May 6, 2021

We are really pleased to have received Planning Approval for the Sports & Social Development at St John’s Marlborough. This follows a number of planning refusals for the site, largely due to its sensitive location outside the town limit, being within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and near a sensitive bat roost. This represents a significant improvement to the school’s facilities being located in an area affectionately known as ‘The Somme’, a former construction compound from 2007, which will now include a much-needed four court sports hall with changing, informal games courts and social spaces centred around an amphitheatre.

The planting design includes re-use of the chalk-based aggregate to be seeded with flowering meadow grass to increase opportunities for invertebrates for birds and bats to feed on. Detailed assessments were undertaken such as a Noise Impact Assessment by Archo Consulting, detailed bat survey by Nash Ecology and Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment by NVB Landscape, contributing to a thorough planning application to address the sensitive issues on the site.

The building was led by NVB Architects up to the appointment of Collinson Construction for a design and build contract. Planning was expertly managed by Rackham Planning, cost consultancy by Edmund Shipway and Integral Engineering have designed the SuDS, civil and structural elements.

April 20, 2021

Communication is everything. If we can’t sell our idea, it stays on the drawing board and if we can’t deliver the promise, we don’t get asked back for the next project. We are sometimes asked by clients about the reliability of our in-house visualisations and we think this is a good example of delivering what we promised as the project nears completion. All we need is the trees in leaf and the children back after the holidays.

April 15, 2021

We are delighted to welcome Mimi Tam to the NVB team to help with our growing workload.  Mimi joins us from the University of Bath where she is undertaking her undergraduate bachelor’s degree (RIBA Part I).  It is great to have her on board and we look forward to being back in the office soon and actually meeting her in person!

April 13, 2021

We are delighted to be working at Robert Blake Science College again 10 years after completion of the school with BAM Construction. The building and landscape were looking fantastic on a moody spring day last week when we visited.  It was great to be able to tour the building with the school and see how well the building is being used and cared for.  We are now looking at some sustainable adaption of the building to meet changing needs.

March 18, 2021

Congratulations to Gabby Ziliute who recently passed her Part III professional exams to become an architect and did so despite the additional challenges presented by the pandemic.  Gabby joined us in 2018 bringing with her experience of both architectural and public realm landscape work making her a great fit for our team.  She has since worked on a range of projects including education projects at a range of scales and also a large scale urban expansion scheme.  We look forward to seeing her career develop further.

NVB has a long association with the University of Bath providing placements for students, many of whom have returned to join us full time as graduates.  We have benefited greatly from their talents and their diverse range of life experiences.  Long may it continue.

January 21, 2021

We are excited to be developing plans for a new house in rural Wiltshire with expansive views towards Salisbury Plain. Sitting on the edge of a village, it is conceived as a cluster of small buildings connected by a covered walkway. The building is surrounded by character gardens and addresses a large wildflower meadow which is to include a swimming pond and rewilding areas.

January 13, 2021

This week brought some great progress photographs of our new Aldenham Prep School as it nears completion.  The challenges of the pandemic have meant that good teamwork and communication have been essential in keeping the project moving.

The 1,900 sq. m building will provide a new home for the prep school and nursery with excellent facilities for both indoor and outdoor learning.  NVB were tasked with creating a building which made a strong positive impression on the arriving visitor, but yet is the right scale to make young children feel at home.  Our architectural and landscape teams worked hand in hand to seamlessly blend the building and play areas on this sensitive Green Belt site.

The team has included our clients Aldenham Prep School, Bidwells, Stace, Rumball Sedgwick, Phoenix Construction, Integral Engineering Design,  and BSD-SVM.  The project is due for completion later this spring.

July 20, 2020

NVB have been announced as Finalists in the Building Design Architect of the Year Awards.  They have been shortlisted for Education Architect of the Year.   In contrast to other awards which recognise a single building,  the selection criteria states that “the judges will be looking for evidence of all-round design excellence and fitness for purpose over a body of work”.

NVB submitted four projects from our education work, three of which are complete, and one which is due to commence construction later in the year.  The projects were The Michael Malnik Centre for Music and Media at Leighton Park School, Dauntsey’s School Sports Pavilion, Dean Close School Day Houses and a new Academic Hub for Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School.  Details of the three completed projects can be found in our portfolio.

We have been shortlisted along with a talented field comprising of Architype, Child Graddon Lewis, Cottrell and Vermeulen, HKS, Levitt Bernstein, Penoyre and Prasad, and Scott Brownrigg.  The winner will be announced at an award event in October.

June 8, 2020

A fascinating programme from on BBC Radio 4 about the very different take Frome Town Council have on getting things done in local politics. We were proud to play a part in bringing the neglected building which is now their home back to life.  You can still hear the programme here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7s

We get a huge amount of satisfaction out of this kind of community project and from breathing new sustainable life into tired buildings.  See our portfolio pages for more of our civic and community projects.

April 17, 2020

It was great to see our Tiger House for Longleat on the BBC’s Animal Park programme this week.  It was such an amazing privilege to be involved with this project to protect such magnificent creatures.  We would urge you to take a look. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000hb25/animal-park-cutdowns-episode-13

We have a range of animal conservation, wildlife and veterinary projects in our portfolio.