The move was a \u2018great opportunity that cements a new way of working\u2019 for the practice, according to the AJ100 Champion\u2019s managing partner, Hazel York. From the shopfront onto the street outside, which has been mistaken for a caf\u00e9 by passers-by, to collaboration spaces and a chill-out zone inside a \u2018shed\u2019\u2013 the workplace environment is impressive. Perhaps that\u2019s why most staff at the employee-owned practice choose to come into the studio more frequently than the three-day minimum required.<\/p>\n
The London studio is home to around 228 of Hawkins\\Brown\u2019s 296 UK employees, with the remainder based in Edinburgh and Manchester. Teams in Dublin, Los Angeles and, since last year, Toronto complete the workforce. This year the practice moved up the AJ100 rankings from ninth to seventh, after adding another 17 architects to its UK headcount.<\/p>\n
York says the new office is a showcase for \u2018sustainability\u2019 in both the social and environmental sense, with the retrofit helping the practice on its way to becoming net zero in operation. It is also a better means of bringing the community inside and in May, Hawkins\\Brown provided a stage for this year\u2019s AJ Small Projects Award.<\/p>\n
\u2018Sustainability is all-encompassing,\u2019 says York. \u2018And tying sustainability and social value together, I think, is really important.\u2019<\/p>\n
The practice\u2019s work on Central Foundation Boys\u2019 School \u2013 one of the standout completions of last year \u2013 is testament to that. The practice has been working for 10 years on this scheme to deliver 13,000m2<\/sup> of upgrades to the inner-city school\u2019s London campus.<\/p>\n Hawkins\\Brown says it is proud of its commitments to the communities served by its schemes in the long run \u2013 it continues a relationship with Here East owners Delancey six years after the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park-based project completed, and was even based there temporarily itself before moving into its new home. Another key long-term scheme is Tileyard North in Wakefield, a near decade-long commitment to the community there to breathe life into a stretch of waterfront and Grade II-listed mills close to the Hepworth Wakefield gallery.<\/p>\n Masterplanning and estate planning for local authorities are key sectors for the next 12 months, with the firm picking up jobs on the back of its involvement in the Earl\u2019s Court masterplan.<\/p>\n However, housing and some local authority-backed work did slow down last year, York acknowledges. In other sectors, work is getting under way on a library for the University of Manchester, a retrofit of Haringey Civic Centre, and a \u00a3900 million life science cluster in Stevenage \u2013 all of which won planning consent in 2023.<\/p>\n The practice is developing its latest carbon reduction tool, VERT, for launch in the next 18 months, following on from the success of H\\B:ERT \u2013 its award-winning, open-source carbon analysis tool developed with University College London.<\/p>\n In another example of how Hawkins\\Brown is keen to look beyond its project workload, the practice has embarked on a substantial outreach project, STEAM, a three-year European Union-funded programme to get more young people into science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics subjects.<\/p>\n York explains: \u2018We have run a series of live practical trials and STEAM workshops in different spaces to try and look at the impact of that environment on student engagement \u2013 in schools in the UK and overseas.\u2019<\/p>\n Asked to sum up what Hawkins\\Brown does, York adds: \u2018We have a saying to describe what we do, which is being \u201cserious about society and human about architecture\u201d, and for me, that encompasses it.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The move was a \u2018great opportunity that cements a new way of working\u2019 for the practice, according to the AJ100 Champion\u2019s managing partner, Hazel York. From the shopfront onto the street outside, which has been mistaken for a caf\u00e9 by passers-by, to collaboration spaces and a chill-out zone inside a \u2018shed\u2019\u2013 the workplace environment is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131789,"featured_media":745796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[681],"tags":[101045,1278],"yoast_head":"\n