RCKa’s Russell Curtis was joined by fellow industry experts at the latest AJ roundtable to discuss whether the Hackitt Review’s recommendations could work, the fragmentation of the industry exposed following Grenfell and the deskilling of the profession. Read the Roundtable article in the AJ here.
RCKa’s Roz Peebles has collaborated with a few like-minded friends to develop a walking tour for the Architecture Foundation, exploring some of Camden’s modern housing. North-west London has been a testing ground for radical housing experiments since the early 19th century. The tour covers a plethora of exemplar housing projects, including Highgate New Town / Stoneleigh …
RCKa is delighted to announce our recently completed Pocket Living Arklow Road has been shortlisted for this year’s AJ Retrofit Awards. Arklow Road is testament to the tangible benefits of building reuse. The project showcases a successful marriage between a client’s bold approach to design, and an architect’s vision to embrace and enhance the local …
RCKa is committed to protecting the personal information of our clients – current and future, visitors to our studios and website, suppliers and contractors. This privacy notice provides information about the personal information that RCKa collects about all external and third parties such as visitors to our studio and website, clients –current and future, suppliers …
RCKa is delighted to have won a Housing Design Award for our Highgate and Newtown Community Centre in Camden. We were appointed in 2014 to improve the long-term future of the site and we believe the project is a key example of how Councils can use the building of new homes to fund vital community resources. The …
RCKa was founded in 2008 by Tim Riley, Russell Curtis and Dieter Kleiner to promote socially responsive design, which we referred to at the time as community-centric architecture. This wasn’t a grand gesture, more a meeting of minds and common interests evident in our respective work and approach that we applied across a broad range …
Director Tim Riley was recently invited to be a guest speaker at the Swedish Institute of Architecture to talk about socially responsive architecture. Established to promote just that, RCKa has a wealth of projects which demonstrate this as a result of placing an emphasis on the end user’s experience – buildings should serve people, not …
In celebration of the centenary year of womens’ suffrage and the London Festival of Architecture’s theme of ‘Identity’, Bankside Open Spaces Trust presents ‘Interpreted Identities’ – a series of dedicated installations or ‘follies’ created by a selection of London’s leading architecture and design practices which have each taken inspiration from an extraordinary female figure – …
This article first appeared in the Architects’ Journal, 17 January 2018 Public works need to develop a more diverse supply chain if we are to avoid another Carillion catastrophe, writes Russell Curtis The carrion crows are circling Carillion. The outsourcing leviathan, having previously gorged itself on contracting giants Tarmac, Mowlem and Alfred McAlpine, now looks …
A huge thank you to all our clients, colleagues and friends for making 2017 our most successful and ambitious year yet. Site boots became de rigueur as significant projects commenced, from socially rich housing and retirement living schemes to vibrant enterprise and community facilities. Our approach to realising social and economic value led to exciting new commissions …
RCKa Director Russell Curtis has been appointed as one of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s 50 Design Advocates to work with City Hall and Boroughs to help realise his “Good Growth” agenda. Good Growth by Design was a key part of the Mayor’s wider manifesto for London and seeks to realise and enhance buildings and neighbourhoods through …
RCKa’s Tony Staples, along with Benedetta Rogers, Matthew Eberhard and Lucy Paton, has self-published ‘Echoes Of Accra’, an illustrated book that documents research undertaken in March 2016 in Accra, Ghana. The work featured in an exhibition at the Doomed Gallery in Dalston as part of the London Festival of Architecture 2016. Research was largely collected …
For the second year, RCKa contributed to the Museum of Architecture’s Gingerbread City in South Kensington. Nearly 50 architects and landscape practices from across the city were involved in crafting a extraordinary range of confectionary constructions and edible edifices to a masterplan prepared by planning consultancy Tibbalds. RCKa’s own “Team Gingerbread” spent a festive Sunday …
We are very proud that RCKa’s Wendy Charlton was elected an RIBA Councillor representing the London Region. The RIBA council comprises around 60 members and is the key decision-making body for the Institute. RIBA Council meets four times each year, either at the organisation’s headquarters in Portland Place, or elsewhere around the country. We have no …
Planning application submitted for four contemporary terraced houses on constrained town centre site. Our scheme for this infill site in Knaphill, Woking, will provide a terrace of four cleverly-designed family homes in a suburban town centre location. The new houses repair an existing gap in the streetscape whilst respecting the height and form of neighbouring …
The first stop in our whistle-stop visit to Vienna was a tour of Wohnprojekt Wien, set within the large urban development of Nordbahnhof. The co-housing super block by Eins Zu Eins is made up of 40 units each generously sized with 2 meter deep shared balconies orbiting the exterior timber cladding. There are 700m2 of …
By Dieter Kleiner. Dieter is a founding director of RCKa and leads our asset regeneration and community projects. He is an expert in community engagement, and sits on a number of design review panels including the London Boroughs of Haringey and Kingston. Dieter is also a CABE Built Environment Expert. @dieterkleiner The Green seeks to …
By Dieter Kleiner. Dieter is a founding director of RCKa and leads our asset regeneration and community projects. He is an expert in community engagement, and sits on a number of design review panels including the London Boroughs of Haringey and Kingston. Dieter is also a CABE Built Environment Expert. @dieterkleiner I choose the curateable …
With recent events, including the Grenfell Tower disaster, raising concerns about independent scrutiny of the construction process, Russell Curtis of RCKa Architects argues it is time for his profession to return to the heart of the design and build process. Russell oversees RCKa’s commercial and residential infill projects and is responsible for the delivery phase …
Russell Curtis suggests that the exclusion of architects from the construction process allows bad practice to go unchecked This article first appeared in Icon Magazine Passengers touching down at London City Airport are likely unaware that buried beneath the tarmac lie the brayed concrete remains of a 22-storey tower, the demolition of which signified a watershed …
Application for a place on Mayor’s Design Advocate panel Dear Mayor Your Good Growth agenda sets out ambitious targets for the delivery of new homes and workplaces that the capital desperately needs. The volume of homes required to meet the challenges of the coming years are almost as numerous as the solutions which have been …
In many ways the issues facing older people are not too dissimilar to those faced by younger generations, says RCKa’s Tim Riley A founding director of RCKa, and with experience in delivering large scale regeneration projects and strategic masterplanning, Tim is responsible for delivering the practice’s residential work. He also sits on design review panels …
This article is by Tim Riley A founding director of RCKa, and with experience in delivering large scale regeneration projects and strategic masterplanning, Tim is responsible for delivering the practice’s residential work. He also sits on design review panels for the London Borough of Harrow, Hounslow – and is chair of Hertfordshire’s Design Review Panel. …
By Russell Curtis Russell oversees RCKa’s commercial and residential infill projects and is responsible for the delivery phase of the practice’s work. He sits on design review panels for LLDC and the London Boroughs of Croydon and Newham, and is a Mayor’s Design Advocate.@russellcurtis This article first appears in Building Design Magazine For all their …
Russell Curtis on why he’s convinced the time is finally right for his practice to embrace BIM. Russell oversees RCKa’s commercial and residential infill projects and is responsible for the delivery phase of the practice’s work. He sits on design review panels for LLDC and the London Boroughs of Croydon and Newham, and is a …