BFF Cinemas featured in Guardian Cine-files feature

Harbour Lights Southampton, designed by Burrell Foley Fischer, is the latest cinema to be featured in the Guardian's regular Cine-files feature.  The Cine Lumiere, in South Kensington, London which we refurbished, was similarly featured last month.

Harbour Lights in a two screen new build cinema which opened in 1995 and is still going strong nearly twenty years later.  As the Guardian says:

"While the surrounding area has been completely redeveloped into high-end sea-view flats, Harbour Lights has remained steadfast, like a cinematic lighthouse guiding film-lovers through choppy waters".

Visit the Guardian's Harbour Lights feature

The Cine Lumiere, an Art Deco cinema at the Institut Francais, was refurbished by Burrell Foley Fischer in 2008.  The project restored the character and quality of the Art Deco interior whilst bringing the cinema up to date in terms of projection and sound technology, comfort and operational flexibility.  The Guardian comments:

"The decor could be straight out of Mad Men, making it one of the most stylish viewing experiences you'll find in London".

Visit the Guardian's Cine Lumiere feature

Birks Cinema, Aberfeldy to open

The refurbished Birks Cinema is due to open with a Gala Screening this week, more than 30 years since it last screened films.  Burrell Foley Fischer designed the interior of the cinema screen based on a woodland theme, inspired by the Birks (the Birch trees) of Aberfeldy.

The Birks has been featured in the online culture and design magazine, Avocado Sweet.  Read the article here.

BFF Projects receive Arts Council Funding

Two of our projects, The Cambridge Arts Theatre and Broadway, Nottingham’s Media Centre, have been successful with their application to Arts Council England for capital funding for their redevelopment plans.

Cambridge Arts Theatre

Cambridge Arts Theatre will redevelop and extend its current impractical foyer facilities to provide new public entrances, a new box office and significantly extend bar and hospitality spaces. This will greatly increase the Theatre’s financial sustainability and resilience and provide an open and welcoming entrance for its audiences.

Broadway, Nottingham's Media Centre

Funding will improve Broadway’s facilities and resources to establish it as the lead centre for creative media in central England. The work will result in more efficient and effective use of Broadway’s existing building, focusing primarily on improvements to floor space on its lower ground level.

Alexandra Theatre, Bognor Regis

Arun District Council are consulting on plans prepared by Burrell Foley Fischer for the renovation of the Alexandra Theatre in Bognor Regis.  The proposals include refurbishment and improvements to the auditorium and technical facilities, together with a new foyer and atrium wrapping around the theatre and transforming the external appearance.  

In addition the creation of an indoor arcade / winter garden will provide a pedestrian route from the existing arcade down to the seafront and other parts of the Regis centre sites development.

The renovation of the theatre would be paid for through the value generated by the development of other parts of the Regis centre site.   

Smithfield Market - A New Vision

SAVE Britain’s Heritage are today revealing an alternative plans for the redevelopment of London’s Smithfield Market, designed by Burrell Foley Fischer.  The scheme proposes the restoration of the existing 19th Century Buildings to form a new cultural and retail hub, to complement the already burgeoning “Smithfield Quarter’.  It will also complement the new travel hub, which will provide rail access to six airports.   

The impressive roofs of Smithfield General Market would be retained as a fantastic canopy and creating a beautiful light-filled interior.  The scheme makes available large areas, at multiple levels, without the addition of intrusive blocks.  The very extensive basement areas are brought into use as spaces for exhibition galleries, fashion shows and lecture halls. 

Marcus Binney, the President of Save Britain’s Heritage, says “The Smithfield quarter, like Covent Garden before it, has come to life thanks to natural regeneration as small businesses have colonised every vacated premise in the streets around the market buildings.  This is creating one of central London’s liveliest districts, full of both traditional character and new life.  Wake up City planners and Alderman!  Smithfield Market ranks as one of London’s chief public spaces that could be serving the city and its visitors, as the capital’s newest hub.”

See the full details of the SAVE/BFF scheme here
 

10 x 10 Drawing the City London

A John Burrell drawing is featured in a new exhibition that is currently running at the Somerset House.  ‘10x10 Drawing the City London’ brings together 100 of the world’s best artists, architects and designers in the most famous city in the world, London.

The project focuses on a different area of the city each year, with a grid of 100 squares laid over the chosen area. The resulting squares are then allocated to the participants who create an original artwork based on the buildings and public space within it. These pieces of artwork form a collective snapshot of London from one-hundred personal view points, forming a unique showcase of British architectural heritage.

