This panel discussion explores current discord on the use of rooftops in urban areas, maximising the limited space by using them for public life or the cultivation of food. ACME presented the successful implementation of a rooftop greenhouse in the REWE Green Farming project.
Watch the discussion here.
ACME opened its doors as part of the Studio Lates series for the London Festival of Architecture. LFA is a month long celebration of architecture and city-making, taking place every June across London.
Michel Bosauder, Ann Ravens, Keigo Yoshida and Emma Buckley are appointed Associates in 2022.
We thank them for their commitment to the practice and welcome them into ACME's management team.
Álvaro Madrazo and Amanda Callaghan are appointed Senior Architects acknowledging their ongoing dedication to ACME practice projects.
As ACME turned 15 in May 2022, Mark Broom and Eleni Meladaki become Associate Directors. Heidrun Schuhmann, James Denner and Tim Laubinger become Directors.
We acknowledge their leadership qualities, perseverance and ongoing commitment to the practice.
Folkestone Plot A, the second building in our 2016 Folkestone Harbour masterplan, has received Planning Permission. The building is the smallest block in the masterplan, forming the western endpoint between the Coastal Park, the Lea's Lift Square and the Crescents of the wider masterplan. The block contains just 13 apartments, all with panoramic views of the English channel and the coastline.
See more information here.
ACME is designing a revitalised Castle Square - a more distinctive, vibrant civic space in the heart of Swansea.
The scheme includes two new pavilions, terraced seating areas, new access routes and green infrastructure such as enhanced planting and biodiversity, green roofs and SuDS and a playful water feature. See details here.
ACME is thrilled to be working with Homes England and Daedalus Development Company for the regeneration of the historic 42 acre waterfront site at Daedalus, Lee-on-the-Solent.
ACME's scheme will restore historic buildings, create 450,000sq ft of workspace, c.350 new homes and generous public spaces - celebrating the site's rich history and creating a welcoming place to work, live and visit. More information here.
REWE Green Farming, Wiesbaden is one of five projects shortlisted for the International Award for Wood Architecture 2022. An iconic and highly visible simple timber structure forms the main element of a new architectural identity for REWE.
The award winner will be announced at Forum Bois Construction, France on 7 April 2022.
In collaboration with Chesterton Partnership, planning has been submitted for a sustainable and inclusive mixed-use neighbourhood on a brownfield site adjacent to Cambridge North Railway Station. The socially responsible development will include 425 new homes, a transport mobility hub, new workplaces including research & development lab buildings, shops, cafés, restaurants and public spaces for all.
John Keats Primary School partners with ACME for RIBA's Architecture Ambassador programme.
ACME Architects, Ifigeneia Dilaveraki and Maria Perez Vera, facilitate a workshop with students exploring the possibilities of designing in their built environment - experimenting with materials, shape, height, light, transparency and colour.
The £135m Copr Bay Phase One development is now open for all - including the 1.1 acre Copr Bay Coastal Park and the 3,500 capacity Swansea Arena, which hosts its first City Centre Conference tomorrow.
Since 2019, ACME has been working as Masterplan Architect for the Euston Over-Station Development (OSD) - the UK's first large-scale project to have an ambition to deliver absolute zero carbon development.
The new development will seek to positively change local residents’ lives, economic opportunities, and physical and mental health. More details here.
ACME designed Hunsett Mill in Stalham, Norfork features on Channel 4’s Extraordinary Escapes with Sunetra Sarker and Sandi Toksvig.
Book in your next escape here.
ACME is delighted that UK's first Canopy by Hilton hotel situated Aldgate, London is featured in Sleeper Magazine's 100th edition.
Read article here.
ACME's vision for Metro Campus - a diverse, lively, sustainable urban quarter in the middle of the Rhine metropolis of Düsseldorf is featured in Polis magazine.
Read article here.
ACME designed Canopy By Hilton, London City features in Cosmopolitan magazine's Best Hotels in London.
Read article here.
Very relevant theme of RE-USE for Bauwelt's first issue of 2022. REWE Market of the Future (Green Farming) is featured.
Read article here.
Berlin's newest pedestrian and cycle bridge, Golda-Meir-Steg, designed by ACME opens to the public today!
Spanning the Berlin-Spandauer-Schifffahrtskanal, it creates an East-West link between two divided districts: the new Europacity and the Mitte district.
View project here
ACME designed Bumpers Oast is shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2021 and will feature on Channel 4’s Grand Designs this evening at 9pm! Watch online here.
Kevin McCloud, Damion Burrows and Michelle Ogundehin visit the homes competing for UK’s most prestigious award for a new house or extension.
