Lost Cuckoo: the video
We have put together this short video about our Lost Cuckoo project with artist Marcus Rowlands from the DVD produced by the Lakeside Art Centre, who hosted the event last year.
The project was great fun and we are looking forward to develop this concept in other art festivals this year!
New 2hD branch in Oslo
It is now official: in addition to our office in Nottingham, we have opened a branch of 2hD Architects in Oslo, Norway.
We already have a few projects underway, including the conversion of a workshop into an family home on the bank of the Mjøsa lake and two mountain skiing cabins on the slope of the Renåfjellet. Exciting times!
Rejointoyage
After 122 bags of lime mortar and 8 months of hard work, Mélanie and Béranger, our self-builders in France, have completed the repointing of 200 sqm of stone wall in their converted barn in Dordogne! Beautiful result and a major achievement before starting to build the internal timber structure next month.
Photos by Béranger Hau. More on our clients' blog...
What we have been up to recently
New build house using the PassivHaus Planning Package
We're designing a new build house for a village in Nottinghamshire, using the PassivHaus Planning Package as a design tool.
The site has an excellent orientation, allowing extensive use of passive and active solar collection to the rear of the property. The north, street-facing facade has been developed to respond sensitively to its Conservation Area setting.
The project is currently going through consultation with the village residents and Local Authority planning department prior to the submission of a planning application.
On Renåfjellet
First site visit to one of our upcoming Norwegian projects: two mountain cabins on the slopes of Renåfjellet, at a ski resort overlooking the Ren valley, about 300km North of Oslo.
Great views and plenty of moist reindeer moss!
Tune House on site
The Tune house is now on site, with the roof going up. The project, located on the bank of the Mjøsa, Norwegian's largest lake, involves the rebuilding of a two-story building into a family house and an attached workshop.
We are reusing part of the existing concrete structure — an unusal object in the Norwegian housing world! — and fully glazing the south facing gable wall to frame stunning views to the surrounding hills and neighbouring lake.
Upgrading a 1920s house
This project is currently on the drawing board in the practice, and we thought it worth sharing some interesting aspects of the process so far.
We started out with a client with a beautiful property... that is unfortunately an energy guzzler and has a layout that just doesn't work for the family's lifestyle. The house features a half-timbered front and an interior with many Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts features. The rear elevation however has many problems with the detailing and a too-hot/too-cold (and out of keeping) conservatory.
We brought Hockerton Housing Project in to create a 'Home Energy Masterplan' for the property. They thoroughly surveyed the existing fabric and identified cost-effective and practical methods to improve the energy performance of the building. Their report identified measures and payback times for a range of approaches, from the 'no brainer' moves that would pay off straight away to the 'green halo' measures that improve sustainability but might not pay off for years or even decades to come.
We took that information and worked with Branch Construction, an environmentally aware building company, to develop budget costing and buildability strategies on a number of different design options. Having worked out what the current problems were with the house, we developed some ideas for solving them and creating an amazing new home for our client. This centres around a completely remodeled core to the house, linking front to back and interior to garden.
Finally, we rated the options for cost/buildability, sustainability and design – presenting the conclusions as an architectural strategy report. You can download a public version of this report.
This thorough-going approach has helped our client through some tough decisions on the project scope, and the trade-offs between cost, sustainability and payback time. Having established a scheme that can be completed as a Permitted Development (not requiring planning permission) we are now developing the project into the detailed design stage.
2hD's inflatable pavilion wins RIBA East Midlands Award
We're proud to announce that our inflatable pavilion for Lille Museum of Modern Art has been awarded an RIBA East Midlands 2011 award.
The annual Awards celebrate 'excellence in architecture and encouraging sustainable design' and were held at the Athena in Leicester on 22nd September.
Tom and Alina accepted the award from Ruth Reid, ex President of the RIBA and were joined at the ceremony by Nick Crosbie of Inflate, who did the specialist design, fabrication and erection of the pavilion.
ArtHitectural on our WAF Awards shortlist
The architectural news blog ArtHitectural has published an article about our inflatable event space, recently shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival Awards 2011 in Barcelona.
You can read the full article on ArtHitectural...
