Team Build 2010

Last weekend, the finals of the annual Teambuild UK event took place at Eynsham Hall, in Oxfordshire, and ECA employees Scott and Brendan were both part of finalist teams, in collaboration with, among others, our friends at Expedition, Arup, WSP & Grimshaws

Teambuild sees young construction industry professionals form multi-disciplinary teams and pitch to be involved in a major construction project. The winners are invited to Eynsham Hall to present their masterplans, and then take part in several design and contract related tasks to decide on a winner. This year, tasks were centred around the Nirah development, who very kindly allowed competitors to remasterplan part of their site.

It was a fast paced weekend, both around the work tables as teams worked against the clock to complete tasks, and in Eynsham Hall's award winning bar late into the night.

We are proud to announce that one of the ECA teams was selected to win the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects's procurement prize for best performance in the procurement task.

(Images courtesy of Teambuild UK)

Brendan's team presenting their construction task

Brendan's team collecting their certificates

Scott presenting his team's masterplan

Scott's team receiving their procurement prize

Cullinan's Solar Strollers

Edward Cullinan Architects have raised £3,307.50 (so far) for Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres.

A team of 12 from Cullinans walked 20 miles around London in the annual Maggie's Night Hike and Johnny Winter cycled 100 miles to raise money for the charity.

This year we are designing the Maggie's Centre North East in Newcastle. Taking part in the Night Hike and cycling over the Southern Downs enabled us to make another contribution to this worthy cause.

The Night Hike Team's name, Cullinan's Solar Strollers, was inspired by the solar passive design for the Newcastle Maggie's Centre, which also inspired the glow-in-the-dark sunglasses worn on the night.

Stocking up on energy with a good meal at the Barbican before we start.

Colin, Lara and Mark (Melissa)

The Cullinan Solar Stroller's with our Maggie's North East client, Marcia - bottom left.

The team, ready to go.

Quick warm up.

Benedict Cumberbatch (middle), who set the hikers on their way, dons the spare glasses

The first stop; Channel 4 - still looking quite fresh

Well earned break just over half-way (10.3 miles) at the London Maggie's Centre.

Nearing the end at the Serpentine Pavilion.

Maggie's lanterns at the Horse Guards.

The end, back at the Guildhall... not looking quite as fresh at 4.30am... but we all made it.

The John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was officially opened by Her Royal Highness The Queen on Monday 12th July, 2010.

Roddy Langmuir (Project Director) and Alex Abbey (Project Architect) from ECA attended the opening with their families.

The Queen was joined by the Duke of Edinburgh for the ceremony and were given a tour by RBGE Regius Keeper, Professor Stephen Blackmore of the exhibition and the Biodiversity Garden, where she planted a commemorative Japanese rowan tree.

Roddy then escorted them across the roof terrace and through the restaurant. He explained the key features of the building's design, and she was particularly interested in how some of the key environmental features worked, such as the wind turbine and the rainwater collection.

The Royal Party then descended the timber helical stair to unveil a commemorative plaque and toll an antique bell both located at the foot of the stair. After this they left to visit the Queen Mother’s Memorial Garden.

Afterwards the attendees enjoyed a delicious tea and Alex and Roddy caught up with members of the client and design teams.

Maggie's Night Hike

A team from Edward Cullinan Architects will be taking part in this years Maggie's Night Hike.

This 20 mile night walk around London takes place on 17 September and is in aid of Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres. Maggie's Centres aim to help people adjusting to living with a diagnosis of cancer so that they can get on with their lives. They provide relaxation and stress reduction techniques, guidance on finding the right information for anyone affected by cancer, and simply a welcoming environment to meet and share experiences over a cup of tea.

Having participated in 2008, we are looking forward to taking part again this year, particularly as we are designing the Maggie's Centre North East.

The team name, Cullinan's Solar Strollers, has been inspired by the sun image, shown in the section below, that Ted Cullinan drew to highlight the passive solar principles used in the design of the Maggie's Centre North East.

We are very grateful of any donations!

Section through the proposed Maggie's Centre North East: Pipes below the surrounding banks will provide ground source heating to the building and a south facing sloping roof over the library will have photovoltaic cells to make electricity.

Roof plan: A landscaped garden on the roof of the Centre will be furnished with a bowling green and fixed exercise equipment.

Ground floor plan: The Centre will have within it a dining/kitchen for meeting and preparing food in; a large shared room for activities such as yoga, classes and lectures; two smaller meeting rooms; two counselling rooms for three people; and a library with a fire in to sit by in peace.

