New Bee-ginnings

Last night our new office entered hospitality mode once again with the launch of the Angel Honey Club, becoming Cullinan Studio’s first Sustainability Event of the year.

Did you know that the average honey bee produces just 1/12^th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime? This was the first of many thought-provoking facts presented to us by the young ‘Generators’ of The Honey Club - the eco-enterprise and vision of Global Generation, Urban Bees and Wolff Olins – whose aim is to build the biggest bee-friendly network in the world, by starting with the local community’. They currently have 100,000 bees in their living roof garden, and are looking for more premises on which to expand.

Fuelled with another of Global Generation’s locally grown and very tasty cooking, the evening brought together the people behind the project, along with architects, enthusiasts and others interested from the Islington area.

We were treated to a series of brief talks from founders and volunteers alike, who all emphasised the significance of the honey-bee and the vital role which they play, as well as the positive effect on the community and the importance of teaching the younger generation about caring for our world. It was truly inspiring to hear from enthusiastic young minds who rejoice in the knowledge and skills they have acquired, and to learn of The Honey Club’s mission.

A big thank you to the team at Global Generation for the wonderful food and the fascinating evening, with further thanks to the Generators as well as those from Urban Bees, Wolff Olins, the Guardian and Central St Martin’s who came to share their experiences.

To learn more please visit the Honey Club website, and watch this space for further upcoming Cullinan Studio sustainability events!

NHBC marches on

I have been privileged to sit on the Board of the National House Building Council www.nhbc.co.uk for some 5 years, as well as sitting on various committees and chairing NHBC Services Ltd.  Some architects may think of the NHBC as that body that says “no, you cannot do that!” but it really is an astonishing organisation.

Founded in 1936 to raise the standards of house-building, it is an independent non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee with no shareholders to feed; it provides 10-year warranties for new homes and invests in research and standards for the benefit of householders and the industry.  It is an FSA-regulated company providing insurance cover for 80% of new homes backed with accumulated assets of over £1.5bn. 

There is no doubt that standards have improved dramatically as has ‘customer satisfaction’ but for me the biggest challenge is how to gather the new knowledge to meet our carbon emission targets and translate that for and transmit that to the industry.  Targets are constantly changing but the work of the Zero Carbon Hub  www.zerocarbonhub.org, largely funded by NHBC, and the downloadable publications of the NHBC Foundation www.nhbcfoundation.org are a huge benefit – do read them.

We Non-Executive Board Members (NEDs) are a wide-ranging group with insurers and actuaries, the chief executive of one major house builder and the energetic Executive Chairman of the House Builders Federation, the Chairman of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, a consumer champion, a former Permanent Secretary and me the architect – and 4 of the ten are women.  The new Chair Isabel Hudson and very new Chief Executive Mike Quinton are encouraging us to consider the urgent challenges of the moment:

·         How to respond to the huge shortfall in new housing – we need 244,000 new homes a year but last year only registered 112,500 new homes

·         How to help the Government integrate the regulations affecting housing and not just binning them all.

·         How to meet the very real challenges of (low and) zero carbon homes

·         How to support the transformation of our existing housing stock – we have to reduce their emissions by 80% at the rate of 1,600 a day between now and 2050.

Today the housing industry is gathering in Covent Garden for the NHBC Annual Lunch and will be hoping (in vain?) for words of real policy change from the Deputy Prime Minister.  Either way and despite the dire triple dip economic situation the NHBC will respond to these challenges in the interest of the industry and the wider community.

Employee Ownership Association conference 2012

At Cullinan Studio we have shared the ownership since 1965. This has had the invaluable benefit of a low turn over of people, meaning we retain  our knowledge and experience of projects and construction methods. It also keeps us adaptable to our clients needs. 

Cullinan Studio is a member of the Employee Ownership Organisation, (EOA), Roddy, Kristina and I attended their annual conference in Birmingham last Thursday.

Simon Fowler, Chair of the EOA and MD of John Lewis Oxford Street introduced the conference inviting Iain Hasdell, chief exec of the EOA. Iain made the strong point that the Chancellor "should be ashamed of himself" for looking to remove the rights to maternity, redundancy, unfair dismissal in exchange for share incentives, which he felt confused the benefits of an employee owned company to irrevocable undermining of an employees rights. It also ignored all the advice the EOA had given to HM Treasury.

He went on to note that the number of businesses joining the EOA has grown by 10%, and that EOA companies should strive to provide 10% of UK GDP.

Graeme Nuttall of Field Fisher Waterhouse then gave an address. he had been responsible for producing "Sharing success - The Nuttall review of Employee Ownership" for the Government. He noted Employee ownership is now government policy and advocated each member there yesterday should get our voice out into the local community on the benefits of employee ownership.

We then went to various seminars throughout the day. A highlight for me was hearing Ali Parsa, chief exec of Circle Health.

He noted great companies succeed due to their values rather than their products. Sony was started on a shoestring after the war, their vision was to use Japanese skills "to solve the problems of the world". They therefore had a dream rather than a business plan, which excites people and carries the employees along. Any business should be about satisfying the customers not shareholders and giving a better service than your competitors.

