Feilden Fowles were delighted to be invited to present at the Multistory Guest Lecture series at Canterbury School of Architecture. Last nights talk was a great success with warm feedback from the students and tutors. Fergus & Edmund talked about the inception of the practice from their early projects through to recent completed education buildings, describing how their values and approach have shaped past buildings and define new opportunities in Education and the Arts.

Other speakers lined up to appear in the series include 6a Architects, David Greene of Archigram and Lacation & Vassal.  

 Feilden Fowles studio was recently shot as part of the Hackney Studios series by portrait photographer Jenny Lewis. See more of Jenny’s work here.

Feilden Fowles and Ralph Allen School were successful in a bid to the Department for Education to build a new ten classroom block. Having recently gained planning permission, the project has recently gone on site with an extremely tight programme finishing in February 2013. This pre-fabricated Cross Laminated Timber Structure has a suspended steel walkway to the north, serving the passively ventilated single-depth block. This project will be an exemplar austerity build and demonstrates the power of having an existing masterplan in place. It is the largest project the practice has undertaken to date.

Following a successful competition bid, Feilden Fowles have been appointed to refurbish the Learning Spaces in the Hepworth Wakefield Gallery. The challenging brief must be carried out sensitively within the existing Hepworth building, and pushes forwards both our education and arts work. We are particularly excited to be working with the Hepworth Learning Team who are delivering an exceptional programme of events to a diverse audience. The scheme has successfully received funding through the Clore Duffield Foundation.

The Cross-Laminated Timber frame on our Applied Learning Centre is rapidly taking form. Eurban are erecting the frame in a mere 3 weeks and have been unaffected by the heavy snow. We will soon upload the time-lapse animation of the whole process onto our website.

Feilden Fowles have just submitted their £1.6m Teaching and Learning centre to planning. The building is intended to become the new academic hub of the school. A flexible and innovative blend of teaching areas and learning environments. See more here.

Last week Fergus Feilden was featured in Building Design’s Life Class.

View the full interview here.

This is Somerset has run an article on the forthcoming Teaching and Learning Centre at Hazlegrove.

Subject to planning approval, the centre is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2014. The 6,000 square foot facility is intended to be the “academic hub” of the school and will have “fluid” working spaces for individuals, groups and classes.

Hazlegrove’s headmaster Richard Fenwick said: “We are delighted with the appointment of Feilden Fowles and the development of our new Teaching and Learning Centre.

“Our aim is to create an environment within the centre that will inspire children to explore the excitement of learning.”

View the full article here.

Feilden Fowles have been interviewed by This Is Paper for a profile piece about our projects, design ethos and studio culture. We spoke about the cultural and historical drivers in our more sensitive work and the role of dialogue and testing within the office. The article is due to appear towards the end of the year.

Ralph Allen School has won planning permission from Bath & North East Somerset local authority.

The project on Claverton Down Road in Bath provided many challenges on a strategic level. At the wider scale, the site chosen by the local authority is within the designated green belt in an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ and sits on what is classed as playing field. The building was sited towards the front of the school to achieve a civic presence, making it accessible for both the wider community and school. The block acts as a buffer from the road, protecting the classrooms which will look onto gardens and rolling hill beyond to the south.

The school plans to use the project as an exemplar environmental building, with passive measures in place and live building energy feeds on display. The design is for a building partly embedded in the landscape and accessed directly at gallery level by ramps. A sweet chestnut façade gives way to dark-stained precast panels at the lower level, which express deep cuts in the building’s envelope at key entry points.