6-9 Carlton House Terrace profiled in Country Life

In the 350th Anniversary year of the Royal Society its headquarters at 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London was featured in Country Life magazine this month.

In 1999 to 2003, Burrell Foley Fischer LLP undertook a major refurbishment of this Listed Grade 1 Nash Building to provide a coherent, high profile, architectural setting for the society’s activities. The completed development provided additional facilities for exhibitions, scientific meetings, seminars, media events and video conferencing. A key intervention was the creation of a new atrium in a former light well on the upper levels as a focus to the new offices and providing space to display an engineering model of the Ariel 1 Satellite.

View The Royal Society Notes and Records for the Revelopment

In 2008 the Practice was responsible for the refurbishment of the Welcome Trust Lecture Theatre which now provides modern lecture facilities, with accommodation for an audience of 300 and of the Dining Room which has a seating capacity of 100 but is also a flexible space that can itself be used for smaller lectures or as an overflow space for the main lecture theatre.

Most recently in 2009 we were architects for the Royal Society Centre for the History of Science, which was created following the refurbishment of the space previously occupied by its Library in Carlton House Terrace. The refurbishment provides study, exhibition and meeting facilities, in an atmosphere that reflects the Society’s commitment to excellence and inspiration whilst equally providing for the safe-keeping of the collections.

Visit the Country Life Website

Visit the Royal Society Website

International Symposium opens Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens

Athens Dialogues, an international conference on Culture and Civilisation is being held, the inaugural event at the Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens.

Burrell Foley Fischer LLP was commissioned to undertake the design of the two auditoria spaces and front of house areas in the Centre, following a limited competition to complete the structural shell (initially designed by the French practice Architecture Studio) that extends 9 storeys underground and 8 storeys above ground. The building houses a library, recording studios, exhibition galleries, underground car parking and a roof top restaurant overlooking the Acropolis.

Working with an international team of consultants, Burrell Foley Fischer LLP completed the design of the auditoria spaces, bar and foyer areas. The main auditorium is designed to respond to a variety of performance types, including opera, symphony concerts, music theatre, drama and dance. The smaller, second auditorium is designed with a variable acoustic to suit small scale music, dance, drama and lecture presentations.

Visit the Onassis Cultural Centre Website

BFF hosts debate on retrofitting existing housing stock to reduce their carbon footprint

The challenging targets for reducing the carbon footprint of this country’s housing stock over the coming years together with the current economic climate mean that attention is turning to appropriate methods to retrofit existing houses. Burrell Foley Fischer LLP hosted representatives of all sections of the housing industry, Clients, Registered Social Landlords, Local Authorities, Designers and Contractors for a debate on best practice.

The event began with a presentation on a project to retrofit a Victorian terraced house in Haringey in collaboration with the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the University College London. One of a series of projects being sponsored by the TSB to demonstrate deep cuts in carbon emissions and exemplar energy efficient measures in UK social housing. The Energy Saving Trust is working in partnership with each of the projects to collect data from each of the retrofitted houses, including internal and external temperature, humidity and CO2 levels. This data will then be assimilated to form a database which will be made available to researchers, social landlords and energy companies to ensure that the most cost effective technologies are employed in future retrofits. There followed a lively debate with everybody very interested in the materials and details being developed to achieve a high air-tightness in an existing building and how these can be used to give an economically viable solution.

Find out more about the Technology Strategy Board retrofitting projects