Category: Commercial

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Commercial Projects

St Albans Lido


St Albans Lido

Commercial

In Feb 2021 we were approached by St Albans City and District Council to look at options for their open air pool at Cottonmill Lane, south of the City. The pool stands next to the River Ver and is still in use, unlike virtually all of the dozens of Local Authority-owned lidos nationwide.
Like most though, it struggles to balance costs of running and maintenance and the Local Authority therefore sought to explore ways in which to resolve this. These included options to build or rebuild on substantial areas around the pool, either as associated facilities such as restaurant, spa and other facilities such as sauna and steam rooms all of which can form complimentary partners to the pool itself. There was also the possibility of a limited residential build profits from which could subsidise the costs of works to and around the pool.

We prepared a Feasibility Study with a variety of options and recommendations and occasionally we hear of possible progress. A change of Local Government to Lib Dem control in 2021 was a hopeful development but since then we have not heard.

Download feasibility study

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Commercial Projects

Worthing Lido, Worthing


Worthing Lido, Worthing

Commercial

Worthing Lido, on the sea-front was originally built as a Bandstand enclosure by Adshead and Ramsey in 1925, and had a swimming pool added in 1959  which survived until 1990, when it was decked over and converted to an amusement arcade. The horseshoe plan projects out into the sea on a forest of remarkably slim steel columns and ties, considerably corroded by the elements, chiefly the sea and the churning shingle.

 Such has been the deterioration of the supporting structure that part of the building is now off limits. A study of the condition of the supporting structure has generated several engineering proposals of considerable cost and remarkable insensitivity.


Adur and Worthing Council commissioned M&K to prepare a Feasibility Study investigating options for repairing and refurbishing the Grade II Listed building above, and giving it a viable long term future. Of the options proposed, the Council chose to further investigate the reinstatement of a pool and the refurbishment of the buildings to provide ancillary space for pool users, a spa and a restaurant. This was developed into a sketch scheme with a draft Business Plan to illustrate the long-term viability of the proposals and to consider options for the addition of measures to ensure sustainability, most importantly in the form of renewable energy systems. 

This was then taken by the Council to Public Consultation whose conclusions we await.

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Commercial Projects

Low Hall Lido, London Borough of Waltham Forest


Low Hall Lido, London Borough of Waltham Forest

Commercial

Having initially declined to bid due to the Byzantine registration requirements, we joined forces with Tate and Partners Architects (who did the registration) and won the bid to design a new Lido and sports complex on a large open site in the Lea Valley. The ambitious brief called for an Olympic size open air all-year heated pool with ancillary accommodation and a large array of sports fields nearby.  

As often with Local Authority projects, there was difficulty reconciling the political ambitions for the residents of Waltham Forest and the construction and operation costs of a state of the art Lido complex, and the project was sadly abandoned after the first stage of design work had been completed.

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Commercial Projects

The Lanes, Nelson St,  Bristol.


The Lanes, Nelson St,  Bristol

Commercial

The Lanes is a Listed Grade II former Employment Exchange building of 1931 built in the Civic Classical style. Its fine red brickwork comprises a heavily  rusticated base with two storeys above and a boldly articulated façade onto Nelson St. The site which adjoins the ancient line of the old City wall rises steeply so that the rear ground level is a whole storey (some 5 m) higher than the front. Behind the acute angle L-shaped plan an external courtyard is enclosed by a high concrete retaining wall. At the lower (Nelson St ) level  is an outside courtyard.  This slightly gloomy triangle is to be enclosed with a new roof deck at first floor level, providing an auditorium for live music below and a courtyard garden above, the latter introducing one more to a chain of small green pockets that punctuate the pedestrian route along the line of the old City wall.

The project involves a complex system of existing and new escape routes which also serve to integrate the new facilities with the reorganised spaces within the existing building.

Planning and Listed Building Consent have been applied for and granted, although work has not yet begun.

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Commercial Projects

Bristol Memorial Woodlands, Bristol.


Bristol Memorial Woodlands, Bristol

Commercial

Bristol Memorial Woodlands is a former farm north of Bristol which since its establishment in 2001 has been providing burial plots in a gradually maturing woodland setting. Several wooded fields and the well-established hedgerows between provide a variety of peaceful areas for burial and the original farms buildings have been converted into a non-denominational Chapel and Reception Room. With Planning Consent for up to 12 burials per day we were commissioned to design a second separate set of buildings to offer greater capacity. 

