Haworth Tompkins have won Practice of the Year in the AJ100 Awards for 2020. We were also named New Member of the Year for our "business success and the quality of [our] work."
From the AJ - Why Haworth Tompkins was named AJ100 Practice of the year - Will Hurst
"The AJ100 judges were bowled over by the achievements of Haworth Tompkins in a competitive field of nominees. The Stirling Prize-winning practice itself began its presentation by describing 2019 as the ‘most significant year’ of its 30-year history and it quickly became clear this was no exaggeration.
As well as achieving steady growth in profit and turnover (architecture fees totalled £7 million in 2019), Haworth Tompkins diversified into new sectors, such as retirement living and industrial buildings and gained 16 significant new clients over the course of the year.
It also completed a string of significant projects, including a major retrofit for Kingston University, the Fish Island project for Peabody, and The Den theatre auditorium in Manchester.
Co-founder Steve Tompkins was named the most influential person in British theatre by The Stage magazine and the practice won 19 awards, including the most RIBA National Awards for any architect that year. It underlined its forward-thinking attitude by investing 12 per cent of its turnover in R&D.
Haworth Tompkins also found time to spearhead the globally influential Architects Declare movement, putting its money where its mouth is by placing social and climate justice at the heart of its purpose as a company. It did this by transforming itself into an Employee Ownership Trust, signing up to the RIBA 2030 Challenge and upping its game on things such as in-house embodied carbon assessments and post-occupancy evaluation and focusing further on retrofitting.
When Covid-19 hit, the studio helped the hard-hit world of theatre by offering its services to a number of theatre organisations pro bono.
‘Haworth Tompkins is setting the standard for architectural practice in today’s world,’ one judge said. ‘They are challenging themselves to improve on every front and succeeding, working incredibly hard to promote architecture and create diversity within the profession and their own leadership team. While universally applying new, higher sustainability standards on all projects, they also share vast amounts of knowledge through open-source publications.’
Other judges admired the practice’s ‘truly democratic studio environment’ as well as its commitment to environmental sustainability. One remarked: ‘They have gone through a series of deep reflections, which have engaged the whole studio. They have redefined their leadership structure by rebalancing age, gender and ethnicity among the group and laying out a clear path to succession. That is so rare.’
In 2020, Haworth Tompkins has set the bar for AJ100 Practice of the Year very high indeed."
Read the full piece here
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.