News - Jamie Fobert Architects

Jamie will lecture next Tuesday, the 15th of October, at 7pm at the University of Hertfordshire.

This is a collaborative event between the University and the Hertfordshire Association of Architects in which Jamie will speak about our projects which have been both, inspired by art and carefully designed to accommodate it.

You may find more information and book your free tickets here.

Photograph by Jim Stephenson.

Along with more than 600 other UK practices, we have signed up to Architects Declare.

This means that we are committed to:

— Evaluate all new projects against the aspiration to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown, and encourage our clients to adopt this approach.
— Upgrade existing buildings for extended use as a more carbon efficient alternative to demolition and new build whenever there is a viable choice.
— Include life cycle costing, whole life carbon modelling and post occupancy evaluation as part of our basic scope of work, to reduce both embodied and operational resource use.
— Collaborate with engineers, contractors and clients to further reduce construction waste.
— Accelerate the shift to low embodied carbon materials in all our work.
— Minimise wasteful use of resources in architecture and urban planning, both in quantum and in detail.

Please read more here.

Our working models and samples of the ceramics created for Tate St Ives will be exhibited as part of ‘Hand Held to Super Scale: Building with Ceramics’ at the Building Centre. The exhibition celebrates the resurgence of ceramics in contemporary architecture, showcasing newly completed projects, buildings still under construction, handmade items and classic examples of ceramics in architecture.

The faience-clad pavilion at Tate St Ives makes reference to the history of ceramic artists in St Ives. The extruded tiles were made by Agrob Buchtal with an ochre engobe and the beautiful blue-green glaze was produced and applied by Froyle Tiles. The tiles went through many iterations – several of which are on display here – to achieve a finish which captures the colour of the sea and sky.

‘Hand Held to Super Scale: Building with Ceramics’ is at The Building Centre from 20 September 2019 until 31 January 2020

Mon to Fri: 9.00am – 6.00pm
Sat: 10.00am – 5.00pm

The Building Centre, Store Street, London, WC1E 7BT

Kettle’s Yard is one of 54 new buildings – and one of 6 University of Cambridge buildings – to win an RIBA National Award 2019.

The RIBA National Awards recognise buildings which make a significant contribution to UK architecture. We are so pleased that Kettle’s Yard now joins Jamie Fobert Architects’s little rosta of projects which have received this accolade – Tate St Ives, Levring House, Luker House, Kander House and Anderson House.

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s foremost newspaper, has published a feature about Jamie.

Writer Katherine Ashenburg met with Jamie in our Shoreditch studio to learn about our projects, focusing on significant gallery projects for Kettle’s Yard, Tate St Ives and the National Portrait Gallery. She tells the story of Jamie’s journey from being a young student in Canada to an established architect in London:

“The lessons we learned in first year,” Fobert says, “are still some of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned: that
architecture should be unpretentious and it should be humane and it should be about the users and about improving their existence and their lives in ways that were beautiful.”

Photograph ©Justin Griffiths-Williams/The Globe and Mail

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On Wednesday 12th June at 6.30pm, Jamie will be talking about his approach to concrete specification and detailing as a part of Concrete Elegance.

Produced by The Concrete Centre and The Building Centre, this series of architectural lectures showcases the use of concrete to achieve elegant and innovative designs.

The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT

Wednesday 12th June, 6.30-8.45pm

For further information and to book, click here.

We are delighted that Kettle’s Yard is the winner of an RIBA East Award 2019, announced last night at the regional awards event in Cambridge.

The jury commented, ‘Jim Ede’s domestic museum, Kettle’s Yard, which was established in the 1950s and extended by Sir Leslie Martin in the late 60s, has been given an authentic and faithful enhancement through this careful and sensitive project. Rectangular gallery spaces, perfectly proportioned and laid out for international exhibitions, have been set into the random shape of the site with all its nooks and crannies. A deep coherence has been achieved within what had been a disparate collection of parts, and a very pleasing combination of rational and idiosyncratic architectural spaces has been created.’

This week, the Burlington Arcade celebrated its 200th anniversary.

But we wonder how many visitors who stroll through the arcade today realise that its striking stone floor is a very recent addition?

Built in 2016, the new floor was designed by Jamie Fobert Architects. The ambiguity – is it old? is it new? – is intentional. It does not compete with the Regency architecture, but responds sympathetically in terms of geometry, tonal variation and craftsmanship. We are delighted when visitors assume that it too has been there for 200 years.

Jamie sat down with Nick Carvell, Editor of The Jackal, as part of the magazine’s Citymakers portfolio to discuss architecture in the city, including the proposed new public space at the National Portrait Gallery:

“Public space is an integral part of what makes a city great – or not. Many of these places already exist, but what is important is how they are handled, how inviting they are, how open they are to having events, or to having people sit.”

