We Made That

Holly has recently contributed to “Architects After Architecture” with her piece “When is an Architect not an Architect”? The publication, edited by Harriet Harriss, Rory Hyde, Roberta Marcaccio, seeks to answer: what can you do with a degree in architecture, where might it take you, and what kind of challenges could you address? It reframes architecture as a uniquely versatile way of acting on the world, far beyond that of designing buildings.

In this volume, 40 practitioners who have used their architectural training in new and resourceful ways, together describe a future of architecture that is diverse and engaged, expanding the limits of the discipline, and offering new paths forward in times of crisis.

The book launch is on Wednesday 16th December, with a virtual presentation in collaboration with the Architectural Association, scheduled at 6.30pm. Please join us then if you can!

A new member has joined our team!

Cassandra is an Architectural Assistant who completed her Part I at Oxford Brookes University in 2018. She went on to gain experience in freelance roles and internships in a variety of design disciplines, and is also an active volunteer within third sector organisations.

We are pleased to announce that Lili Laine has been promoted to be Senior Urban Researcher in recognition of the fantastic work and important role she plays in the practice. 

She has led both London-wide and locally-focused studies to investigate requirements for workspace across a range of sectors including creative workspace, flexible provision and industrial uses. She has brought together a range of robust and incisive evidence - alongside best practice, useable tools and delivery expertise - to help local authorities, landowners and sector representatives accelerate growth in the digital, creative and cultural sectors in particular. More recently she has also led a range of research studies on social value, inclusion and community wealth building, including landmark studies for the London Boroughs of Newham, Hackney and Croydon.

Lili will take an increased role in leading urban research projects as the team grows.

We are delighted to announce that Mark Flynn has recently qualified as an Architect. Mark joined the team in 2015 and has been responsible for a range of public realm and placemaking projects in London and the North West. He led a series of transformations to East Street Market and shopfronts through the What Walworth Wants strategy, where he worked with local stakeholders to develop a catalogue of projects. He has shaped the Harlesden Canalside project since inception, which will deliver a flagship community hub for local residents, businesses, boaters and visitors, a project conceived as part of the Park Royal Centre Masterplan. 

He is currently leading on Chicksand play space and growspace, and Lockwood Way industrial estate public realm projects which are due to commence on site in 2021.

We’re delighted to launch RE—SET—GO, a programme that will make space for excluded voices and pilot ways to build more progressive and representative architectural communities.

Despite the built environment’s influence on our everyday lives, women and Black, Asian and multi ethnic groups are still under-represented in the professions that shape it. 

We want to help correct the bias in who gets to shape the cities we live and work in. We know that much more needs to be done to create opportunities in architectural practice, which has a poor track record when it comes to wider participation and diversity.

A number of activities will operate over the coming year, including paid work experience; participative workshops; knowledge exchange events; and 1-to-1 mentoring sessions to support future generations of architects, designers and architecture practices. The programme will provide opportunities for Black, Asian and multi ethnic individuals and women from the boroughs of Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Wandsworth. It is employer-led and will give more than 150 individuals from under-represented backgrounds experience, skills and connections to prepare for employment in architecture practice.

RE—SET—GO is led by We Made That, coordinating with two other female-led architectural practices based in south London; IF-DO and Gort Scott, on programme leadership. Employer partners are formed from the London Practice Forum, a collective of 21 leading London architectural practices which care about the city, its people and its built environment. 

Funding support comes from Stride, who campaign to build networks that inspire imaginations, encourage collaboration and the exchange of knowledge. 

Get involved here: www.re-set-go.xyz

We Made That are pleased to announce we have been shortlisted as finalists in the Camden Highline international design competition.

Camden Highline are a charity with exciting plans for a £35 million proposed public park and garden walk transforming the disused railway between Camden Town and King’s Cross into a new green artery for London. The ambitions is for the Highline to become a beacon for what positive and sustainable development of the city can look like, and for others to be inspired, learn and benefit from. The route is 1.2km long, around 8 metres above ground and will bring new local green space to 20,000 people.

We Made That with Hassell submitted a proposal that focuses on the importance of the Camden Highline becoming an example to the world of using landscape to deliver long-term, positive impacts across all ages, colours, backgrounds and abilities. The team is supported by Stockdale, Counterculture Partnership, Buro Happold, Phyto Studio, Stephen Levrant Heritage Architecture, The Young Foundation, PRD and the University of Sheffield Department of Landscape Architecture.

More info on the Camden Highline design competition and other shortlisted design teams can be found here.

We Made That featured in AJ100 ‘disruptor practices’ - architectural practices and organisations from outside the AJ100 who are pioneering innovative and sustainable new ways of practice.

This year the AJ editorial team decided that the AJ100 should go in a different direction, and highlight smaller practices and networks who are challenging the norms of traditional practice in their drive to work in a more sustainable manner. They selected 25 ‘disruptor practices’ to mark 25 years of the AJ100, which traditionally celebrates business success by focusing on the 100 largest architect practices in the UK.

More info on other disruptor practices can be found here. 

