January 14, 2019

NVB are very pleased to have reached practical completion for the new music and media centre at Leighton Park School in Reading. This project is at the heart of the Quaker school, attached to the existing theatre and next to the Grade II listed Old School House reception. It provides new music teaching, breakout, live-lounge and media facilities for the music department together with improved foyer facilities for the hall and larger school gatherings.

December 17, 2018

We have recently handed over another superb community facility to benefit the local residents of Galhampton. Their new community hall, which was officially opened on 24th November, has been in the making since 2012 when the first big Lottery funding application was submitted. They now have a great hall with an excellent food preparation area and a generous meeting room. The hall has also been provided with support accommodation that would normally be expected to accompany a building of this quality.

October 18, 2018

Another busy summer at Epsom College saw the latest phase of refurbishment works completed for Robinson, Whitehouse, Fayrer and Murrell boarding houses as well as the creation of a new car park within the campus.

Having four contractors working around the campus during the 8 week summer holiday meant that things were certainly busy!

With the careful coordination and investigations undertaken during the previous half term, the contractors were able to make the best use of the short summer period.

Demolition, complete services renewal and remodelling of the boarding accommodation as well as complete redecoration and new furniture installation meant that it certainly needed to be well co-ordinated.

All the properties were handed back to the Client in time for the new academic year and the boarders return at the beginning of September.

Another successful summer allows the design team and contractors to look forward to the next phase works for our client.

October 15, 2018

The first phase of replacement classroom works is nearing completion with the unveiling of the new ‘tree-house’ library designed to make reading more fun, particularly for boys. Clad in charred timber and profile sheet cladding with galvanised metalwork it is intended to have an abstract / home-made appearance which contrasts with the more traditional building elevations to the high street and conservation area. The building will be connected to the main classroom block via a bridge link improving accessibility on a challenging sloping site.

Client – Wiltshire Council

Contractor – Bray and Slaughter

August 9, 2018

Congratulations to Alex Cammack, one of our students on placement with us from the University of Bath.  Alex has been awarded runner up in an open design competition proposing a concept plan for a new community just outside Manchester.  It illustrated some thought provoking ideas on how to address the need for new, genuinely sustainable communities to meet the housing crisis. Alex entered the competition with his friend Adam Jones and produced all of the work in his spare time.  We are obviously not working him hard enough.

Alex has been a great member of the NVB team and will shortly be returning to university to complete his studies.  Good luck Alex!

June 11, 2018

NVB are pleased to announce that the New Day House Village at Dean Close School has now formally commenced on site. The project achieved planning approval in July of last year and NVB are pleased that Integral Build have set up site and the project is now full steam ahead and due for completion next spring.

May 17, 2018

We were delighted to see our new Sports Centre at St Mary’s School, Calne opened by Clare Balding last Saturday.

The opening was the culmination of a “Celebration of Sport” with pupils both former and current competing with parents in the new sports centre and on the astroturf pitches which our landscape team completed recently.

Clare gave an inspiring speech encouraging the pupils to think about the wide range of benefits of taking part in sport and even risked a impromptu live interview with some of the younger members of the audience before cutting the ribbon to formally open the centre.

The new facilities include a four court sports hall, dance studio and new changing facilities and connects to the swimming pool designed by NVB some twenty years ago.  The project is the latest in NVB’s extensive portfolio of sports facilities.

May 3, 2018

Four years on, the Florence Dyas Boarding House at St Mary’s Calne is still looking great and very much feels like a place with heart, topped-off with the orchard in the front courtyard blossoming. It is always a pleasure to visit a client with a long-standing relationship highlighted by the opening of their new sports hall next month that NVB have designed from start to, nearly, finish.

April 25, 2018

Our landscape team continues to flourish, grow and a handful of other horticultural metaphors and we are delighted this week to welcome Gabriele Ziliute to the team.  She will be working with the team on their increasingly diverse portfolio of work and by the looks of things, raising the bar in the cycling-to-work stakes too.

January 10, 2018

NVB are delighted to have reached the longlist for the RIBA Journal McEwen Award for their Frome Town Hall project.  The Award focuses on projects which deliver community improvement or wider social benefit.

Frome Town Council had been operating in cramped unsuitable accommodation on a number of sites, mainly with poor public access and visibility.  NVB were appointed when the council had the opportunity to buy an 1892 Public Office building which had latterly been used as back office accommodation by the county council.  The challenge was to restore this elegant building to its original glory whilst creating an open democratic building to suit the Town Council’s innovative, collaborative ways of working.

In addition to publicly accessible areas and council offices, the restored building hosts a number of local organisations including a counselling charity and a local radio station and deals with the issues of privacy and technical performance which go along with this.  Having also addressed modern requirements for fire safety and accessibility for all, the magnificent council chamber can now be used for presentations, social and community events, and in the long term, weddings, completing a neat circle back to the initial public consultations where one local resident recalled that their parents were married in that very room.