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Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —
Certified B Corporation — Adaptive Retrofit — Humanising Infrastructure — Making better places — Architecture — Public Realm — Spatial Strategy — Creative Reuse — Urban Transformation — Decarbonisation —

“The arrival of Bloqs to this unloved corner of the Lower Lea valley is quietly revolutionary. Standing next to a cash and carry warehouse and a ready-mix concrete supplier, this new temple to fabrication provides affordable shared machinery and studios in an “open-access factory”, as the capital rapidly loses industrial workspace elsewhere. As a nimble retrofit and extension of a dilapidated warehouse, by 5th Studio, it is a model for a new kind of productive local economy that could be readily replicated across the country.”

Oliver Wainwright, selecting Bloqs as the Number 1 pick for The Guardian’s Best Architecture of 2022

BLOQS / The conversion and extension of a redundant vehicle testing station to form a new home for Bloqs, London’s biggest makerspace for profossionals providing workshops for metal and wood, fabric and paint studios, CNC and textiles.
CREATIVE EXCHANGE, ST NEOTS / Conceived as a space for a number of start-up innovative business to share common space and scale up, the building is anchored by a large-scale landscape idea about its relationship to the park in which it is located. It is inherently loose-fit, structured around an exposed concrete frame that extends to form a working terrace on the roof. The building’s environment is tempered by air drawn through an earthtube buried beneath the park.

“5th Studio’s Creative Exchange for St Neots in Cambridgeshire is a wonderful example of why it’s a good idea to hire a decent architect.

The ingenuity of Tom Holbrook and his team at 5th Studio allowed the Creative Exchange to fulfil its potential on several levels – socially, politically, urbanistically, architecturally.”

Professor Peter Carl, Architects’ Journal

We deliver high-quality buildings and innovative strategies for educational institutions and workspace providers, from universities to commercial investors.

We enjoy the challenges and opportunities of working with such ambitious and demanding clients and have a strong track record of responding to the contemporary demands of workspace.

Our recent work has included start up and incubator spaces in Cambridge through the detailed design of the Future Business Centre and the delivery of the Creative Exchange in St Neots. We are also experienced at creating industrial, innovation and maker spaces across the country including at Bloqs in Meridian Water and the emerging Global Centre of Rail Excellence in Wales.

“The interactions between tenants – both planned and spontaneous – plus the incubator for startups are really what this building is about.”

FUTURE BUSINESS CENTRE / Providing start-up offices, labs and workshops, together with shared front of house, presentation and meeting spaces, this building establishes an exemplar for a new form of flexible, sociable workspace.
IVE FARM SPORTS GROUND / 5th Studio have completed work for the London Borough of Waltham Forest on the council-led regeneration of the Ive Farm Sports Ground in Leyton.
GEORGE V PAVILLION / Developed through a series of public consultation events, the scheme renovates and extends the 1950s George V pavilion to form a gateway to the local recreation ground and provides new community facilities.

“5th Studio were invited by Beyond Green Developments to design housing and collaborate on the masterplan for a prestige 250-unit scheme for the University of Cambridge. Their work has been excellent – some of the finest designs for new homes we’ve seen. 5th Studio are an excellent practice – a talented, committed and professional team with a good suite of skills and sensibilities. We also thoroughly enjoy working with them.”

Jonathan Smales, Executive Chairman, Beyond Green Developments

NORTH WEST CAMBRIDGE / 5th Studio completed the initial stage of design work for a major new residential development on the edge of Cambridge – as part of the University’s North-West Cambridge masterplan. Our work included the design of two complete urban blocks – comprising a diverse mix of house and apartment types arranged around a rear mews lane.
FERRY BOAT INN / 5th Studio have developed proposals and secured planning permission for a major riverside site in Norwich. The proposals comprise an ensemble of buildings which respond to the site’s contemporary urban condition and salient aspects of its history whilst delivering 41 residential units.

We are highly skilled at developing mixed-use proposals for complex urban sites, balancing heritage, place making and viability.

Our unique approach and track record in this field is based on a close understanding of existing buildings, their fabric and significance. On this basis we have been able to persuade the heritage agencies that radical reinventions or redevelopment can represent significant benefits. In Norwich this has led to a range of projects including the retrofit and repair of Westlegate and the proposed development of the Ferry Boat Inn site.

Our design approach allies conceptual clarity with practical ‘making’ skills, and is underpinned by a series of principles that inform the way we design and deliver projects: to work with what exists; to think across scales; to encourage sustainability; and to ensure creative and competent delivery.

“At ground level the development repairs the urban grain in a most successful way. The new accommodation knits together a neglected area of the city’s urban fabric: a previously unloved car park in leftover space at the base of the tower. The development has helped to re-establish the historic grain of lanes, yards and passageways, rediscovering the lost Lion and Castle Yard as an enjoyable public thoroughfare, and enriching the pedestrian experience.”

RIBA Award Judges’ Citation on Westlegate

WESTLEGATE, NORWICH / Rather than demolish the existing 1960s tower, we proposed to make it more appropriate to its setting in Norwich – the ‘city of towers’ – and to deliver for the City planners the desired urban connectivity which the tower had obliterated. This involved adding two storeys to the towers height, recladding it and remaking the lost medieval yards and lanes.

We really enjoy close collaboration with our clients, consultants and contractors and share our enthusiasm in the pursuit of better, more affordable and more successful projects.

We are skilled in adding value to all of our projects in both quantitative and qualitative terms, by making buildings that are more relevant, by using our design intelligence, innovation and ingenuity to unlock planning constraints, and by embracing value as a critical component of the brief and design.

Our work for multiple Cambridge and Oxford colleges has developed detailed proposals and delivered new buildings in a range of contexts. This has included new interventions into the brutalist architecture of the Wolfson Building for Trinity College and new build graduate accomodation for St Catharine's college.

ASH COURT, CAMBRIDGE / We proposed an intensive development of Girton College which would establish a clear architectural relationship between the new building and the historical college and help to orchestrate a stronger relationship between the college and its grounds.
WOLFSON BUILDING, TRINITY COLLEGE / In addition to the sustainable refurbishment of 90 undergraduate rooms, this project inserted glass ‘hanging rooms’, providing new social and teaching spaces and re-structuring the social and amenity provision of the building.
GARDEN COURT, ST CATHARINE’S COLLEGE / The sustainable pre-fabricated structural timber superstructure of this student accommodation building minimised disruption to the rest of the college, allowing speedy and quiet construction. In addition to the carbon sequestered, the exposed timber structure is highly insulating and buffers air-quality within the rooms.

“5th Studio’s project represents the best of Peter Smithson’s undervalued tradition of ‘good ordinariness’.

Working within the constraints of a poor, but functioning, 1990s building, the practice has crafted the ordinary with delight ... 5th Studio has tackled a difficult problem and made the result look effortless.”

Keith Bradley, Architects’ Journal

CONTACT

studio@5thstudio.co.uk

We are keen to receive CVs and short portfolios from Part 1 and Part 2 designers. Please contact us via recruitment@5thstudio.co.uk

We actively encourage qualified applicants from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.

LONDON Unit 14 21 Wren Street London WC1X 0HF t +44 (0)20 7837 7221 View on Google Maps

CAMBRIDGE Darkroom Gwydir Street Cambridge CB1 2LJ t +44 (0)1223 516009 View on Google Maps