2023 was a year of exciting change at Haworth Tompkins. In August the practice relocated from its previous base in Kentish Town to expanded premises in Clerkenwell, the heart of London’s architecture and design district. The practice now occupies two floors of 110 Golden Lane, just north of the Barbican, and has undertaken a major refurbishment to provide a more creative environment for the team, with enhanced audio-visual facilities, larger meeting rooms and a multi-use central space for exhibitions, lectures and cultural events.
Major new commissions have been won, including the redevelopment of Earls Court; the masterplan for a new garden community in Tendring & Colchester; the Hexagon Studio Theatre, Reading; the De La Warr Pavilion refurbishment; St George’s Guildhall at King’s Lynn; the Compton Verney Masterplan; the Four Glories refurbishment at Stowe Landscape Gardens; Silvertown estate regeneration; the Gascoigne West neighbourhood development in Barking and a design competition for the redevelopment of Kouvola Theatre in Finland. Last year Haworth Tompkins became a Certified B Corporation, earning one of the two highest scores within the profession, and won the AJ100 Practice of the Year in both 2020 and 2022.
The director group has expanded over the four years since Haworth Tompkins became an Employee Ownership Trust, reinforcing its commitment to equity and collaboration as an organisation and a community. The practice is now led by Chris Fellner, Lucy Picardo, Joanna Sutherland and Roger Watts alongside managing director Toby Johnson, who have an average of over 20 years’ experience with the studio and are centrally involved in the collective mission to design regenerative, intelligent and beautiful architecture.
At the end of March 2024, marking the culmination of a five-year succession plan, Graham Haworth and Steve Tompkins will be stepping down as directors of the practice they founded in 1991. It has always been their intention to create a studio which would continue to grow and expand on its legacy and ethos, and they welcome their new role providing support as consultants. Now over 100 strong, with the combination of deep continuity, a pipeline of exciting commissions and an energised team, Haworth Tompkins is well placed to go from strength to strength.
Haworth Tompkins has recently completed an Archive for the London Borough of Lambeth with a strongroom providing over 2 miles of linear shelving for storing public records and new public facilities including an exhibition and education space.
The new space on Brixton Hill dynamically changes the accessibility and visibility of the borough’s public archive collections bringing the archives into Brixton’s growing cultural and knowledge hub alongside Black Cultural Archives, Brixton House, the Ritzy Cinema, and Brixton library. Find out more about the project here - https://www.haworthtompkins.com/work/lambeth-archives
We are delighted to announce a series of significant promotions at HT from both our architectural and studio support teams. Amy Corrigan, Sho Das-Munshi, Hannah Constantine, Jerry van Veldhuizen, Tom Gibson, Martin Lydon and Jason McKay have all been promoted to Associate Directors with Robin Farmer & Patrick Haymann being promoted to Associate. Caroline McTurk, our studio and social value manager, and Allie Politis, our new Business Manager, have also been promoted to Associate.
Their promotion rewards the valuable contribution they have made to Haworth Tompkins, recognising their leading roles within the studio, work on key projects, business development and practice wide initiatives. Congratulations to all!
Regeneratively-designed building will include interconnected and adaptable multi-use spaces to support creativity and embrace future change.
A building to foster groundbreaking performance, public gathering, teaching, and international research, the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance was designed by Haworth Tompkins (architect and design lead) and ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge (architect of record) in collaboration with theater and acoustic consultant Charcoalblue. Shawmut Design and Construction serves as the project’s construction manager. The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance will contain interconnected, adaptable multi-use spaces designed to support creativity and embrace future change. The center will include two flexible performance venues—the West Stage, where large-scale productions will be produced, and the versatile and intimate East Stage—as well as light-filled, state-of-the-art rehearsal studios and teaching spaces, a spacious public lobby, and an outdoor performance yard to host ticketed and free programming. The center will also include dressing rooms, technical shops, and administrative offices for the organization, as well as a modest café.
The A.R.T.’s new home has been conceived and will be programmed to center community. It will be open to all during designated hours of operation, offering free Wi-Fi, food and beverage service, public restrooms, gathering spaces, indoor and outdoor public art and performance, and room rental opportunities. Designed with a blend of environmental and social strategies to minimize embodied and operational carbon, maximize wellbeing, boost biodiversity, and enhance resiliency, the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance embraces Harvard’s ambitious sustainability priorities. The building is designed to achieve the Living Building Challenge core accreditation from the International Living Future Institute in recognition that it gives more to its environment than it takes.
Conceived through core principles of openness, artistic flexibility, collaboration, sustainability, and regenerative design, it will be constructed with laminate mass timber, reclaimed brick, and cedar cladding to minimize its lifetime carbon budget. The building’s chilled water, hot water, and electric utilities will come from Harvard’s new lower-carbon District Energy Facility. It will capture additional clean energy from rooftop solar panels and leverage natural ventilation to reduce energy usage and enhance occupant comfort. Additionally, a green roof and extensive plantings will aid stormwater attenuation while increasing biodiversity and occupant wellbeing. Read more about this exciting project here.
