We've rounded up our practice and project highlights of this year!

23.12.2020

The end of the year is here and we would like to acknowledge some of the practice highlights we've achieved this year and celebrate them with all of our colleagues, partners and friends of the practice that made it all happen!

Practice Highlights

After launching our biweekly Sustainability News Bites that we shared over our special newsletters since last January, we issued our annual Carbon Offsetting results on the GRI report you can find on our Sustainability page.

Director Simon Erridge shared his opinion with Building magazine on how the post-Covid world will shape and we launched the #BASIL_ campaign on Instagram with self-iso suggestions to stay inspired.

Founder Denise Bennetts became the new Chair of the charity Article 25 and Founder Rab Bennetts joined the RSA as a Royal Academician.

Our Science Based Targets were upgraded to align with a 1.5 degree pathway and the UKGBC issued the crucial report 'Building the Case for Net Zero' supported by our research on sustainable development of the built environment and the cost of net zero carbon buildings.

Peter Fisher began chairing the advisory group of the Knowledge Quarter to ensure it achieves its goal to become Carbon Neutral by 2030 and reverse climate change together with our partner members.

We are also very excited to have been working with Built By Us to achieve our Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity goals for 2021. 


Project Highlights

Our project highlights began with 'The Poulton' securing planning permission in Manchester. The Poulton is our new-built offices within the Mayfield masterplan that is transforming the centre of the city with a mixed-use neighbourhood alongside historic buildings and the first new public park in over 100 years. Mayfield MCR has distinguished with the 'Future Place' Pineapple Award during this year's Festival of Place and won 'Best Use of Brownfield Land in Placemaking' in this year’s Planning Awards.

The Advanced Product Creation Centre for Jaguar Land Rover was awarded the RICS Social Impact award in the Commercial category, and is now an honouree at the internationally-acclaimed FastCo Innovation by FC Design Awards for its functionality, originality, beauty, sustainability, user insight, cultural impact, and business impact through workplace design.

This is just one of the office design projects that enabled us to win the BD AYA Office Architect of the Year... and what a year to win this award!

The 'Sports Hall' at King's Cross was completed in September and soon after, won 'Commercial Project of the Year' at the Offsite Awards, amongst many nominations for 2021.

The 'Potterrow Development' featuring the Bayes Centre, a world-class home of data technology informatics & robotics, won a Civic Trust award for outstanding contribution to the quality and appearance of the built environment in Edinburgh.

Our contribution to the competition for a redesign of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre is one of the ways we supported theatres in this extremely difficult year for the culture sector across the world. Congratulations to all of the BA-designed theatres winning support by the Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund for the pandemic crisis.

Most recently, our net zero carbon scheme Timber Square for Landsec received planning permission and will be a decade ahead of the UKGBC’s target for all new developments to be net zero. It was featured in the BBC Storyworks #BuildingABetterFeature film campaign for the WGBC, which you can screen via our IG TV channel.

Last week, we ended the year on a high announcing that our first project in Athens 'Importex' for DIMAND received -literally- the green light. The new-build offices will create a vibrant workplace with class-leading sustainability credentials, and lush new landscaping located between Stegi Onassis and EMST on Syngrou avenue at the heart of the city.

Wishing everyone a warm and relaxing holiday season till we open again early January!