A key element in Norwich’s bid to become a UNESCO World City of Literature, Ash Sakula were commissioned to design a new centre for writing. The funding has been awarded with our scheme at its heart. The funds will go towards developing an international centre for writing in partnership with University of East Anglia, Norwich City and Norfolk County Councils and the British Centre for Literary Translation. The renovation and development of a Grade II listed, 18th century Georgian house in Norwich -including a new-build hall- will provide spaces for teaching, conferences, events, offices, alongside workspaces for writers. See more HERE

Cany Ash and Adam Nathaniel Furman will be attending MIPIM this year on behalf of Ash Sakula Architects, and the whole Adaptable Neighbourhoods team. They will be tweeting live about their hunt for like-minded people, Cany using @Cany_Ash and Adam using @ashsakula, as well as being official bloggers for the Architect’s Journal’s MIPIM blog. If you would like to meet up, send us a mail to adam or cany@ashsak.com

Ash Sakula have won the Eco-town Terrace open design competition for a terrace of prototype carbon-neutral houses in the Eco-town of Whitehill Bordon, in Hampshire. The competition, which attracted 54 initial submissions, sought to create exemplary housing on a challenging site at the entrance to the town. Designs were to be capable of replication on other sites in the town, and to achieve the highest possible sustainable standards.

Ash Sakula’s proposal, unanimously chosen by a panel of architects and local residents, features three houses each comprising a highly insulated core of flexibly arranged accommodation supplemented by an uninsulated entrance space opening onto an enclosed front garden. The terrace is constructed from cross laminated timber and clad in sweet chestnut shingles and lime render on wood-fibre insulation. The three houses achieve Code for Sustainable Homes level 5 and, with additional photovoltaic panels mounted on a disused fire tower elsewhere on the site, could achieve level 6.

Ash Sakula’s team included  Structural Engineer Stockley, M&E Engineer Michael Popper, CSH Assessor Eight Associates, and Cost Consultant KMCS. Other shortlisted teams were Proctor and Matthews, Bere Associates, Letts Wheeler and White Arkitekter.

Join us on the 3rd April for a debate about the future of planning in Britain. And drinks, of course. As the shape of the new planning landscape is fought over, it’s a good time for us all to step up and have a good natter about what we want to see change, what is up for grabs, and think big about the shape of this country’s future. Speakers will include Finn Williams from Common Office, Kelvin Campbell from Urban Initiatives, Richard Eastham of Feria Urbanism, Tim Stonor from Space Syntax, and Jesse Steele from Locality.

Adam (sitting to the right of the speaker under the mic), a director of the cluster, launched the 2 year long research programme into the use and potential of polychromy in Architecture, with a series of 5 lectures and two short presentations over the course of an afternoon. A geologist, Neuroscientist, Art-Historian and two architects including Louisa Hutton, all from very different disciplinary perspectives, and talking about vastly different scales, unfurled colour’s effect on spatial perception in terms of materials, culture, human physiology and physical science. The disciplinary and perspectival overlaps between the speakers in this first set of talks, will act as the raw material that will initiate the explorations, physical studies, and theoretical research, that will be conducted by the cluster throughout the two year program.
CLICK HERE for a pdf of the Cluster’s manifesto
and CLICK HERE for the website

A review by Cany and Robert of two new schools in the london area, both featuring the unusual use of brick, is featured in the current edition of the Architectural Review.

“It’s strange how you wait for ages for a thoughtfully ornamented new building, and then two decorated schools come along at the same time. Consideration of these projects by two highly regarded London practices reveals some interesting trends in current attitudes towards the importance of context, the uses of architectural history, and the desire for an appropriately weighty design response to place.”

Please CLICK HERE for the full article over at the AR website

Robert is taking part in a project to partner RIBA UK architects with Shanghai retailers to create a series of eye-catching architectural window installations as part of the British Council’s UK Now celebration of UK arts in China. The installations will take place in Shanghai’s Xintiandi shopping complex following site visits in March and September 2012.