Carey Jones Chapman Tolcher (CJCT)

For this week's project spotlight, CJCT are featuring our masterplan and architectural design of Leeds' largest commercial hub, Wellington Place. Commissioned by MEPC Limited, CJCT were tasked with the transformation of 14 acres of existing riverside land into a sustainable community providing 2.7 million sqft of mixed-use development. The masterplan developed from a desire to create a continuation of the urban business district with pedestrianised streets and an appropriate scale of buildings to give the feeling of a real urban setting. It was envisaged that the buildings would collectively have an overall architectural language and use of materials to give a sense of solidity and stability whilst allowing individual buildings to have slight differences to set them apart.

We’re happy to share that our scheme, Northumberland House in the London Borough of Sutton, has received planning permission. Working with Centro Planning Consultancy for Criterion Capital Limited, our proposal upgrades the existing building to provide an additional 29 BtR apartments. Adaptive reuse and extension will enhance the existing building and prolong the life of a viable structure to avoid carbon intensive demolition and reconstruction. The scheme will contribute to the area’s need for new homes and to further the regeneration of Brighton Road and the wider Borough of Sutton. 

CJCT are pleased to share that our episode of Property Week's PropCast with John Lewis Partnership is now live. Sitting down with host Andrew Teacher, John Lewis Partnership’s Sophie Hine, and Oliver Heath of Oliver Heath Design, Tim Tolcher discusses CJCT’s approach to our design of BtR schemes and, more importantly, how community and local authority engagement inevitably leads to a better design that is locally distinctive. Speaking specifically on CJCT’s Reading depot development for John Lewis Partnership, Tim highlights that a “visionary brief” from JLP and the knowledge that “the owner is the operator who will be running the scheme” has been a key positive in the design of the development. You can listen to the full episode of PropCast’s ‘Rooted in the Community’ on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or Soundcloud today. Article is here on Property Week: https://lnkd.in/ecShHuYS Listen on Apple: https://lnkd.in/eRMiJu-i Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/efZ2yBBd Listen on Amazon Music: https://lnkd.in/exKGxq8d Listen on Soundcloud: https://lnkd.in/epPNDV3w

As a practice we’re privileged to collaborate with a such fantastic group of clients and colleagues who share our values and vision. Delivering schemes of the complexity and impact of our work at the three Monk Bridge sites is our passion; we’re incredibly proud to see this area emerging and extend the city centre westwards from our previous work at Wellington Place (itself the previous western expansion!). Of course all of this is only possible with clients who share that vision and back their design teams to deliver it forward. Thanks HUB City Developments Limited for the opportunity to reshape this long neglected part our city!

John Lewis Partnership submits planning for Reading BTR: https://lnkd.in/eHcMJpp3 cc Katherine Russell, Tim Tolcher, Reading Borough Council and Carey Jones Chapman Tolcher (CJCT) #btrnews #btr #buildtorent #planning #planningsubmitted #residential #builtenvironment #reading #residentialdevelopment

In this week's project spotlight, we're highlighting our Scale Space development in West London. CJCT provided full architectural and masterplanning services for Imperial College London’s (ICL) Scale Space project; a scheme which provides collaboration and interface spaces for the university and high-tech, high-growth businesses, forming an important cornerstone within the wider White City Innovation district. The building is based on the ethos of collaboration, providing flexible office and laboratory accommodation that is occupied by ICL as well as specialist companies associated with research and development, technology and education. For this project, ICL collaborated with technology incubator company Blenheim Chalcot to fuse educational and private sector uses under one roof. The combination of educational, business and research activities in one building follows the client’s vision to provide cutting edge education with real world applications. Over four floors, the building accommodates 250,000 sqft of space with a strong focus on flexibility and co-location of education and business, enabled through a central entrance and communal area for all building users and activated through lively café, presentation and co-working spaces.

We’re glad to see such great client feedback from HUB on Leeds II’s benchmark unit inspection yesterday! RG Group have produced good work on site delivering this high-quality benchmark, and it’s great to see the airy open spaces we design come to fruition. 

Completed towards the end of last year, our MU2 scheme comprises three office buildings that create the High Street frontage for Vastint UK’s mixed-use Sugar House Island development in East London. At pedestrian level, 40,000 sqft of retail, restaurant and café units line the site’s arterial route of Chimney Walk and a new public square at the heart of the site. The public realm celebrates the site’s industrial past, connecting historic yards and carefully retained chimneys; it provides an attractive and accessible environment for future residents, workers and visitors, and generous outdoor spaces for the restaurant and café units. The upper levels of the development provide 290,000 sqft of office floor space which will help to generate up to 2,750 new jobs. The three buildings reimagine traditional brick warehouses, to create contemporary offices that reference the site’s industrial heritage as a printing and dye works on the east bank of the Three Mills river. A two-storey plinth encloses the public realm of Chimney Walk and wraps up and over the tallest office building to mark the main entrance to the Sugar House Island development. Collectively, the buildings are defined by carefully ordered façades with elements of precast concrete. Large windows and high ceilings flood the dual aspect offices with daylight, and generous roof terraces emphasise the focus on health and wellbeing that is central to a high-quality design achieving BREEAM ‘Excellent’. DEPROM LV Planit Assent BC   

It’s great to see a start to the installation of 33 bolt-on balconies for our Leeds II scheme for HUB and UNCLE Living. The private balconies provide external space to the apartments on the lower storeys, offering exceptional views over the Monk Bridge viaduct and towards the city centre. RG Group Dearneside Fabrications Ltd

Next up in our Project Spotlight series, we're showcasing our landmark BtR development, The Junction. Delivered by Galliford Try for City Developments Limited and Native Residential, The Junction's 665 homes are centred around the Grade II listed Monk Bridge viaduct and the new publicly accessible, landscaped high-line park that the scheme has created. From a very early stage, the design was approached from the point of view that the viaduct was central to the scheme, both as a piece of built heritage representing Leeds’ industrial past and a marker for the renewal that the city is undergoing. CJCT were conscious that treated sensitively and made useable, the viaduct would represent a unique feature in the context. At a macro level, the approach taken here should serve as an example of what can be done in a commercially viable manner whilst still respecting the value of our region’s heritage. At a local level, The Junction has had the effect of extending the city south and west adding much needed housing into the city centre. It continues the historic grain that we established at Wellington Place and carefully knits together several disparate sites, whilst giving back to the wider population of Leeds, with its public high-line park serving as a transformative community centrepiece. Ares Landscape Architects Ltd Buro Happold Gardiner & Theobald LLP