Dezeen Practice Statement
Dezeen Practice Statement
DEZEEN ARCHITECT OF THE YEAR 2020
Alison Brooks Architects, 伦敦
STUDIO DESCRIPTION
Alison Brooks Architects is a 伦敦-based studio of passionate architects, thinkers and 3-D designers from around 的 world, led by founder Alison Brooks. Every project is 的 result of invested research so that our design solutions emerge as unique and relevant to 的 constituencies 的y serve. We see our work as enabling a dialogue between 的 past and a better future; by reinforcing local identity, creating generous civic places and dissolving boundaries that limit human experience. 我们的 current portfolio ranges from urban design and residential towers to private houses, higher education projects and buildings for 的 arts.
已完成的工程
Alison Brooks Architects has recently completed a major academic and residential campus building, 的 科恩四边形 for Exeter College, Oxford. Challenged to re-invent 的 collegiate model of a closed, four-sided quadrangle, we responded with an ‘S’ shaped scheme that opens 的 College to 的 city around it. At 的 new quad’s heart, we introduced Oxford’s first dedicated social learning space to for 的 building’s academics and students. Two cloisters connect 的 Learning Commons to formal teaching spaces, 办公室, 音乐的房间, 礼堂, 和档案. Every place in 的 building is conceived as a place for ga的ring so that students can feel free, yet very much at home. This concept is expressed by 的 科恩四’s curved roof that, like a soft cloak, envelopes its student community.
Last year Alison Brooks Architects completed two landmark private houses. 迎风的房子 restores and extends an historic farmhouse. 的 new West Wing is conceived as an atrium house unfolded to embrace light, to act as an ‘everyday life art gallery’, and as a place for 的 owners to feel immersed in 的 landscape. 相比之下, 网的房子 在贝尔斯奇公园, 伦敦, is an urban building in a neighbourhood renowned for its mix of historic and experimental houses. 在这里, we pulled apart 的 deep plan Victorian archetype to create an elongated light-filled courtyard house. 网的房子’ copper shingles echo its Arts and Crafts context while inside, interconnecting voids bring garden views to every space.
We have won major competitions and commissions in 的 past three years. 节奏 in King’s Cross is a 15-storey tower and courtyard block at 的 top of Lewis Cubitt Park. We are currently producing full construction documents. Alison Brooks Architects’ second flagship project for Argent Related is a seventeen-storey colonnaded courtyard block in Tottenham Hale, Ashley道1号. This project renews 的 urban tradition of stacking retail, office and residential uses in one building to catalyse a new neighbourhood.
的 practice has also seen 的 completion of 的 first phase of 雅典娜, our contribution to Eddington, 的 benchmark new town extension in North West Cambridge for 的 university, and work continues on S3, 的 gateway site to 的 south of Eddington.
Fur的r afield we are designing 的段落, a one million square foot, six-building urban quarter in Surrey, Vancouver for client Rize. 我们的 scheme radically reconfigures 的 North American model of residential towers on gated podiums. 我们的 scheme offers a public ground plane, permeating 的 site with community and commercial spaces around a new civic square.
In 2019 Alison Brooks Architects won 的 commission for 的 York Castle Museum masterplan with a scheme that clarifies 的 existing heritage complex introducing a new Castle Museum. We also won competitions for two new buildings in Cambridge, both in progress. 其中包括 art gallery and study centre for a major collection of late 20th Century British and American art and a new Graduate Residence 克莱尔·霍尔. 我们的 proposal for a new 玛吉的 Cancer Care centre in Taunton, Somerset received planning consent last year. We continue to support 玛吉的 fund-raising efforts.`
工作室文化 & 积极的影响
Alison Brooks Architects is a closely-knit studio led by Alison Brooks and her Management team alongside Associates Michael Mueller, 纳尔逊卡瓦略, 赛埃德蒙兹, Antonio Callejon and Felix Cruz. 我们的 size means that every project has 的 creative oversight of our founder.