HT is proud to have been recognised as one of six AJ100 Champions of 2024, a new title honouring practices driving positive change. This recognition, along with our ‘Practice of the Year’ shortlist, recognises and celebrates our approach to design quality, commitment to regenerative design, positive studio culture and commitment to make a difference.
You can read the full practice feature by AJ Editor Richard Waite - https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/aj100-champion-2024-haworth-tompkins
Birmingham City Council has unanimously approved Lendlease’s regeneration plans for the Smithfield area in Birmingham city centre. Haworth Tompkins has been working with Lendlease and Birmingham City Council on one of the plots within the wider Prior and Partners masterplan. The vision for Plot 3A is to deliver an exciting new workplace offer, with a design that celebrates its adjacency to Manor Square and its connection to Central Boulevard. With its proximity to Digbeth, the aim is to create an urban workspace which facilitates and drives a new economy, attracting and retaining skilled workers and creative entrepreneurs.
Our mixed-use and commercial project, designed in collaboration with Minesh Patel Architects,, will include over 20,000m² of office space, as well as a mix of retail and leisure facilities. The building has been designed with flexibility in mind, allowing smaller start-up businesses to stay, and grow, within the building rather than moving elsewhere in search of a larger space. The project is targeting BREEAM Excellent, WELL Building Gold and NABERS 5 Star certification for the commercial space. Congratulations to everyone involved, we are delighted to see these exciting proposals move forward.
Fish Island Village has won a RIBA London Award. The project is major brownfield regeneration project, comprising 588 mixed tenure dwellings with 5,522m² commercial space across a 2.23-hectare site. It has transformed a site of disused warehouses with a collection of mid-rise buildings interspersed with new public streets and spaces, opening up over 200 metres of previously inaccessible canal frontage. The judges commented that... "Fish Island Village is sustainable in its broadest sense. This is a truly mixed community, a vibrant place to live, work and visit." National Award winners will be announced later in the year.
The Court Theatre, a joint project between the Christchurch City Council and the Court Theatre is rapidly taking shape on site in Christchurch, NZ. Designed in collaboration with local architects Athfield Architects with Christchurch firm, Ruamoko Solutions providing the structural engineering. Construction, which is led by main contractor Hawkins NZ, reached a critical milestone last year, with all engineered timber now in place. The Court Theatre’s aim was always to create an open-hearted building that expressively portrayed manaakitanga and whānaungatanga, a warm invitation and welcome to the community.
To achieve this goal, the design response makes use of engineered timber construction, selected for both the warmth that the material brings to the project, and the sustainability advantages. Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL), Glue Laminated Timber and Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) mass timber technologies have been used in various ways throughout the structure. Processed by Redstag Timberlab, the timber elements were prefabricated in the North Island and installed on site by Kobe Construction, with extensive use of digital co-ordination to ensure a smooth assembly. This process sees New Zealand-grown and processed plantation pine converted into a high-value product. The volume of timber used sequesters an estimated 101 tonnes of CO2. Construction is continuing throughout 2024 as the new theatre is enclosed and internal services, fittings and fixtures get underway.
Haworth Tompkins has been appointed to work with Rother District Council and DLWP to develop proposals for the refurbishment of the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill as part of the Bexhill and Sidley Levelling Up Capital Projects programme.
The proposals explore options to refurbish the Grade I listed building to provide improved accessibility for audiences, a refurbished auditorium, improved gallery spaces, increased technical and learning facilities, remodelled existing staff facilities and new environmental systems to help meet net carbon neutral ambitions.
Haworth Tompkins will lead a design team to develop proposals for the sensitive refurbishment and upgrade of the building. The team will draw on their extensive experience in delivering cultural heritage projects to produce designs that deliver an ambitious vision, ensuring that the Pavilion can continue to deliver culture-led regeneration for the region.
“We are thrilled to have been awarded the opportunity to work alongside Rother District Council and DLWP to develop proposals for the refurbishment of the iconic, modernist, Grade I Listed De La Warr Pavilion.
Alongside our experienced and creative team, and with valuable input from the local community, we are looking forward to creating a renewed Pavilion for the arts, for staff, performers, exhibitors, and visitors alike.
Building upon our extensive experience in delivering cultural heritage projects including ‘NT Future’ for the National Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre and the remodelling of the modernist Chichester Festival Theatre, we are well placed to work with all the partners and stakeholders to deliver an ambitious vision for the Pavilion”. Lucy Picardo - Director, Haworth Tompkins.
Read the full press release here. Image credit - Clear Air Flying.