We Made That

Joining up existing #creative clusters to become more than the sum of their parts through better collaboration and coordination. Today Holly Lewis has been appointed a Creative Policy and Evidence Centre ‘industry expert’ and tomorrow she’ll be in #Salford for the Creative Corridors launch. 💡💡💡 The The RSA (The royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce) and the Creative PEC have been working in partnership with Arts Council England to explore the concept of Creative Corridors. The event will launch a policy framework for action – setting out the underlying case for creative corridors, exploring the opportunities and barriers for growth and laying out the practical actions to realise place-based prosperity. It's a great time for Holly to join a UK-wide network of practitioners, drawn from all parts of the creative industries to provide Creative PEC with on-the-ground insight to inform national research and policy work. She has already been part of recent workshops and roundtables focusing on the Northern Creative Corridor, reflected on the key themes to bolster creative skills and contributed views on supporting the creative industries across the country. Shanaz Gulzar, Tom Adeyoola and Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire will be part of the panel talks. See you there? 📍24th Oct The Lowry Salford, M50 3AZ Link: https://lnkd.in/dgqr3_F5 #industrychampion #creativecorridor #creativepolicy #supportcreativeproserity #creativeindustriesUK

Progressive, principled and proud: we’re happy to announce that we won the Best Architect Employer of the Year 2024 at Building Design. Architect of The Year Awards last night. 🎉 Congratulations to all the winning practices recognised, a celebration of the very best work being produced by UK architectural practices and a great opportunity to spotlight the teams and culture behind the exemplary progress in the field. We are committed to delivering public good, and this progressive attitude is reflected in the way we empower and support our team. Being the best employer we can be is core to our mission and purpose – going forward, we will continue to hold ourselves accountable, shake things up, make meaningful change across the sector, and continue to fill gaps on what needs to be better. 👏 https://lnkd.in/eA4rqCJS #employeroftheyear #goodworkstandardemployer #BCorp2024 #architectoftheyearawards

Inclusive, innovative, inspiring, and sustainable public open spaces and neighbourhoods. OK, let’s go! 💫   We Made That have been appointed to the London Legacy Development Corporation’s new Landscape and Public Realm Framework with a set of 13 consultants undertaking research, studies, landscape and public realm designs, across two Lots. The framework was launched yesterday by Ruth Lin Wong Holmes alongside hearing about the updated park design guide from Pippa Henshall and a discussion about new climate emergency design guidance chaired by Donald Roberts.   Equitably designed public realm delivered through this framework will play a key role in unlocking and enabling residents to access the opportunities that LLDC-led developments are bringing to East London and wider four growth boroughs. Accelerating gender and social equality in the public realm and integration with the surrounding city will directly generate both improved quality of life and economic gains. We’re joined by collaborators Julia King & Associates, a new consultancy led by a former policy fellow at the LSE Cities research center at the London School of Economics, and further expertise on participation and co-design from emerging talents POoR Collective. We’ve come together to offer exemplary approaches to delivering landscape and public realm through high levels of participation as well as championing of sustainable and impactful outcomes. The framework will be accessible to all of LLDC as well as other Mayoral Development Corporations including the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), GLA Land & Property and the four growth boroughs adjacent to the Park.   #LLDCframework #landscape #placemaking #codesign #engagement #wayfinding #climateaction #eastlondon

Through our work developing the Brighton Eastern Seafront Masterplan with Civic Engineers, PRD, Graham Harrington and Robert Bevan we know the importance of Madeira Terrace in enabling a vibrant, self-sustaining seafront providing for biodiversity, wellbeing, healthy activities and conservation of its built heritage. It’s also key in connecting to surrounding neighbourhoods and playing a part in the city through a carefully curated programme of cultural events. Well done Brighton & Hove City Council, Historic England and partners. An important step towards realising the Eastern Seafront Masterplan vision!

The Mayor of London has appointed Holly Lewis, co-founding partner of We Made That, to the role of Town Architect for the London Borough of Hackney. Funded by the Greater London Authority, The Mayor of London's two-year pilot scheme is part of the £1.25m Local Growth Capacity Support Programme, that will utilise built environment expert knowledge in ten locations to deliver Good Growth for Londoners. Holly Lewis is supporting design and placeshaping ambitions, and will be focused on Hackney Central. GLA’s Placeshaping Capacity Survey (2022), shows that local authority capacity is not aligned with areas experiencing the most change. The pilot seeks to address this gap in capacity by working collaboratively to bolster and enhance in-house skills, knowledge, and expertise – to enable city change that is economically and socially inclusive, sustainable and high quality. “I’m thrilled to have the chance to continue to support the London Borough of Hackney in my new role as Town Architect. Hackney Central is just one of many places in London experiencing rapid change, with many exciting projects underway. With the support of this programme, I look forward to the opportunity to work alongside the borough in achieving the best possible outcomes for Hackney’s diverse communities.” Says Holly Lewis The GLA pilot includes nine other Town Architects in strategic locations across the capital. Fellow Town Architects include Jas Bhalla, Adam Khan, Ken Okonkwo, Hilary Satchwell, Farshid Moussavi Architecture, Paul Monaghan, Tom Holbrook, julian lewis, Alice Fung 👏 👏 👏 Read more here - https://lnkd.in/dvx-aejC Image credit: Philipp Ebeling #placeshaping #goodgrowthforlondon #GLA #mayoroflondon #mayorsdesignadvocate #townarchitect