UK's first Canopy by Hilton opens in London! Located in Aldgate, the hotel design by ACME is inspired by the area's rich local heritage. Open for bookings here
ACME's mixed-use Metro Campus scheme will create a diverse, lively urban quarter for the city of Düsseldorf.
A collaboration with Stadt Land Fluss, Kieran Fraser Landscape Design and Transsolar.
IQL Pavilion in Stratford is the overall winner at the Structural Timber Awards 2021. Split over three floors, the Pavilion is an extremely lightweight timber structure that sits on top of a DLR tunnel with limited allowances for additional weight or foundations.
Constructed using cross-laminated and glue-laminated timber panels, only shallow concrete foundations were needed. Timber has a much lower carbon footprint than more traditional materials and provides warmth and tactility to the interior.
Friedrich Ludewig and Heidrun Schuhmann of ACME join the discussion about urban redevelopment, innovation and sustainability strategies at Ettersburger Gespräch 2021. REWE Market of the Future prototype is presented as an exemplary case study. More information here
Haugen, Stratford's new alpine-inspired D&D food destination opens today! Located on Endeavour Square, the BREEAM Outstanding Timber Building designed by ACME provides two floors of restaurants and bars, and a rooftop terrace open to all, with stunning views of London's Olympic Park, London Aquatics Centre and the emerging East Bank.
ACME designed REWE Market of the Future features in ICON magazine's best buildings of 2021.
Read article here.
Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB) building in Leipzig, Germany was officially opened today with a ceremony of over 100 guests to mark the occasion.
“The architecturally outstanding ensemble expresses the bank's serving function for the community. With its forum, it creates a high-quality public space in the centre of Leipzig. The innovative forest of columns impresses with its play of light and shadow and its transparency and permeability." - Philipp Oswalt, Professor at the University of Kassel, former head of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
For the Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB) in Leipzig, ACME has developed the building cores to prioritise stairs over lifts. The usual fire escape stair void has been widened to ensure daylight on all levels. Acoustic absorption has been installed in the soffit to allow the core to remain open to the offices. The core enclosure has been cast in-situ, with precast steps and railings. To invite more use of the stair, the concrete for steps and railings has been precast and polished, making it feel more precious.
Final construction site visit before the public opening of the SAB building in Leipzig, Germany. The new office headquarters of Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB) is nearly complete and will be officially opened on 9th September 2021.
ACME won the international competition in 2013, and after a long construction journey, we look forward to the citizens of Leipzig exploring the public space for the first time. Located next to Leipzig's main train station and occupying an entire block in the city centre, the site is defined through an L shaped building framing a new public space. The building provides 500 workspaces, a conference centre, auditorium, consultation rooms and a restaurant.
H1 development, one of the most sustainable new office buildings in London, progresses to planning stage. This is ACME's tallest timber building to date and it sets a new benchmark for timber structures in the city.
Located directly beside Elephant Park, greenery surrounds the ground floor level and extends up onto the south-facing stepped outdoor terraces located on every level of the building. The new building form sensitively responds to site constraints and provides modern, flexible, and open workspace that is adaptable for the future.
The first residential building within phase 1 of Folkestone Seafront in Kent is well underway, creating 84 new beachfront homes.
In a playful nod to adjacent Victorian seaside estates, the development creates new urban crescents, articulated with curved bay windows and balconies. Expansive sea views on the beach side will be complemented by a raised communal garden on the wind-protected side of the crescent.
Bumpers Oast is shortlisted for World Architecture Festival 2021 - House & Villa (Rural/Nature) - Completed Buildings Award.
The traditional oast house form has been reimagined by ACME to create a new home within the rolling landscape and apple orchards of Kent. The building is highly insulated and designed to passive house standards of airtightness, with the oast cones used to encourage slow air movement and purge ventilation from high level openings during the summer.
The new office building for Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB), the Development Bank of the Free State of Saxony, nears completion. Employees begin to move in this month and the official opening will take place in September 2021.
ACME won the international competition in 2013. Our design revisits the typology of a bank as an imposing institution: the usual front of columns has been dissolved into a forest of supports. These new columns work hard - supporting, shading, sheltering the open space and geothermally cooling and heating the SAB building.
ACME wins Metro Campus urban planning competition. The jury, consisting of renowned architects, urban planners and landscape architects, representatives of Metro Properties, as well as Düsseldorf politicians and administrators unanimously voted for ACME's sustainable design which references the local history of the site.
This mixed-use scheme will create a diverse, lively urban quarter for the city of Düsseldorf. A collaboration with Stadt Land Fluss and Kieran Fraser Landscape Design.
ACME joins The Plan's Virtual Perspective Forum - Panel Discussion: Creating Experiences on the 29th of June 2021 at 1:30PM BST. Sheena Seeley and Tim Laubinger discuss how design skills and sensitivity toward context, materials and natural elements build a multi-sensory journey for the end-user.