Congratulations from We Made That to the three winners of the Reimagining Basildon schools competition! Submissions from Elsie Jayne Lindsay (8) and Ashley Harris (9) and Ellie-Mae Woodward (10) were chosen for their bold, ambitious and colourful visions for the future of the town. 

The Basildon Town Centre Regeneration Strategy, prepared by We Made That and Cushman & Wakefield, was adopted by the council in September 2020. The strategy matches the ambition of these imaginative, local young people, and now sets the council on a course to deliver up to 4,200 new homes, 5,100 sqm of retail, leisure and workspace and a re-modelled transport hub in a re-invigorated, green and healthy town centre. 

We Made That are delighted to announce that both Battersea Design and Technology Quarter and Cheney Row Park have been shortlisted in the NLA Awards 2020.

Battersea Design & Technology Quarter was shortlisted in the Planning Category. The framework support the delivery of a distinct creative and economic cluster, capitalising on existing and incoming institutional assets in the area. 

Cheney Row Park was shortlisted in the Placemaking Category. A former landfill site that, through remediation and community co-design, has been transformed. The new £1.2m park includes an events space, outdoor stage, playspace and 467 new trees. 

More info on other categories and shortlists can be found here.

3Space and We Made That are hiring a Local Community Coordinator to join our team to assist, plan, develop and run a programme of events and activities for the Harlesden Canalside project.

Are you early in your career and keen to build your skills in coordinating public engagement and events? Do you have direct links to networks of local young and under represented people in the area?

The part time and flexible role will run from October 2020 to January 2021. A budget of £4000 has been allocated to the Local Community Coordinator for an expected minimum of 20 days. APPLY NOW! Deadline 5pm, 12th October 2020. Details and how to apply  

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ABOUT THE PROJECT

OPDC, in partnership with Brent Council and the Canal & River Trust, is bringing forward exciting improvements to Harlesden Canalside.

To deliver the project, OPDC has appointed specialist community and commercial space operators, 3Space and architects, We Made That, and a wider consultant team to work closely with the local community to scope, deliver and operate the space. The project is part of a £1.2m community investment, funded by the Mayor’s Good Growth Fund to bring forward a range of improvements to public spaces on the canal. 

We Made That are pleased to announce that the New Cross Area Framework project is a finalist in the ‘Plan-Making’ category in the Planning Awards 2020. The project was collaboration with 5th Studio and Alan Baxter.

The New Cross Area Framework sets out an aspirational and practical vision to maximise the benefit of infrastructure investment, through co-ordinating, negotiating and integrating the needs and desires of all those that have a stake in the future of New Cross. The Framework sets a trajectory for new development in the study area, identifies opportunities for a range of projects that together can cohere to deliver improvements at a strategic scale, and will significantly assist TfL in their ongoing work to deliver the Bakerloo line extension to New Cross Gate.

More info on other categories and finalists can be found here.

We’re proud to become supporters of the Accelerate programme run by Open City. We want to help correct the bias in who gets to shape the cities we live and work in. We know that much more needs to be done and think that this programme makes important inroads in built environment industries that have a poor track record when it comes to wider participation and diversity.

Accelerate is a pioneering design education and mentoring programme aimed at increasing diversity in the built environment professions. It gives sixth form students from under-represented backgrounds, the confidence, skills and connections needed to make strong applications to study architecture and other built environment courses. Every year, Accelerate provides 30-40 sixth form students from across London with a series of skills workshops in university environment, one-to-one mentoring at an architecture practice and in-depth guidance on university applications.

More info here: https://open-city.org.uk/accelerate

We’re delighted to extend and renew our support and sponsorship of the next cohort of New Architecture Writers. As the talented second cohort gives way to the third, we believe we must all amplify excluded voices and build a more progressive and representative architectural media.

New Architecture Writers is a free programme for emerging design writers, developing the journalistic skill, editorial connections and critical voice of its participants. N.A.W. focuses on black and minority ethnic emerging writers who are under-represented across design journalism and curation. A series of evening workshops, talks, and writing briefs form the core of N.A.W.’s programme with one-to-one mentoring from experienced design critics and editors throughout.

More info here: http://newarchitecturewriters.org

Two new members have joined our team!

Benedikt Straňák joined We Made That as an Urban Research Assistant after earning his masters in Regional and Urban Planning Studies at the London School of Economics, where he gained extensive training in data science and professional experience in participatory research. 

Chandni Patel joined We Made That as an Architectural Assistant. She completed her Part I in Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture in 2018 and went on to gain experience at a variety of practices around London. 

Freya and Will recently contributed a children’s workshop to Open City and Celebrating Architecture’s learning platform ‘Learning from Architecture’. Consisting of two activities, the workshop titled ‘Grow your own city’ asks children of all ages to think about how they would imagine their city if it was designed by play and nature - two things that are crucial to mental wellbeing. The first activity was to draw it, followed by a set of instructions for how to grow it: by making our own recycled wildflower-seedbomb-slingshot, we can grow the spaces we want to play in. Grow your own city here!

We Made That are pleased to announce that we have been shortlisted in the Public Realm Architect of the Year category as part of the AYA Awards 2020 by Building Design. 

