The TNG Youth and Community Centre opened its doors to the public in 2013, aiming to provide valuable support to young people in Lewisham. Central to the project’s vision was the creation of a flexible space which could evolve over time, adapting to the needs of its occupants. Ten years on, RCKa are delighted to …
Building on our previous research—which investigated the quantity, size, and ownership of the city’s golf courses—we’ve now taken a look at how these spaces might be used to better serve a larger proportion of Londoners. Our masterplan for Enfield Golf Course shows how it might be done.
It only feels like yesterday, but TNG Youth and Community Centre is celebrating 10 years of fabulous support for young people and families since being opened by the Mayor of Lewisham in 2013. Commissioned by Lewisham Council, in 2017 the running of the centre was taken over by Youth First, and with over 1,700 members …
We’re delighted that the small sites Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) that we wrote for Lewisham Council, in collaboration with our friends at Ash Sakula Architects, has won the Planning Award for Improving Housing Delivery. Adopted in October 2021, the document sets out clear guidelines for how Lewisham can help meet the ambitious small site housing …
RCKa has been appointed by Brent Council to deliver an industrial intensification and residential co-location masterplan vision and urban design framework for Staples Corner. Strategically located at the intersection of the North Circular, the M1 and the Midland Main Line, Staples Corner is an important industrial location, serving London’s need for both logistics and manufacture. …
RCKa has been selected by the Mayor of London to join his prestigious Architecture & Urbanism (A+U) framework, securing a place on the maximum number of three lots. The A+U Framework can be used by the Greater London Authority Group and other public sector commissioning authorities to appoint high-quality architectural, place making and urban planning …
Ebbsfleet Development Corporation appointed RCKa to lead a multidisciplinary team of architects, placemaking specialists and urban designers to co-create a strategy for community and cultural infrastructure in the Garden City through a comprehensive programme of outreach and engagement.
We’re delighted to announce that the Nourish Hub we designed for UK Harvest, Hammersmith & Fulham Council, and the Mayor of London is one of 92 projects shortlisted for the 2023 RIBA London Regional Awards. Completed in 2021, we converted a former Post Office in Shepherd’s Bush into a vital new community hub, serving affordable …
Airspace development has huge potential to deliver new homes in urban areas, yet this form of development is still in its infancy. We’re therefore delighted to have been appointed as one of just five architects to Watford Community Housing’s Roof Top Development Framework. RCKa is an expert in this nascent sector, having completed a two-storey …
The Smithfield Wellbeing Hub is a key element of the transformation of Birmingham Smithfield – a once in a generation project led by Birmingham City Council and Lendlease to reshape a 17 hectare site in the historic heart of the city. Birmingham Smithfield will transform Birmingham’s city centre, creating 3,000 new homes and community facilities as well as major economic opportunities, including an estimated 8,000 new jobs.
RCKa has submitted designs for the Smithfield Wellbeing Hub as part of Birmingham Smithfield, a once-in-a-generation project led by Birmingham City Council and Lendlease to reshape a 17 hectare site in the historic heart of the city. The Smithfield project will transform Birmingham’s city centre, creating around 3,000 new homes and community facilities as well …
RCKa is delighted to have been appointed to the Notting Hill Genesis Development Consultants’ Framework. Commencing in the new year, we’re one of a slew of small practices – a group which includes many of our friends and collaborators – providing design services for small and specialist projects across the NHG portfolio. The Housing Association …
RCKa is thrilled and honoured to have been awarded the Building Design 2022 Architect Of The Year Award for Social Value. We’re particularly proud to receive this award as it celebrates both our body of recent work – which spans housing, education and community sectors – and the central ethos of the practice: to make …
RCKa has secured planning for two affordable housing projects on behalf of Barnet Homes on infill sites in the borough – Broadfields and Coppetts Road. The practice was appointed to consider the intensification of existing suburban housing estates, as part of a strategic review, and deployed an innovative approach to overcome significant challenges of privacy, …
On 29 June RCKa appeared on stage at the Barbican, presenting a selection of projects both old and new, all viewed through the lens of positive outcomes: assessing the effects of the buildings we design on the people who live and work in them. Tony Staples started off with an examination of the community engagement …
RCKa has been asked to deliver a lecture at the Barbican on the evening of 29th June 2022, as part of the Architecture Foundation’s “Architecture on Stage” series. Representatives from the practice will present a selection of recent work through the lens of social value, wellbeing and inclusive communities, and will cover projects including our …
RCKa is a people-focused practice of architects, designers and policymakers. Our mission is to: Enhance the wellbeing of individuals Foster a working culture of trust that provides meaningful opportunities, responsibilities, and support for employees to flourish. Nurture a place where differences are celebrated and where fairness, equality and equity for all voices is actively promoted. …
RCKa is part of a team led by Hawkins\Brown that has been selected to design a 2,000 home rural masterplan for Oxford University Development. Working alongside place strategist Murray Twoig, sustainability and engineering consultants Buro Happold, and two Dutch architecture and landscape practices OOZE and OKRA, our competition-winning proposal was selected from forty entries from …
RCKa has received planning permission to create a new centre of excellence for leading charity, The Children’s Trust, which will integrate education, health, therapy and care facilities for children and young people with brain injury and neuro-disability. With headquarters based in Tadworth, Surrey, The Children’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity for children with brain injury, …
RCKa is delighted to be one of only a small handful of practices to have been appointed to the LHC MDC1 framework, a Public Contracts Regulations 2015-compliant route to appointment for professional services. Covering the south-east of England, excluding London, the MDC1 framework allows for a variety of procurement routes, including mini-competition and direct award. …
RCKa has been chosen to design a mixed-use building within Lendlease’s Smithfield Birmingham development. Our appointment is part of a larger team of architects consisting of both established and up-and-coming practices, each of which will be responsible for designing individual buildings within a wider masterplan set out by Prior+Partners with support from WSP, James Corner …
Following on from our success in the New London Awards at the end of 2021, we’re delighted to have the Nourish Hub recognised by the RIBA Journal, which has presented it with the MacEwen Award. “Here’s the recipe for Nourish Hub. Take one council with some hard-to-let shops in an area of high social deprivation, …
RCKa has designed new school buildings on the Surrey campus of the Children’s Trust, a charity focused on the care of children with brain injuries.
