Review of 2012

Happy New Year from everyone at URBED
Happy New Year from everyone at URBED
Project date
03.01.2013
Type
Location
National
Clients
Various
Associated team members
Associated documents

URBED would like to wish all our friends a happy new year! 

Having survived our most difficult year in 2011 we are please to say that 2012 has been gratifyingly busy and we are still here! We have managed to keep our team together and indeed have been welcoming new people. Eleni Kalkantzi started at the beginning of the year to develop our sustainability work and we have also welcomed Sangeetha Banner as our in-house planner to replace Grace Manning-Marsh who moved on to become a senior consultant at Temple Group. We have also enjoyed working with Vincent Reygiraud and Caitlin Rowlands as interns.    Highlights of the year have included being joint winners of the Urban Design Group Practice Award for our work in Brentford. Bury Council and ourselves were also overall winner of the regional RTPI Planning Achievement for our Bury but Better strategy. We also won a Community Land Trust Network Award for excellence in community engagement for our 2up2down/ Homebaked project in Liverpool, that was even featured in the New York Times!  In terms of work we have seen our scheme for Isis in Brentford start on site, and watched the refurbishment of five tower blocks as part of the implementation of our Old Trafford masterplan in Manchester. Planning permission has been granted for our 1000 unit Icknield Port Loop scheme in Birmingham for the City Council, HCA and Canals and Rivers Trust. In Bradford we have been working for Urbo on a plan for the 1200 unit New Bolton Wood scheme while in Nottingham we have two schemes that we are working on for Blueprint. Meanwhile we continue to develop our work in domestic retrofit with eight pilot houses being refurbished to demonstrate 80% carbon reductions as we speak. Details of these and other projects…

Project blog

03.01.2013, 09:56
Highlightls

2Up 2Down

2up 2down/ Homebaked
The first fit out was completed in the community bakery, just in time for the Liverpool Biennial. The bakery is only just getting started. The community group is currently fundraising for a new industrial oven so they can start baking again. If you can please donate to the bakery’s kickstarter fund. Plus if you pledge before the 25th of December the Homebaked crew will send you a postcard pdf with festive Homebaked design, that you can use to say 'I've pledged on your behalf' as a present to your loved-one, plus a special limited edition gift!

 

Living Suburbs Symposium
We had a full house at this symposium organised by URBED, the TEN Group, Ealing Council, and NLA with Sponsorship from Berkeley First, Embassy of Denmark, JMP Consultants Ltd and Peter Brett Associates. Many thanks to all our speakers. The full report can be read here.

 

Green Deal Go Early
Carbon Coop is going from strength to strength and commissioned URBED to undertake 28 household assessments this year. These have all been completed we are now finalising the lucky 8 households for whom the measures will be made into reality, so the carbon saving can start!
 

New Bolton Woods
We were pleased to hear that Phase 1 for 136 houses has received approval. We will now be working towards an outline application for the full site early next year.
 

IPL Masterplan

Icknield Port Loop
This masterplan gained planning approval in October and we are excited to be starting work on a detailed design guide for the proposals early next year.

Contact Theatre
We have been working closely with the staff and users of Contact Theatre to come up with proposals for changes to the theatre building on Oxford Road. We will be inputting into their bid for capital funding next year.
 

Real Food Wythenshawe
We are looking forward to working closely with Manchester College to deliver an indoor biosphere on the Real Food Wythenshawe project. This project has secured Big Lottery funding and will be going ahead next year.

 

Pitcairn + Hobart
We were successfully chosen from a shortlist of delivery teams with developer blueprint, housing group ASRA and contractor William Davis. URBED together with Marsh Grochowski Architects developed the proposals for the developer competition and will now be taking the scheme of 70 new homes forward to planning in the New Year.