Our cultural and civic projects provide the range of uses and create places that foster community interaction.
Our design approach starts with understanding the role of the site in the wider local context and identifying opportunities for new connections and public spaces.
Whether it is a new art gallery, sports hall, or council headquarters we deliver additional value to the community by creating a bespoke architectural response that provides new services and amenities.
Albert Sloman Library
A new wing to the Albert Sloman library, will provide the university with an integrated library, special collections and reading room.
This addition to the 1960s library building makes very deliberate architectural references to the existing building, picking up on the dominant structure of the two storey columns and the four storeys of accommodation cantilevered above. It connects to the existing Library across the 1963 core, utilising the breakout panels originally designed into the building.
In consultation with the University faculties, it was critical to respect the calm, academic nature of the Library while allowing potential for future changes in teaching and learning methods.
Patel Taylor have created two amazing buildings – a new library wing and students services building – that are an absolutely perfect complement to our existing iconic mid-century architecture. We couldn’t be more pleased.
Professor Anthony Forster, Vice-Chancellor, University of Essex
Silberrad Student Centre
Designed and built in tune with a new wing for the Albert Sloman library, the new student centre and a new lakeside square create an important new front door to the University.
Set to be the largest new building on the campus since 1965 it will provide an integrated learning centre, student media centre, one-stop-shop for student’s facility and a board room for the University Council.
Resting on a deck of stone at the edge of a lake, three oversailing layers of horizontal trays cast from in-situ concrete create a strong sense of perspective against the rhythm of the Library columns.
Working closely within the context of the existing Albert Sloman library, the 1960’s campus infrastructure and the heritage parkland setting, this design shows the importance of context and programme to conceive flexible design resonating with a sense of place and setting.
Completed in July 2015, this is our third project for the university following the completion of the Albert Sloman new library wing in 2015 and the Ivor Crewe lecture hall in 2007.
Essex University adds to the strong modernist pedigree of its 1960s campus with a robust new addition by Patel Taylor. Fronting on to a lake with assertive volumes of concrete and stone, the new library and student centre seems to have been designed in line with the original architect’s desire for “something fierce”. The projects share a refreshing weightiness and all feel built to last, in contrast to some of the flimsier private finance initiative buildings of recent years.
Olly Wainwright, The Guardian, June 2016
Leisure Centre - Wood Wharf
The leisure centre at Wood Wharf is a new community building that serves the primary school and local residents.
The project provides facilities over three floors, with the sports hall situated in a two-storey basement directly below the residential and primary school. The project meets all of Sports England's criteria and provides exceptional, fully inclusive amenities for practicing a wide range of sporting activities within a modern urban setting.
The project provides facilities over three floors, with the sports hall situated in a two-storey basement directly below the residential and primary school. The project meets all of Sports England's criteria and provides exceptional, fully inclusive amenities for practicing a wide range of sporting activities within a modern urban setting.
Bow schools
Patel Taylor were appointed by Bouygues UK as architects to work on delivery of London Borough of Tower Hamlets BSF school building programme.
Central Foundation Girls’s School is a secondary school for 1400 pupils. Rationalising and re-ordering the accommodation of an inner city school building within the Tredegar Square conservation area is the impetus behind this PFI project for Bouygues and Tower Hamlets Council.
The school’s motley buildings have been selectively replaced and refurbished. The result has located two adjacent sites, with more space for sport and a landmark main entrance building with direct access to the school’s specialist areas.
The extension to the existing secondary school has created a new school entrance, dining hall, auditorium, science classrooms and roof level multi-games playground.
We have also refurbished a 1930s building to create a sixth form department; remodeled a Grade 2 listed building into an arts/ music and carried out a refurbishment of drama and technology department.
Landscaping of external spaces between new and old buildings has created new breakout areas for the students.
Phoenix School is a school for 150 pupils with special educational needs aged from 6-19. Its existing accommodation is housed in a Grade 2* listed building dating from 1952, sited in Tredegar Conservation Area to the north of Bow Road.
The new six storey 6th form infill building is designed to provide dedicated facilities for pupils in transition from a school/ home environment to more independent living and working along with a new entrance for the school.
Turning the Rights of Light profile to advantage, stepped terraces will be given over to horticulture, while a new linear core adjoins and gives flexibility to the existing building.
Lowther School
The sensitive redevelopment of an existing community school
New accommodation for foundation stage learning opened up new ways of using the site and existing building, allowing the primary school to expand the services it provides for the community. The building is entered via a canopy, which is scaled to be welcoming to children and which links to the main school – a mono-pitched new building with a free-flowing plan, facing an enticing outdoor play area.
The completion of the classrooms and dining hall concludes the rebuild and refurbishment of Lowther Primary School. The second phase put the shared dining hall at the heart of the school and the upper classrooms assigned to students in their final year looking out onto the world beyond. A library and resource centre mark the entrance and point of transition.
The building exceeds all our hopes and expectations and is the envy of everyone who sees it, especially teachers from other schools and visitors from the Richmond education department. Even more important, our own teachers enjoy it and, most of all the children love it, thrive and learn well in it. We knew all along that we were getting a good building, but it was only when we saw it completed that we realised just how good it is.
Stuart Thorne, Chair of Governors
Orleans House Gallery
Transforming a listed coach house and stables into additional gallery accommodation blends historic context with an innovative vision. The conversion opens up previously unused buildings to the public, introducing activities that attract visitors.
Key features include a large new education room for the gallery’s innovative education programme, which extends into a courtyard in fine weather, and a cafe where the original stable stalls divide the space into seating booths. Extensive consultation helped to refine the proposals, secure listed building consent, and obtain a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The scheme is popular and is used extensively by the community. The overall design fits in well with its surroundings; it is refined and has successful retained a sense of its own history. The project is comfortable, family friendly and well thought through – and is a good educational asset for local children and adults.
Civic Trust Award