What role can the flow of materials and waste play in renewing industrial places and local economies? ♻️ Tom Fox reflects on working with an industry that accounts for 62% of UK waste and 50% of material use. All our projects are driven by a need to keep materials in use at their highest value for as long as possible to address the climate and biodiversity crises. The Circular Economy Week #CEweek2024 programme of events is a great reminder of the other sectors that contribute to a global economy that is still only 7% circular, a gap we’re addressing in our work for London Borough of Newham in Canning Town and Cody Road. In addition to the important steps architecture can take to adaptive reuse of existing buildings, designing for disassembly, and re-using materials; together with Useful Projects we’re also looking at what this means at an urban scale, including: → What activities in industrial areas support green jobs, and can ensure a just transition? → Can businesses and networks reduce waste and develop new circular operating models? → How do industrial areas support wider circular economies on London’s high streets? → What would circular material flows mean for urban logistics? Having worked across London’s industrial areas for many years we’re excited to bring fresh thinking to planning proactively for a just transition to net zero. Mathilde Lebreton, Tom Badger, Carrie Behar, Lottie Macnair 🙌 #regeneration #industrialintensification #landanalysis #publicrealm #circulareconomy

The news is out! Thomas Aquilina has been appointed Co-Director of Spatial Justice at Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London's "Just Environments Cluster". He has taken this role in addition to leading the New Architecture Writers programme, co-founder of the publishing collective Afterparti and his senior associate role here at We Made That. Many congratulations to Thomas and his cluster co-appointees.

It’s official: We Made That are now 46% better! We first certified as a B Corporation in 2021. Now, in 2024, we have been through our recertification process with external analysts to independently verify our impact all over again. A typical business in the UK achieves 50.9 through the B Corp Impact Assessment, and when we first achieved B Corp status we scored 85.3. With a new fully-verified score of 124.2, we’re proud that this puts us amongst the leading edge of purposeful architecture practices in the UK. 📈 With a whopping 46% uplift in our measured positive impact, it has been a journey rather than a destination. Read more about what we’ve been doing to make ourselves the best we can be: https://lnkd.in/ekM7tZTU B Lab UK #Impact #BetterBusiness #ThisWayForward #BCorp 🙌 Holly Lewis, Oliver Goodhall, Dr Eve Avdoulos, Tom Fox, Thomas Aquilina, Cat Mullan, Niharika Basoae and the full team at We Made That

Read Holly Lewis’ insights on ‘Bridging siloed working: strategies for crafting user-friendly design codes’ in Design Council’s Design Code Pathfinder Programme August report. 💡 Design codes help shape places in keeping with their local character and needs, foster community involvement, facilitate the building of more and better homes and public spaces and speed up decision-making. The article talks about the relevance of successful design codes that people feel confident in using by identifying right internal and external audiences, user testing and training, digitisation of tools, best practices and much more, including often under-explored needs for industrial intensification and high street regeneration. Read more on Design Code Pathfinder and Holly’s advice on strategies for crafting user-friendly design codes on pages 28-35 📕 👉 https://lnkd.in/eyXzZ4Qq #designcodes #pathfinder #designcouncil #userfriendlydesigncodes

What’s the future of industry and inclusive economy in the lower Lea Valley? We’ve recently been appointed to produce a Strategic Regeneration Framework for the Canning Town and Cody Road Industrial Area with London Borough of Newham. Our team is led by We Made That, supported by Cushman & Wakefield providing robust viability and delivery and advice, Useful Projects developing forwarding thinking approaches to circularity and sustainability and Steer shaping bold, locally informed tactics to make streets work harder for businesses, residents and visitors. Working with the council, local businesses and stakeholders we are producing a Strategic Regeneration Framework that will: 💪/📈Maximise the environmental, economic, and social value of the area to support the delivery of the council’s Local Plan and Just Transition Plan 🌳  Enable the council to work with partners to intensify the use of land in the area whilst protecting important community spaces and affordable workspaces ♻️  Collaborate with local businesses and communities to create a more inclusive and circular economy 🏘️  Shape how the industrial area responds to new residential and leisure uses in the surrounding area  🚲  Improve connectivity and public realm that can be support for industrial, residential, and leisure uses We look forward to working with the council and its partners to shape how Canning Town and Cody Road can kick start a more inclusive and sustainable economy, in alignment with the Council's Community Wealth Building Agenda.   #regeneration #industrialintensification #landanalysis #publicrealm #circulareconomy