This article is out now in the latest edition of The Jackal Magazine or you can listen to their conversation on the podcast by clicking here.

The first courtyard at Les Cours de BHV in Paris is complete.

In 2014 we began studying how timber paving could be introduced into our project to bring disused courtyards back into the public life of Paris. We considered various shapes and sizes of wood blocks and were drawn to the hexagon patterns but as the project was about a public route leading from one court to the next we began to introduce a chevron path of rectangular blocks that playfully lead you on your way.

We are delighted that Jamie Fobert Architects is shortlisted alongside five other practices in the Public Building category of the BD Architect of the Year Awards 2019.

Our submission included three completed public gallery projects – Tate St Ives, Kettle’s Yard and Charleston – and our reconfiguration of the National Portrait Gallery, which is currently in the design process.

Read more about all the shortlisted practices and their work here.

We are so pleased that Tate St Ives was awarded a Civic Trust 2019 Award at the 60th Anniversary Civic Trust Awards Ceremony on Friday evening, at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.

The judges commented that Tate St Ives is “a wonderful space with a strong connection to the community which provides an excellent visitor experience. Stunningly simple, elegant and suited to its context and natural landscape”.

Joana was joined in collecting this award by David Derby from Price & Myers.

Photograph ©Civic Trust Awards & Wayne Myers Photography

On Wednesday 30th January, Jamie will be on the panel for The Architecture Foundation’s ‘Part Four’ event which gives the opportunity for young architects to pitch questions about professional practice to four panel members.This event offers the chance to ask about all the subjects that are not covered through traditional education, from issues such as fees & finance, practice management, dealing with clients, ensuring sustainable growth & resourcing, self promotion etc.

For more info and to register for this free event click here.

30 January 2019, 18:30 – 20:30

Fora Space, 71 Central Street, London EC1V 8AB

As part of their public fundraising appeal, ‘Making History’, the National Portrait Gallery has today revealed the first images of our proposed designs for ‘Inspiring People’.

Working in partnership with historical specialists Purcell and a design team including engineers Max Fordham and Price and Myers, our proposals involve a significant refurbishment of the building, restoring historic features and creating a new and more welcoming visitor entrance and public forecourt on the building’s North Façade, enhancing the Gallery’s visibility and accessibility.

Jamie said: “Ewan Christian’s original 1896 building is both handsome and rich in decorative detail. Our work is one of revealing this building and working with it to create a new, open and welcoming National Portrait Gallery. I am particularly happy to be able to reconsider the public area to the north of the Gallery and transform it into a new public space for London.”

For more information on the project and how to donate to the public appeal visit npg.org.uk/inspiringpeople

Image by Forbes Massie Studio

We are excited to share beautiful new photographs by Olivier Hess of our newly opened Men’s Designer Street Room at Selfridges.

Learn more about our work at Selfridges Menswear.

Jamie will be talking at the Annual Dinner hosted jointly by the Cornwall Architectural Trust and RIBA Cornwall, taking place tomorrow, Friday 16th November, at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

More info and tickets

We have created a set of striking, interactive towers as a pop-up exhibition for I.T to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

The 3.4m-tall towers stand sentry-like in rows, inviting attention with full-height digital displays. As passers-by approach, they see only the outermost faces of the towers but as they explore further, weaving between the towers, they discover a hidden destination, where I.T’s merchandise is revealed.

We have used light, movement and a sense of mystery and discovery to communicate the excitement and immediacy of I.T as a brand.

Wallpaper* have described the pop-up as an ‘playful multi-dimensional experience’

Open today on the first floor at Selfridges London is our ‘Designer Street Room’.

Men’s street fashion is fast changing and dynamic. Its influences and image are constantly in flux. The concept for the new space had to be a flexible framework, tough in both material and form.

We have created a light-filled generous room, uncovering the big, beautiful windows and brickwork and restoring the historic columns and ceilings.

Making reference to billboards and drive-in movie screens, we have constructed an adaptable set of frameworks in mill-finished aluminium. Each brand was allocated a kit of parts for shelves, rails and tables, comprised of off-the-shelf aluminium bars, T-sections and angles. The frameworks have an industrial feel, yet they are also light and reflective. Their loose-fit construction offers a creative backdrop to whatever the world of street fashion can throw at it.

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The winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize 2018 will be announced this evening at an event to be broadcast live by the BBC from 20:30 tonight.

To celebrate the inclusion of Tate St Ives on the shortlist, here’s the wonderful film made by Jim Stephenson for the Architects’ Journal.

Our new womenswear space for I.T, the vibrant, multi-brand fashion house, is now open at their Hysan Avenue store in Hong Kong.

Within the 661m sq of retail space, black powder-coated steel frames hold ready-to-wear collections and large, jewel-like resin wedges and octagons display shoes and bags.