The brief needed to establish a completely separate access and circulation with a new group of buildings sympathetic to the existing buildings and pattern of landscape, and compliant with the constraints of the Greenbelt location. 

Consent was granted for a new Chapel re-using a number of components from a demolished chapel by E W Pugin, a new Reception Hall, a Columbarium Tower and associated pools, landscaped gardens and paths as well as additional parking.  

Work began in early 2020 with drains and ground floor slab of the Reception Hall complete before Covid intervened. Work has not recommenced.

Categories
Commercial Projects

Meadows of Peace, Thornbury

Meadows of Peace, Thornbury

Commercial

Bristol Memorial Woodlands is a former farm north of Bristol which since its establishment in 2001 has been providing burial plots in a gradually maturing woodland setting. Several wooded fields and the well-established hedgerows between provide a variety of peaceful areas for burial and the original farms buildings have been converted into a non-denominational Chapel and Reception Room. 

Several wooded burial areas have been established as also has a separate Jewish burial ground and one for Muslim burials. This last, named Meadows of Peace, has been established since 2017 although as yet it lacks dedicated funerary buildings. 

The proposal is for a single linear building, set into the rising ground so that its green roof is continuous with the surrounding landscape, and containing a sequence of rooms for prayer, ritual ablution, funerary preparation and meetings. The building is aligned so that the Prayer Room faces Mecca, while a linear arcade providing access to all the rooms faces onto a water garden which adjoins the landscape of the burial ground.  

The cemetery itself, laid out under the guidance of landscape architect Kim Wilkie comprises a series of serpentine mounds, each containing a row of graves whose burial mounds form a landscape of planted serpentine ridges with paths between, all laid out on a gentle slope and expanding westwards as burials proceed. This simple and elegant landscape is the focus of the arcaded building and the intervening water garden.  

Unfortunately (for us) the local Muslim community for whom the building is intended have expressed their preference that the project proceed under the care of a Muslim architect, thus ending our involvement.

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Commercial Projects

The Abolition Shed, Prince St, Bristol

The Abolition Shed, Prince St, Bristol

Commercial

Over the years, the prosperity of Bristol has relied on some fairly unsavoury or at least now unfashionable trades, from slavery, to tobacco to the still flourishing, albeit understandably secretive defence and armaments industry. Perhaps surprisingly, given the city’s lengthy and substantial involvement, there is no Museum of Slavery, an omission that the Abolition Shed Collective hopes to put right. To this end, local historian Mark Steeds and others identified the war-damaged and now substantially derelict former Seamen’s Mission in Prince St as a suitable home.

The building however, was owned by Sam Smith’s Brewery, owners of surprisingly numerous properties in Bristol, far from their Yorkshire home. Despite numerous attempts to make contact and solicit their support, no response whatever was received until the service of notice in the Planning Application seems to have hit a nerve, and the building miraculously appeared on the market. Only to be bought by our clients down the road at the Llandoger Trow! 

Planning Permission was granted in January 2024, although in the absence of suitable funding, the project is unlikely to progress. Potential sponsors of a £2-5 million restoration welcome.

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Commercial Projects

Pen-y-Parc, Powys

Pen-y-Parc, Powys

Commercial

Pen y Parc comprises the ruinous remains of a farmstead set in a tree-sheltered hollow high on the south side of the Usk valley in the Brecon Beacons National Park. The house and barn have planning permission for conversion to bunkhouses.

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Commercial Projects

Palace Hotel, Bristol

Palace Hotel, Bristol

Commercial

The Grade II listed Palace Hotel was built in 1869 and although much altered in the 1970’s, it retains a magnificent and flamboyant bar room and several fine rooms above.

Marshall & Kendon applied for and obtained Planning and Listed Building Consent to bring the existing basement into use as part of the licensed premises and to convert the upper floors into flats including an additional one at third floor level where the top of the building appears to have been left incomplete.

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Commercial Projects

Bristol Central Tennis Club, Bristol

Bristol Central Tennis Club, Bristol

Commercial

After heroic fundraising the club was able to commission an economical and simple new clubhouse comprising changing rooms, social room and viewing gallery.