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The resulting works highlight some of the most beautiful aspects of the city as well as the hidden and forgotten details that are regularly overlooked. This project is a unique concept, with the designers of the City collaborating during the summer, turning their gaze back to the built environment they helped to create as well as providing a commentary and critique on the constantly changing landscape of central London. The drawing project is followed by the public exhibition of the pieces of work which is currently runing at Somerset House until 13 November.  They will then be auctioned by Sotheby’s at an exclusive closing event, with all proceeds of the sale going to Article 25, the charity that builds solutions to global problems.

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The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has endorsed the event, saying: “Article 25′s work to design and build shelter for people affected by natural disasters is a very welcome initiative. This latest project is a fascinating idea with some of the biggest names in architecture creating a unique snapshot of London’s landscape. I hope its focus on … London will encourage those working there to dig deep to raise as much money as possible in support of hard hit communities around the world.”

Visit the 10 x 10 Website  
 

‘Hinterland’ Telecom tower is glimpsed at every turn of street, mews, and alleyway. Reminiscent of the way ancient Duomos’ oversee all proceedings. …. The north south routes between Soho and Fitzrovia are working streets with businesses, pristine white galleries, muscular Edwardian facades, corner pubs, and a once manic 'rag trade'  with ‘Gown Vans’ belching smoke jamming the roads. But nowadays on sunny muted weekends there is a sense of ‘hinterland’. Only voices and shadows animate the deserted streets, as they gorge on the midday sun. Contrasting razor sharp shadows reveal dark ancient passages that cut their way like fissures through buildings, scarred with the patina of the ad-hoc, the wear and tear of here and now, and centuries past. A reminder of the everyday soiled places of Dickens and the legendary White Woman of Berners Street whose ghost will readily tap you on the shoulder if you linger here long enough………

The Crucible nominated for People's Choice Design Award

The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, refurbished by Burrell Foley Fischer, has been nominated in the Sheffield Civic Trust and RIBA Yorkshire 2012 Sheffield Design Awards for the People's Choice Award.  The people of Sheffield are invited to vote for their choice of the best new building in the city.  The results will be announced at a ceremony on 27 November.

Visit the Sheffield Design Awards Website here

SAVE Britain's Heritage Campaigns to save Smithfield General Market

SAVE Britain's Heritage have spoken out against a scheme that they say will destroy Smithfield General Market, part of what SAVE president Marcus Binney describes as "the grandest parade of market buildings in Europe".  Burrell Foley Fischer are currently working with SAVE to develop an alternative proposal.

Learn more about the SAVE campaign here

Read the Guardian's view on the proposals here

Prince Philip opens the new Forum for the Royal Academy of Engineering

Stefanie Fischer and Martyn Clark were amongst the guests for a "Celebration of Engineering" and the naming of Prince Philip House on Tuesday.  Prince Philip, the Senior Fellow of the Academy, performed the ceremony and unveiled a new triptych portrait of himself, painted by Paul Brason, which will hang in the refurbished building.  

The Duke was then invited to survey the rooms containing displays of great engineering feats including a Rolls-Royce fan blade, spray-on clothing and robotic sea creatures.

Read the report on the event in Conference News

Prince Philip House

The Royal Academy of Engineering has announced that its newly renovated 'Forum for Engineering' is to be named Prince Philip House, in honour of its Senior Fellow HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who will formally open the building today.

Sir John Parker GBE FREng, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, says: "As our Senior Fellow, The Duke of Edinburgh has worked tirelessly to support the Academy right from its inception as the Fellowship of Engineering, which he was instrumental in creating in 1976. We are now a fully-fledged national Academy of some 1,500 Fellows, working in partnership with government, business, the engineering profession and our universities to promote the engineering and technological welfare of the UK

Prince Philip House will be a great asset for our country, providing a national platform for engineering - where we can all come together and address the issues that matter. Global issues including sustainability, skills, equality and diversity, health, water and energy supplies and, crucially, economic growth."

The refurbishment of Nos 3 and 4 Carlton house Terrace by Burrell Foley Fischer LLP, has removed unsympathetic 20th Century alterations and reinstated the scale and integrity of the principal rooms at the ground and first floors.  The approach to detailing has not been of restoration but of developing a design palette that is appropriate to the scale of the interior spaces, the historic significance of the terrace and its occupation by the Royal Academy of Engineering.