At a ceremony held in London’s Guildhall on 26 November, RCKa’s Nourish Hub community kitchen, which we designed for food charity UK Harvest was given both the Community Prize and the coveted Mayor’s Prize in recognition of the project’s profound impact on the health and wellbeing of the local community. Nourish Hub provides a community …
Over the summer of 2021 RCKa completed work on a groundbreaking new Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) which has now been formally adopted by Lewisham Council at a meeting of Mayor & Cabinet on 6 October. Under the recently-adopted London Plan targets, Lewisham must deliver 16,670 new homes over the next decade, 3,790 of which are …
We are delighted that our recently completed project The Nourish Hub has been shortlisted in this year’s NLA awards both in the learning category and for the community prize. It has been a real pleasure working on this democratic social space alongside Inner Circle Consulting, Hammersmith & Fulham Council and UK Harvest, which hosted a series of workshops …
RCKa is delighted to have won yet another Housing Design Award – our fourth in five years. With planning secured in late 2020, the Boughton Heath development is our first for Retirement Villages Group, and when complete will be the UK’s first project of its type to achieve Fitwel certification which measures building’s performance for …
RCKa is delighted that its Ryde Nicholson Road innovation masterplan has been shortlisted for the 2021 Architects’ Journal Architecture Awards. The project, for Isle of Wight Council, proposes a sustainable infrastructure to help promote inward investment and to nurture home-grown enterprise. Centred around a new civic hub, providing social amenities including healthcare and retail uses, …
Through the Re-Set-Go programme, I was placed with RCKa and spent the course of my six-week placement working on a small site project located in Lewisham. The proposal is a part of Lewisham’s Local plan and the affordable housing scheme. Focusing on the small sites document, I used this to inform my design approach and …
RCKa provides an innovative model for architectural practices operating in a challenging and changing civic and economic landscape. Our active and enterprising approach to enabling and securing projects of relevance to the local community is based upon critical dialogue, and was developed to satisfy the central ambition of the practice, to produce consistently high-quality pioneering …
A later living development in Harpenden, providing 38 homes with communal facilities, a community cafe and landscaped courtyards.
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RCKa was commissioned by Hammersmith & Fulham Council to work with the local community and design a new mixed-use workspace and community food hub within the Edward Woods Estate.
Alan joined RCKa in 2010 having graduated from the Macintosh School of Architecture. His attention to detail and inquisitive mind soon resulted in a project-running role within the office, culminating in the complete detailed design of a complex new-build house in Richmond in 2012. Alan started at RCKa as a part one assistant and we’re …
We are thrilled with the decision of Camden councillors to grant permission for a new hostel for homeless families, designed by RCKa. When complete, the scheme in Camden Road will provide 39 new bedrooms for those in need of temporary accommodation, together with a community sitting room with a sunken courtyard. Every room is a …
RCKa’s celebrated Design Code SPD for Lewisham Council sets out a bold vision for small site housing development and takes positive steps to promote housing delivery in the borough.
RCKa has been crowned winner of the inaugural Social Impact Award at this year’s Architect of the Year Awards, organised by Building Design mazagine. The social impact category was included in this year’s programme to recognise those practices which make a tangible difference to the quality of people’s lives, including end users and the wider …
Working as part of a team led by Stirling Prize winners Mikhail Riches, RCKa has been appointed to help masterplan the last new neighbourhood in the Olympic Park.
Andrea joined RCKa in 2019. She previously worked at Perkins&Will where she was involved in projects across multiple sectors in the UK and abroad. Key projects include the fit-out of a listed building in Blackfriars, as well as two new-build offices in Oxford and Cambridge. She also worked on the winning entry for the European …
The Gants Hill Community Hub will serve residents from across the Gants Hill area, including the wards of Barkingside, Clayhall, Cranbrook, Fullwell, Valentines and Aldborough. For this reason, it was important to involve people from all these areas and really understand the identity of each ward from the people who reside in them. After giving …
Anna joined RCKa in 2021 after graduating from the MArch programme at Queen’s University Belfast with distinction. Her thesis was an examination of civic languages of architecture and the structural mediation between proposed and existing fabric. Her final year project proposed a re-imagining of the parliament building at Stormont as a civic performance space, and …
Community-led regeneration of a workspace and community hub in South Kilburn.
The creative industry has an important role to play at this time of heightened concern, donning our optimistic specs to share and celebrate stories of support and resilience, whilst seeking solutions that directly improve people’s lives. As many will have found in considering their Coronavirus response and business continuity plan, there are two distinct aspects …
One of London’s largest rooftop extension projects providing over 30,000 sqft of new residential accommodation.
Anthony is an architect and associate at RCKa with experience working across the public and private sectors. Anthony has particular expertise in community engagement and participatory design. He is motivated by a desire to empower and enable diverse communities to achieve a meaningful stake in shaping their built environment. Anthony’s recent work has helped RCKa …