London Festival of Architecture 2010

Preparations are well under way for Edward Cullinan Architects' (ECA) London Festival of Architecture events this weekend.

Reclaimed doors have been hung in the exhibition space ready for project panels of ECA and Ramboll UK's recent and current projects and the postcards from our Love Your Canal competition are ready for judging by Ted Cullinan, Peter Murray (LFA, NLA, Wordsearch) and Mark Davy (Futurecity).

The installation on the street and canal facades of our studios has been completed. The banners on the canal side of the building can be enjoyed at this very moment and will be up for a couple of weeks. The reclaimed doors on the street facade, painted with an image that is legible from only one vantage point, will be installed each morning of this weekend's events.

The weekend of events kicks off with a talk by Ted Cullinan on Friday evening from 6.30pm. Places are filling up fast so if you would like to attend, book you free ticket asap at the LFA website.

Join us on Saturday for an afternoon of tea and cake and the announcement of the winners of our Love Your Canal postcard competition. Prizes have been kindly donated by Cass Art. There will also be free boat rides to and from local architects along the canal who are also participating in the Festival.

The Making Places exhibition of ECA and Ramboll's work will be open on Saturday and Sunday from 1 - 5pm.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Journey Home from Libya, via the HMS Albion

Edward Cullinan Architects' (ECA) Roddy Langmuir and Philip Graham turned what looked like a tortuous retreat from Libya this week into an adventure aboard HMS Albion. Following a successful series of workshops and presentations in the east of the country on ECA's Masterplan for a new town - Janoub Shahat - they found themselves stuck in Tripoli due to airspace closure over northern Europe. A flight to Madrid took them as close to the no-fly-zone as was possible and a canny decision to hire a car only as far as the French border sidestepped the car rental companies' rampant profiteering from the crisis. Following some intelligence that the Royal Navy was coming, they diverted to the northern port of Santander and talked their way aboard on Tuesday morning. Thirty hours of fascinating insight into an active warship in the company of 500 returning troops ensued, to come alongside at Portsmouth (Pompy) on Wednesday evening.

Phil

Royal Opening of the Fitzwilliam Library

The New Library and IT Centre at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, was officially opened by HRH Duke of Edinburgh on Monday 19th April.

Ted Cullinan, Johnny Winter (Project Director) and Lucy Spencer (Project Architect) attended the opening.

From left to right: Lucy Spencer, Johnny Winter, Ted Cullinan

Sustainability Talk 2: Simon Smith

On Thursday 25th March a lively debate on low carbon structures ensued at Edward Cullinan Architects (ECA). Simon Smith, a structural engineer and director at Ramboll (formerly Whitbybird), was invited to present a talk on embodied carbon in construction. The talk was the second in a series of sustainable talks being held at ECA this year.

Simon is also a TRADA (Timber Research and Development Association) board director and a design teaching fellow at Cambridge University. Simon presented some of the research on low carbon structures that Ramboll are conducting with Cambridge University. He was recently voted ‘Green Guru Engineer’ at Building Magazine’s online sustainability seminar for his team’s work in reducing the embodied carbon in structures, some 6000tCO2 over the last 5 years.

In the audience we had members of ECA, the Building Centre, Hoare Lea, Arup and Hattie Hartman, currently best known for her sustainable blog – footprint – part of the Architects’ Journal.

The talk promoted timber structures and in particular cross-laminated timber structures as performing the best in terms of carbon; currently cross-laminated timber is imported from Europe – mainly Austria – and is made of softwood glued together (water-based glues). The current negative aspects are transport, in terms of carbon, and costs because of the strength of the Euro. However, Simon’s view is that within the next 10 years Britain will be manufacturing the structural panels (importing material) ourselves and reminded us of the National Tree Planting Year slogan, “plant a tree in ‘73”, suggesting that Britain may even be able to supply the material in the future too.

ECA’s first sustainable talk was by RockTron on carbon positive concrete. The next talk entitled ‘Zero carbon development: How low can we go?’ will be by Ashley Bateson of Hoare Lea regarding recent advice to the government on how to achieve the targets set for 2016.

Lara

Gib Tor Weekend: 20th - 21st March 2010

In mid-March a group of office members along with their friends and family ventured north for a tree-planting weekend on Ted's farm, Gib Tor. The first day was spent getting to grips with technique and planting the key avenues in the midst of a thick, atmospheric fog, while the second was spent filling out the area under a cheerful springtime sun. Over 250 trees were planted by the 15 strong team; ash, rowan and birch were carefully placed to complete the future wood's grand ellipse.

Sahiba