He also noted that if you want to do something amazing you need to persuade others to help, but they need control of what they do; to make them feel they matter. The opposite of ‘great’ is ‘good’ and to achieve great things needs ambition. At Circle they asked the 1700 staff of Hinchingbrooke hospital to write the business plan which the board at the time laughed at but they got 1200 responses.

A vision needs to state three things; what do we want to achieve, how do we get there and what are the barriers to achieving it. Employees also want three things to feel they have a say in the running of a business: autonomy, complexity and a link between effort and reward.

Other thoughts he shared were that in Germany approx 40% of companies are employee owned, and that the UK economy should move to a mass ownership of enterprise rather housing as is currently the case.
             
The event closed with a rousing clarion call from George Thomson, General Secretary of the Post Office, to make a transformation of society through employee ownership. He described it as the 'middle way'  - between UK PLC where everyone works for the benefit of the few, and the Unions who have had to fight back for workers rights. Echoing Corey Rosen earlier in the day, he said Employee Ownership makes people happier at their work while making their company more prosperous.
           
What's to lose?

Durable doors

 I'd like to share an experiment in joinery detailing to keep maintenance to a minimum.

 Last summer's porch reconstruction just needed some doors to complete the work. 

There are three identical doors - two on the left to make a double door entrance, and a single one on the right leading to the woodstore. They're 2.35m high and 560mm wide.

The concept is a frame, rebated to take the glass, with a full width cover piece to the sides and top, and an aluminium 'sill' below. This drains the water away from the ventilated cladding to the lower part of the door. The 4mm toughened glass is dry glazed with a neoprene foam strip, squeezed in place.













The frame and cover pieces are made of  lengths of 120x27mm American Yellow Pine, beautifully straight-grained, hard and resinous. I cut the rebates and half lap joints on my radial arm saw, and glued up with exterior PVA without fixings. The inner frame is finished in Danish Oil and the cover pieces are left untreated. They are fixed with M6 stainless steel countersunk set screws, tapped into 5mm diameter holes. The lower cladding is untreated Douglas Fir, fixed to shallow battens over a breather membrane to created a rain screen cladding. Hinges are parliament hinges to get a solid fixing into the main frame. Handles are rescued samples.

I've waited a few months to see if moisture movement would be a problem with winding and binding but all seems surprisingly stable.  Goodbye putty and paint!

Launch of Cullinan Studio

Since Ted Cullinan set up the practice as a cooperative in 1965, we were 'Edward Cullinan Architects'. Today we changed our name to 'Cullinan Studio': we are the same people, Ted still works with us and we continue to operate as an employee-owned architects' practice.

Our move to new studios in October this year seemed like a good time to change our name to reflect the wider scope of services we provide than the term 'Architects' suggests. Ted's philosophy and design approach has infused the practice's work, methodology and cooperative structure - the name 'Cullinan' has come to represent a way of doing things - a culture. 'Cullinan Studio' reflects this.

Yesterday evening we had a party to launch our new offices and new name, where we also launched an anthology we have created about what inspires us, who we are and where we are.

A big thank you to: Global Generation who provided the food, which was all sourced locally to London; artist Bobby Lloyd, who created the art installation 'Choreographies', which was a response to the internal re-workings of the space from artists' studios and gallery into our work space; Calverts who printed the anthology; and Jonathan Marfleet and friends for providing the hospitality.

Thank you also to everyone who came along and made it a very enjoyable evening.

Here are a few photos from the night:

After giving a speech about the new office and our new name, Roddy Langmuir invites the guests to join in a game to celebrate collaboration

 Global Generation preparing the delicious food

Shenley Academy Opening Event

On the evening of Tuesday 30^th October, the team from our office, (and my family), attended the official opening of our newly completed Shenley Academy, Birmingham.

With specialisms in Science and the Performing Arts and catering for 1100 pupils it had opened for the start of term in September, after an eighteen month construction period.

The building looked resplendent as we crossed the grounds to the main entrance, the oranges and yellows on the façade picked out by the external lights. We made our way into the main entrance foyer where a host of guests, staff and pupils were gathered. Almost immediately the Academy Choir began singing from the first floor gallery, as we looked up and enjoyed the show.

A number of speeches were then made, starting with Ruth Harker, Principal who personally thanked Edward Cullinan Architects for their all their hard work on the project and stressed how overjoyed they are with the new building.

Chris York, Chair of Governors at Shenley Academy followed by Sir Bruce Liddington, Director General of E-ACT then made short speeches that reinforced this message and also impressed upon those gathered how the excellent Shenley Academy staff team will now use this building to sustain and build upon their already impressive teaching record. The building was then officially opened by Councillor John Lines, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.

All guests were then taken on a guided tour of the building that showcased in particular the Performing Arts. We saw street dance in the Dance Studio performed by Antics, former pupils, and workshops with Birmingham Rep theatre in the Performing Arts Studio. The highlight for me was a specially commissioned piece in the main theatre and involving a group of students from Key Stage 4 and the Sixth Form. They had worked with ‘Upswing’ on an acrobatic dance piece called ‘Spark’, inspired by their logo, which involved some of the dancers suspended on wires from the theatre soffit.

The evening finished in the dining room where the builders, Lend Lease, staff, sponsors and us all enjoyed a buffet dinner.

The original school is currently being demolished, to be replaced with a new landscape. This will be completed next summer when we will make a return visit for the full opening of the site.

Photos © Simon Warren