More info on other categories and finalists can be found here.

We Made That aims to be better for everyone

We Made That starts a project by developing the brief with the stakeholders. But it’s not altruism that drives their commitment to community and forgotten spaces.

It’s said often enough that architects need to get out of their professional ghetto, collaborate with other professions and trades, be less concerned with look-at-me buildings and more with the public realm, do solid research, hit the streets and talk to real people more. It’s hard to disagree, especially when you are talking to one of the now firmly established practices which does all these things. Here they are, and they are called We Made That.

See full article on The RIBA Journal here: 

https://www.ribaj.com/culture/we-made-that-architects-as-strategists-public-spaces

Social value has been firmly on the public sector agenda since 2012 when it gained a formal place on the pre procurement radar of public sector clients with the passing of the Social Value Act. Under the Act, Social Value is considered in three parts: social, economic and environmental. Since 2018 it has moved further up the agenda after even the notoriously dry Treasury Green Book sought to include social value in its guidance on how to appraise and evaluate projects.

These developments have altered the procurement process, as commissioners have been asked to increasingly asked to consider how to get more social value for money out of procurement. They are considering how best to secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits for their area or stakeholders, often as a ‘by-product’ of the original commission. Any tender should therefore target these three parts of social value directly, demonstrating how the practice will enhance social value through each one specifically.

In a competitive tender market, at We Made That we’re always seeking to maximise the social value that can be realised through the processes and outcomes of our work.  One approach that we’ve found to be successful is to work in collaboration with other practices, local partners or stakeholders to enhance social value in both the tender and delivery process.

Collaboration offers multiple opportunities to boost social and economic benefits to a project. For example, including team members with a close relationship to the local community, or collaborating with local practices to support spend in the local economy of a project.

One example of this approach is our current work on a mixed-use masterplan for the Purley Way in Croydon. We Made That are leading a large project team, including design collective, Resolve, an interdisciplinary team which combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. They have a close relationship to the local community in Croydon having grown up in the area, and frequently work with youth and under-represented groups in society and engaging them in the design process, as well as working with local communities as stakeholders in the short and long term management of local projects. Resolve are leading the engagement strategy for the masterplan and have developed an online platform in response to COVID-19 implications, to crowd source stories, memories and local knowledge about the area. At the other end of the practice scale spectrum, the project team also includes Hawkins\ Brown, who are long-term collaborators with We Made That, bringing their diverse team and experience to the project.

Supporting spend in the local economy can also offer ‘added value’ to a project. In 2017, We Made That were appointed by Harrow Council to lead on the design of the new public space in the centre of Wealdstone, with the intention of using the project to bring the community together. This included building an identity for Wealdstone which celebrated the town centre and it’s successful activity. We collaborated with Spacemakers and design studio, Silo, alongside local graphic designer Karolina Ciakaite who led a series of workshops for a group of local young people to research, design and produce furniture for the new square. This was a direct response to addressing the emerging challenge of a lack of activity for young people due to cuts to youth services, and the resulting negative perception of groups hanging around the town. The Wealdstone Youth Workshop produced ‘The Wealdstone Leg’, a furniture component that forms the basis of a range of stools, benches and chairs to be used in the square. The resulting furniture is also available to buy, with all proceeds going back into the project, and the workshop participants each receiving a royalty on sales as well as a stipend for taking part in the project.

In addition to social value gained for the local community through collaboration, We Made That directly experience the additional value offered through a collaborative approach; working with larger or more established practices helps to open doors that otherwise might not otherwise be open to us, and working with more recently established practices brings new ideas and energy to the team, whilst providing a helpful ‘hand up’. In a global context that’s keeping us all physically apart, we will continue to pursue project that bring teams and communities together.

By Lorna Reed

See article on Building Design Online here: 

https://www.bdonline.co.uk/briefing/in-a-world-thats-keeping-us-apart-lets-work-together/5106593.article

We Made That are looking for two new team members to join the practice: a skilled Part I Architectural Assistant and an early-career Urban Research Assistant with a minimum degree level qualification in urban studies/economics/geography or a similar related discipline.

Architectural Assistant (part I)

The role includes working on urban-scale strategies, participative co-design projects and early stages of project development. You must be a talented designer and have good technical knowledge with a great eye for presentation. Excellent communication skills and a desire to contribute to lively creative & productive team working required. Job description pdf.

Urban Research Assistant

The role includes contributing fieldwork and desk- based data auditing to a number of research commissions spanning spaces of culture industry and employment. The ideal candidate will have a good understanding of both quantitative and qualitative research design and methods a conscientious approach to research and the ability to build manage and analyse large datasets. Job description pdf.

Deadline for applications is Friday 29th May 2020 and details of how to apply can be found in the job description pdfs above.

We Made That, “polemic, provocative and, in most cases, imminently practical, inviting the reader to ask what it really means to make “good” architecture today.”

We Made That feature alongside the London Practice Forum in Ark - the Finnish Architectural Review - in an article about the potential for architects to take collective action on ethical grounds. It includes our “Things We Won’t Do” manifesto, first exhibited at the Royal Academy’s What is radical today? show in 2019.