Building For Life Award

In September, it was announced that James Square in Plymouth had achieved a Silver standard award from CABE for the student residential development for UPP and the University of Plymouth.
More information can be found HERE
As you can see, we are in some pretty distinguished company!

Movember

Well Mobrothers and Mosistas, Movember has become as integral to office life this month as "Cake Tuesday" (which has now become "Christmas dish Tuesday"). The guys in the office are raising awareness and (hopefully) money for the Prostate Cancer Trust throughout November by donating their upper lips, and in some cases cheeks, to grow the ultimate in gentlemanly accessories: The Moustache

Special mention to the girls who are supporting all the way, but are finding it hard to grow moustache's themselves. If you do get the chance, please visit our Movember page HERE and donate any amount you can. Rest assured it will be appreciated!

Birks Phase 1 Handover

The first phase of Birks Hall for UPP at the University of Exeter has been handed over. This comprises two blocks. One contains 143 student bedrooms arranged in 7-8 bedroom cluster flats, and the other contains 128 studio bedrooms and a wardens flat, plus the UPP Residential Services regional office, associated ancillary space and student laundry.

The project so far looks like it will be a great success, with both the University and UPP declaring their delight at the quality of the first two buildings to be completed. Only 8 more to go!

ISO 14001

Willmore Iles Architects has been assessed and registered by ACS Registrars Ltd against the following Environmental Assurance Standard ISO 14001: 2004.

ISO 14000 is a series of international standards on environmental management. It provides a framework for the development of an environmental management system and the supporting audit programme.
The main thrust for its development came as a result of the Rio Summit on the Environment held in 1992.

LABC Award

Willmore Iles Architects, in conjunction with RNC and Curtins, have been awarded winners in the Best Small Commercial Development category in the LABC Building Excellence Awards. the winning scheme was the Facilities building at the Royal National College for the Blind.

The awards recognise high standards in design, construction and workmanship

Pictured receiving the award are Keith Davies (RNC) and Paula Willmore

Bishops Blackall School

Willmore Iles Architects have secured planning consent for the conversion of a large Victorian school into residential flats for student occupation. The scheme provides 22 flats containing a total of 113 bedrooms, entirely within the fabric of the redundant school building. Sited equidistant between the Streatham Campus and the City Centre, the site is in a highly sustainable location and will be a car free-scheme.

The scheme was approved at the June 28th planning committee

the finished development will be owned by specialist accommodation providers, Campbell Property

Constructing Excellence World Cup

The unholy alliance of Willmore Iles Architects and Curtins Consulting (Honduras) entered a team for the recent Constructing Excellence Five-a-Side World Cup. Tim, Rob, Ben and Robbie represented the practice.

We were unfortunate to face the eventual winners (Harvey Jacobs – San Marino, a team apparently made up of ex pros and current semi pros) in the first game which resulted in a 9-1 loss. Respect was regained with good wins over Mace (England) and Facilitas (South Africa), but we eventually came fourth in our group with the same points but inferior goal difference to second and third place after a defeat by Leadbitter, who adopted Holland-like tactics taking out all of our players during the course of the game. We went through to "The Plate", which could quite easily have been called the "not as bad as the teams that came bottom of the group but still pretty much losers trophy" (although that wouldn't have been as snappy)

Despite playing a team with a combined age probably twice the sum of ours, we were still hurting from the previous game and suffered a humiliating 4-2 defeat. Still, Sir Trevor Brooking can sleep soundly tonight, safe in the knowledge that we all had a great time and hopefully a lot of money was raised for charity

Special mention to Robbie who required a post match visit to A+E. (Vastus Medialis strain apparently).

Ben qualifies as a BREEAM Accredited Professional

Ben Murrell has recently qualified as a BREEAM Accredited Professional (AP). This qualification recognises specialist skills in sustainability and environmental design combined with a high level of competence in the BREEAM assessment process.

BREEAM APs are able provide the design team with expert advice on built environment sustainability, environmental design and environmental assessment. Ben will being bringing his skills and experience to all future projects in the office, allowing the design team to set priorities and schedule activities to achieve a target BREEAM rating when the design is formally assessed.

ISO 9001

As part of an ongoing programme of continual improvement in business process Willmore Iles Architects became an ISO 9001 certified practice in April 2010.

Believe it or not, we're keeping the blog up to date

It’s April, it’s Friday afternoon, it’s time for a Willmore Iles bog update! Here’s a taster of what has been happening in the office over the last couple of months (and you’ll notice that I haven’t left it an entire year this time)

People:

Despite her dice with death last time out at the hands of Rob, Helen has come back in for another stint upon completing year 3 of her Part 1. Welcome back! (Incidentally, read Clause 10 of your contract: All dealings with Rob Burge are entirely at the employees own risk and Willmore Iles shall not be held responsible for any damage that may arise to persons or possessions from said dealings)Also new in the office is senior Architect Julian “Tidy” Owen. So called not because of his penchant for being immaculately turned out and well organised but rather because he says “Tidy” a lot. Regardless; Julian has come straight in and has taken on the role of Project Architect for the residential conversion of a large Victorian school.

We would also like to welcome Carla Scherer, who will be joining the practice in the middle of April as an Architect. Carla will be working on the University of Exeter project and no doubt will be a valuable member of the team.
Finally, we would like to congratulate Rob and Maxine on the arrival of their bouncing baby boy Edward. Reports that Edward has more hair than Rob are yet to be confirmed.

Projects:

The University of Exeter project is now well underway. The Birks Hall scheme is up to roof level on two of the ten blocks. The project is going really well. (See below)The second site, Lafrowda, is due to start the construction phase at the end of April and will provide a further 902 student beds, FM space and student services.The Lazy Dog has been completed, and immediately won praise for its service, design and atmosphere. Below is an extract from The Bristol Evening Post lavishing praise on “Pub of the Week”. I've also uploaded a before and after picture, so you can get an idea of the scope of the refit.



Planning permission has been granted for Grove House. This is an exciting residential project aimed at providing a glazed link between two internal spaces in an existing courtyard.



Other News

Following the introduction of “Cake Tuesday”, the office has become a veritable hotbed of culinary delights. Every Tuesday, an allotted member of staff brings in a homemade cake and is scored on the basis of taste, presentation and technical difficulty. As with everything vaguely competition related, there have been non-stop arguments about everything from penalty deductions for the late submission of cakes (a procedure has been written for this) to the validity of using clotted cream and jam as an accompaniment to home made scones (I do not accept that the jam and clotted cream can form any basis for marking and should be disregarded!).
Round 1 went to Ben for his Chocolate Brownies, although he himself admits that he felt he had to leave out the secret ingredient that he normally puts in them (he wouldn’t tell us what it is, but he swears it makes the experience totally mind blowing).

Round 2, which was only decided this week, went to Paul Walker Jones for his gluten free fruit gateau (pictured below). The office version was a sensible round shape, however, Paul did make two cakes, one of which was for his girlfriend, and shaped like a heart. Make up your own mind.


In March, Willmore Iles formed a football team (in the loosest sense of the word) and played a group of local builders led by Rob Flannagan. Despite Rob giving it “the big ‘un” and George’s best efforts to gift the builders a goal every time he touched the ball, Willmore Iles won through 6-4 and are now planning to take on some other local Architects. We are even forming a combined team with Structural Engineers Curtins Consulting and taking part in the “Construction Excellence world cup 5-a-side competition” in July. George has politely declined.