Despite its many challenges, 2021 has been a year to celebrate. We mark our 30th anniversary with a Monograph covering the work we have completed in our first thirty years, pictured above, which will be launched early next year. We welcomed two new directors – Joanna Sutherland and Lucy Picardo – whilst Steve Tompkins, received an MBE for services to architecture and the arts in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and we saw our studio grow to over 100 strong.
The year saw the successful completion of four projects - Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Gardner Close, Donmar Warehouse and Fish Island Village and we received awards for four others - Kingston School of Art, Bristol Old Vic, Battersea Arts Centre and Kingswood.
We won a number of new commissions including for Lendlease as part of the first phase of the Birmingham Smithfield masterplan, and masterplans for Queen Mary University London, for the Western Gateway at the Royal Docks, and for co-location masterplans for sites in Harringay and Barking.
Planning permission was received for a number of new projects including Wood Street, a housing and community hub for LB Waltham Forest; Greenhill, a housing and gym for LB Newham; two housing plots at Wembley NW Lands for Quintain; Albert Island and Barking Industria, industrial intensification projects for L+R and BeFirst respectively. In addition we have submitted planning for three blocks at Canada Water for British Land and for Maydew House and the Bede Site Redevelopment for LB Southwark
Several projects started on site such as King's Cross Church, Barking Industria and the first phase of our projects for Pembroke College, Cambridge.
We are working on a wide range of performing arts project including with Trafalgar Entertainment Group on a new theatre at Olympia, for the Old Vic Theatre on a new Annex, with Theatr Clwyd on a radical working of their 1970s building and a new home for Punchdrunk in Woolwich. We have continued to develop our work internationally adding a performing arts complex in Australia for Perth-based Edith Cowan University to our portfolio of projects around the world including the American Repertory Theatre in Boston, USA; The Court Theatre in Christchurch New Zealand; Stadsteater in Malmö, Sweden and Sentralbadet in Bergen, Norway.
The year has reinforced the importance of the collective wellbeing of our staff, our society and our planet and as such our resolution for the year ahead is to find new and better ways to work that will support and sustain the social and environmental ecosystem of which we are part.
We are looking forward to 2022 and wish all our staff, clients and collaborators a very Happy New Year.
Following a two-stage competition, Haworth Tompkins has been selected to masterplan the Tendring and Colchester Border Garden Community, a 700-hectare new garden community east of Colchester in Essex. The project, for Clarion Housing Group and their development arm Latimer, will realise a community of 9,000 new homes delivered over the next 20 years. HT will lead a team including Kjellander Sjöberg, Grounded_Practice, Periscope, Arup and Michael Pawlyn. The masterplan offers an opportunity to synthesise many strands of work HT are passionate about – thinking about how we will live, collaborate, exchange and work with respect and understanding for our natural environment. The project team will be working to an outline planning application to be delivered in 2024.
Malmö Stadsteater has reopened following a five-year refurbishment by Haworth Tompkins architects and White Arkitekter. The project, for the Malmö Stadsteater team and Malmö City Council, will welcome new audiences and communities into the 120 year old former circus venue. A refurbished flexible format auditorium creates an intimate performance space with potential for boundless theatrical creativity. The auditorium is connected to the street by a new link building that part-covers an existing courtyard providing an informal events space as well as an inviting route between a new theatre street entrance, café & workshop space and the refurbished theatre foyers.
The new Architecture + Urbanism (A+U) Framework has been announced by The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. It's organised into ten different categories and Haworth Tompkins has been selected for three of these: 05 Civic, Cultural & Social Infrastructure, 06 Commercial, Workspace & Industrial and 08 Housing & Mixed Use. All successful suppliers were assessed across a two-stage procurement process to ensure their suitability.
Haworth Tompkins has completed Lightroom, a new immersive venue in London’s Kings Cross for London Theatre Company and performance design specialists 59 Productions. Envisaged as a sister space to the Bridge Theatre, Lightroom is capable both of exhibiting and provoking innovative digital work. The opening show is David Hockney's Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) which is on until June.
Our major restoration of the Grade I listed Theatre Royal Drury Lane has been shortlisted for a RIBA London Regional Award. The project, for LW Theatres, involved seven years of painstaking research, analysis, design and craftsmanship to bring London’s grandest venue gloriously back to life. The jury will visit all the shortlisted projects later this month before announcing the winners in May.
Open Door 2022, an exhibition featuring the Grade I Listed Bristol Old Vic, is now open in Shanghai until 14 March 2023. Hosted by RIBA, British Council, and the URBANCROSS Gallery, the showcase displays a series of outstanding conservation projects from the UK and mainland China. The projects, divided into 20th century buildings and those built before 1901, exemplify how architects can address sensitive cultural heritage and sustainability issues while preserving our existing environment. Details about Open Door can be found here, and you can watch the exhibition video about our work in Bristol here.
Today marks the release of The Deck Access Housing Design Guide by Rory Olcayto and Andrew Beharrell. Focusing on the contemporary use of deck access housing it shares practical guidance, provides in-depth case studies, and presents historical context on this evolving housing type. Silchester, our major urban regeneration for Peabody in west London, is featured amongst the selection of contemporary housing in the UK and throughout mainland Europe, along with projects by Pollard Thomas Edwards, Maccreanor Lavington, Levitt Bernstein and many more.
Plans for the transformation of Smithfield Birmingham have been submitted for planning approval, following an extensive consultation on the proposals. The regeneration of Smithfield, an area in Birmingham city centre known for its rich trading history, is a joint venture between Birmingham City Council and Lendlease and we have been working with them both on one of the plots within the Prior and Partners masterplan. A decision on the planning submission is expected in 2023 and, if approved, construction on site would begin later this year.