Planning has been submitted for 3 of 6 plots for the ambitious mixed-use 2.2ha site, Dublin Central. The masterplan proposals include two new public squares, new pedestrian routes, a fully integrated metro link station for O'Connell Street and the restoration of historically important streets and laneways.
The scheme will ensure the area around Nos.14-17 Moore Street, a National Monument due to its role in the Easter Rising is appropriately restored. An ACME collaboration with Grafton Architects, Mola Architecture and RKD for Hammerson.
Metalwork packages are delivered and installed, and basil planting has begun on site. Locally farmed and prepared produce will be openly showcased at this new market hall in Wiesbaden, Germany. An aquaponic farm is housed within the building and a modular greenhouse above.
REWE’s Market of the Future opens to the public on 27 May 2021.
Swansea's new Copr Bay bridge was eased into place in a major construction operation over the weekend of March 6-7. The 150 metric tonne bridge is now in place over Oystermouth Road. It's up to 12 metres wide, 49m long and features 2,756 laser-cut origami shapes. Commissioned and developed by Swansea Council, the footbridge will be pivotal in improving access between the city, the Marina and the coastline.
The bridge will be a stepping stone for a greener and more liveable Swansea city centre. It's expected the bridge will be ready for use in the second half of 2021, ahead of the opening of the arena which is on schedule to be completed this year.
Set to be a new architectural landmark for the city, Swansea’s new bridge, designed by ACME, is getting ready to be installed this weekend. After six months of assembly work, the new pedestrian and cycle bridge linking the City Centre to the new Arena and the waterfront is getting ready to be lifted in place.
The arch shape stabilizes the bridge and offers glimpses of the city’s new Copr Bay district including a new 1.1-acre Coastal Park. The bridge will open to the public in late 2021. The installation of the footbridge (from Sat 10pm to Sunday 6am GMT) will be streamed live: link.
The Pavilion in the International Quarter Stratford is starting to take shape. In 2017, ACME won the invited competition, and over the last four years, we have been working with Lendlease and Blumer Lehmann team to construct a lightweight timber structure above the DLR tunnels at the entrance of the Queen Elizabeth Park.
The Pavilion accommodates an Olympic Park visitor centre, a cafe, a restaurant, and a public rooftop terrace overlooking the Eastbank and the London Stadium. D&D will commence fit-out of the spaces shortly, for opening in Fall 2021.
ACME will speak in the Forum "Facing the Future", for BAU Online, the German Building Congress. Friedrich Ludewig will outline in a few projects how emerging 3D tools are affecting how we manage complexity, and how BIM is changing the way we communicate and evaluate space.
The talk on Friday the 15th at 1pm (GMT+1) and will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Boris Schade-Bünsow, the Editor of Bauwelt. Registration here.
60 Aldgate, our new 25,000 sqm office block, has received approval from the City of London’s Planning & Transportation Committee. The building is part of the next phase of Minories Masterplan, which is delivering major regeneration, economic growth, and attractive new architecture to the Minories and Aldgate area.
60 Aldgate will close an urban void between the City and Whitechapel, and create a new architectural landmark with a vaulted structure bridging over the London Underground tracks in the basement.
We are delighted to welcome Mizu-Iro to 74 Tabernacle Street; a hair and project space to explore the world beyond hairdressing. We would like to work in a building full of friends and family, and we are really happy that Takeshi, Sei and Tomoko have decided to join us on the second floor.
The interior by Ed Crooks was conceived as an adaptable space with blue objects that can both stack to form a large monolith, and scatter to provide over 20 individual elements for storage, seating and showing the salons collection of objects and books. Please check here for appointments and 2021 workshop dates.
The Collective Blackhorse Lane, our new 300-room co-living building, has received approval from the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The building will create a new 350 capacity cultural & music space on this important corner in Walthamstow, opposite Blackhorse Road Underground station.
Together with The Collective, we have envisioned a new form of community building centred around a light-filled central space surrounded by shared workspaces, library, gym, living space and communal kitchens, giving every member a space of their own, within a larger collective shared by all. The project is due to complete in 2023.
The Golda Meir Steg, a new footbridge in the centre of Berlin bridging across the old Berlin Wall, is finally in place. The 200t deck structure was assembled by Streicher in Bavaria, on the banks of the Danube river, throughout September. After a 1,600km barge journey, up the Danube and down the Rhine, traveling over 12 days through 64 locks, the boat carrying the bridge deck finally arrived in Berlin.
The 78m long bridge deck was designed to be impossibly thin. With a thickness of only 20cm, the bridge is held aloft by the steel handrail with a lasercut pattern of interlocking circles. Over the next few months, the new town square will be completed, with a ceremonial opening scheduled for Mid 2021.