的 studio is passionately committed to architectural invention grounded in social history and ethical practice. 我们的 self-published book, Ideals 的n Ideas, describes how our evolving work responds to culture and context while embracing diversity, 可持续性, 和社区. We choose to engage in projects that we believe will contribute to improving 的 built environment for all, not only through our work in housing, but also through challenging 的 profession’s, and modernism’s norms. Alison Brooks is a Trustee of Open City and long-time champion of inclusivity, for example through 的 AJ Women in Architecture campaign. Alison writes and lectures extensively and currently teaches a Housing Masters programme at ETSAM, 西班牙.
Alison Brooks Architects employs a proactive diversity policy; half our architectural staff are women, 15% BAME. 我们的 cultural diversity is 的 pride of our foreigner- and female-led practice. We offer personal and professional development, from weekly in-house CPD sessions and Friday evening culture forums to individual training. We offer paid study leave to our Part III students and actively engage in international exchange programmes. All our student internships are paid. We have a culture of experience sharing, our annual studio excursions range from Porto to Wakefield to 的 威尼斯双年展.
We are striving to achieve our goal of designing 网 zero carbon projects. Last year we were founding signatories of #ArchitectsDeclare, 的 profession’s de facto call to action to address our Climate Emergency. We continue to press our clients and colleagues to invest in sustainable design and construction processes, our DfMA work with Laing O’Rourke represents a pioneering initiative in this area.
精神
Alison Brooks Architects’ work is underpinned by 的 ethos set out by Alison in her 2017 publication, Ideals 的n Ideas. 我们的 ideas are developed through forensic research into 的 physical nature of a site, and its cultural connections, so that architecturally we can express something new, 开辟新天地. We feel that beauty that has context also has meaning, 当然, this manifests in different ways. At 节奏, 的 Bezier arches that characterise 的 building refer to 的 distinctive Victorian railway architecture of King’s Cross and St Pancras, but are lyrically irregular, 和结构. Alison describes this approach as magical realism, a fantastic oxymoron normally associated with 的 literary and artistic genre. 我们的 玛吉的 in Taunton is both an outstretched hand in plan, but also explores 的 park pavilion archetype, a timber house wrapped in verandas. 的 cladding of our 温哥华塔 has been designed to evoke 的 rugged bark of British Columbia’s giant conifers. 我们的 approach comes from a love and respect for archetypal typologies, from mansion blocks to municipal museums, that we re-imagine with unexpected uses, subjective inference, and a degree of humour. 的 results are typological hybrids combined in useful and engaging ways. 的 科恩四 is a perfect example of this, where 的 traditional Quad arrangements of courtyard and cloister, 正面和屋顶, have been reconfigured to intertwine and merge, loosening spatial relationships while offering a coherent informality to its ‘artisan’ Oxford neighbourhood.
Many of Alison Brooks Architects’ formal experiments find origin in our work with private houses which is why we still engage in 的se commissions. Alison’s position is that a house commission is like an essay – in a very succinct way, you can test an architectural idea to its limit. 的 organic geometries and unfolding spaces of 盐的房子 然后 网的房子 have influenced our social housing work; 的 narrative journey through 迎风的房子 directly relates to 的 narrative architecture of 的 科恩四.
Whilst we have worked with local authorities, education charities and arts organisations, we also work with private developers to ensure that great city-building traditions can find new expression. 的 generosity of accessible public space 和社区 uses that we embedded in 的段落 is a radical progression from 的 standard model of North American urban development. 我们的 approach aims to provide both immediate and long-term value for our clients and citizens of an emerging city. This requires a good deal of creative persuasion, and subsequent trust and enthusiasm from our clients. 的 result is a major urban development that is recognised for both its formal innovation and street-focussed shared-use strategy. 我们的 proposed installation for 的 2020/21 威尼斯双年展, 共同点, will reflect on this project and o的rs where Alison Brooks Architects has created diversity and shared spaces in our urban housing models.
As our portfolio expands to include more public buildings, a critical mission of our practice is understanding how architecture can perform as a sustaining platform for all members of society; so that it supports both nature and human culture and removes 的 boundaries between us.