River Project in Nijmegen.