The Stratford Pavilion facade has progressed quickly since the glazing was closed in August. Blumer-Lehmann, the Swiss timber contractor, is installing the 2200 Accoya wood fins of the soffit to a carefully designed setting out schedule to create a sculptural underside for the timber structure.
The Pavilion is due to open in 2021.
We are proud to play a part in Brent Cross Town, the regeneration project by Argent Related with Barnet Council. The £5 billion north London project will transform the 180-acre area between the Brent Cross Shopping centre and the train station to create a new town with sustainability, sport and social lives at its heart.
By 2030, it will be a net-zero carbon town, driving down the embodied carbon in buildings and infrastructure as well as the carbon used in energy supply – and offsetting the remainder. We look forward to sharing more on our office building at Brent Cross Town.
The Golda-Meir Bridge for the Europacity in the centre of Berlin has left the Bavarian factory, and is now on its way to Berlin. Travelling by barge, the bridge has left Harbour of Deggendorf in southern Germany via the Danube river and will cover a distance of 1600km and 64 locks over 12 days. Upon arrival in Berlin, the bridge will be lifted directly from the barge onto the bridge bearings with 800t cranes. Once installed, the 4.5m wide pedestrian and cycle bridge will create a new link between the former East and West Berlin territories, previously separated by the canal and the Berlin Wall. The bridge should appear simple and effortless, spanning 70m with a bridge deck of just 20cm thickness, held aloft by the handrail made from a 20mm steel plate. Openings in the handrail follow the structural stress distribution, with larger openings placed in the middle of the bridge, fading to smaller openings towards the supports. Coloured lighting is integrated in the handrail to transform the bridge into an orange glowing beacon after dark.
Acoustic absorption and low level lighting are important for a sense of wellbeing and privacy in a workplace. Suspended ceilings are not the answer. As we design more office buildings with raw and exposed concrete and timber soffits, we need elements that can hang below and provide light and silence.
ACME & Bartenbach Lighting have developed a pad with acoustic and lighting properties that can be arranged freely in the space. Covered in a wooly fleece, and with invisibly recessed LED lights, the pad provides high sound absorption and a localized, invisible task light. The first large scape implementation will be at our 25.000sqm office project for SAB in Leipzig, due to open in 2021. The pad will be available commercially from Nimbus here.
We are working with an amazing workshop in Java to create new sinks for the Tabernacle Street office bathrooms. In the spirit of the local Shoreditch area, the heart of furniture manufacturing in the 19th century, we have used bookmatched white ebony veneer for the wall cladding of the cubicles. In collaboration with craftsmen in Indonesia, we have selected a petrified fossil log with matching colours which is being carved and polished to create two freestanding washbasins.
The shell and core of the new headquarters for the Saxony Development Bank (SAB) in Leipzig is almost complete.
The majority of the facade has been installed, leaving curved glazed panels and horizontal spandrel panels to be inserted. The straight lines of the concrete roof oversailing the buildings blocks define the street character and accentuate the public route across the site. The construction of the forum and the fit-out have commenced, with an anticipated completion in 2021.
The steel frame of Swansea Arena has been completed. Works are now progressing inside, with the black precast concrete steps in the auditorium taking shape. Mock-ups for the gold anodised digital facade and the red polished concrete for the foyer floor have been installed for final signoff by the client.
On the other side of the road, the frames for the residential block and the multi-storey car park has also reached its final height, ready for the first facade elements to be installed.
The installation of Stratford Timber Pavilion facade is complete. The concave geometry of the gently curving facade helps to create sheltered terraces overlooking the Queen Elizabeth Park. The erection of the timber bleachers and the balustrades are progressing, with the tenant fit-out due to commence shortly for pavilion opening in early 2021.
Swansea Central has progressed during the spring, with steel assembly teams working safely in pairs, socially distanced. The steel frame of the 3500 capacity multi-purposed arena has risen quickly over the last 6 weeks, revealing the size of the auditorium volume and showing the height of the flytower over the stage. Across the road, the new carpark and residential building is progressing at pace, with the steel topped out and the concrete frame reaching level 2. A new pedestrian bridge is currently being assembled off site, and the abutments and approach ramps on both sides are starting to take shape on each side. The frames for both buildings should be complete in July.
We are delighted that Bumpers Oast has been shortlisted for the RIBA South East Regional RIBA Awards 2020.
Bumpers Oast is a 21st century house inspired by the vernacular structures of Kent that were traditionally used to dry hops for beer brewing. Five shingle-clad towers rise up a former apple orchard, creating an extremely low-energy contemporary home.
