The WhatHouse? Awards is the country’s biggest event that celebrates the very best homes. This year’s event took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in London’s Park Lane, with more than 1600 senior industry figures attending the ceremony to celebrate the winners of 20 different categories, covering the wide spectrum of property types and companies in the home building industry. The 37th year of the event was presented by comedian Jack Whitehall, former rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, and TV presenter, Gabby Logan.

We were absolutely delighted to be presented with the Gold Award for Best Retirement Development. The winning Redwood Retirement Village in Bristol is our 2nd Audley scheme that we have designed as a complete new build – having already built a stylish development from scratch at award-winning Audley Chalfont Dene. We aimed to create a sense of history and grandeur, and so Redwood is focused around a ‘brand new’ manor house, Redwood Hall, with grand columns and a portico, built in a neo-classical and Georgian style. The results of this beautiful retirement village couldn’t have been achieved without members of our team at Gaunt Francis working closely in partnership with the interior designers for the scheme Inside Design Co., Project Management and cost consultants Quartz, Landscape Architects Solty’s Brewster and Services Engineers Q Design.

Here is how the WhatHouse? judges described our design at Redwood: “Packed with wow-factor furnishings, it generates a welcoming vibrancy designed to bring its community together and make owners feel special. All the way from its airy spacious reception area through to the restaurant, the space flows easily”.

A huge thank you to everyone involved. We are extremely proud to have designed the 2018 Gold Award winning retirement village!

“I don’t think you can teach Architecture. You can only inspire people” – a quote by the great Zaha Hadid. People often ask architects from where or whom they get their passion, drive and inspiration. Anyone with a creative bone in their body cannot fail to be inspired by something or someone.

At Gaunt Francis some of our architects decided to share who has inspired them. Here is what our Part III Architectural Assistant, Max, had to say:

“Carlo Scarpa is someone who has inspired me for many years. He was an Italian architect, and is probably one of the most enigmatic and underappreciated architects of the 20th Century. One design in particular that has truly inspired me is La Tomba Brion (Brion Cemetery), which lies in the San Vito d’Altivole near Treviso, Italy. I always had a fascination with Scarpa – especially his exquisite detailing and use of concrete. During my visit to Italy I went to visit La Tomba Brion, as well as his other design, Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona and it more than confirmed my initial thoughts.

“Jean Renaudie and his wife, Renée Gailhoustet, are French Architects who probably are best known for their social housing project in Ivry-sur-Seine, situated in the outskirts of Paris. It is an 8-building complex and is a 60,000 inhabitant municipality which was built between 1969 and 1975.

“I chose to study this building as part of a Modern Architectural History Module during my Masters at the University of Sydney. I was so interested that when visiting Paris, I decided to head to the ‘banlieues’ of Paris to see the buildings in the flesh.

I was drawn to not only the intricacy and complexity of the architecture, but also the drawings and sketches the architects used in developing the scheme. Each apartment in the complex is individual, has at least one (but often two) private terraces and is often arranged over more than one storey. It appears to be truly ahead of its time, and many contemporary apartment schemes seem to be attempting to achieve the aims of this development.”

GFA Architect, Kim, has always had a passion for Brutalist architecture, so it was no surprise that she takes her inspiration from British Architects Alison and Peter Smithson. Kim expressed: “Pioneers of the ‘New Brutalism’ an Architecture concerned as much with Ethic and Aesthetic, husband and wife duo Alison and Peter Smithson looked to respond to changing society, changing cities and chaotic or transitional spaces. The couples first significant building was Hunstanton Secondary Modern School in 1950 inspired by the ideas of Mies van der Rohe and adapting to post-war cost saving using materials and fittings ‘as found’- undressed and undecorated.

“The principle of objects ‘as found’ (shared by the independent group) became the basis for much of their work, they were inspired by existing street life, dirt, noise and change. The ‘as found’ captured on camera by Nigel Henderson’s photographs of Bethnal Green in the 1950’s.

“The almost anthropological notion that Architecture should grow from, and respond to an existing character is something that I reflect on frequently. The Smithson’s treated each site as object of high value, its meaning already contained and ready to be extracted from its fabric.

“Although very few of their works were realised as buildings, they contributed heavily in terms of published theory.”

Part I Architectural Assistant, Ollie, get his inspiration from the incredible Renzo Piano and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. he said: “Renzo’s work in particular impacted me from a young age. My first book on architecture was “Piano” by Philip Jodidio, which compiles Piano’s work as case studies. This book revealed to me how the form of a building is not restricted by its functionality, but can in fact be perpetuated by it. Piano also gave me inspiration for internal spaces and how the circulation of a building can be just as important as its key spaces, influencing how I went about designing my undergraduate final project. Renzo Piano was a key motivator for me undertaking architecture, and I can now appreciate the detail of Piano’s designs and how efficiently he uses materials.

“I also admire the minimalist movement and how such impressive spaces could be created with such simple design. Although it was more of an exhibition piece, as the German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, the way in which the Barcelona Pavilion by Van Der Rohe and Lilly Reich stirs emotion when you move through it affected how I looked at architecture and caused me to think “how does one create such spaces?”.

“All architecture influences my perceptions of spaces and the functionality of buildings, constantly shaping how I think about architecture; whether it is quality or not, it imparts wisdom of what works or not. As an architectural student, I have barely began to scrape the surface of what makes architecture great, but the journey ahead and discovering how to create “architecture” excites me, especially when studying architects such as these.”

Finally, Architect Manuel explained: “What inspired me to study and practice architecture has always been the built environment. I was fascinated with tall buildings as a child. I remember travelling to other cities and places, which were interesting in an unfamiliar way, and I would sit in the back of the car counting the number of storeys of every building. I’d feel this excitement every time I spotted an even taller building than the last.

“I grew up drawing buildings – or rather just blobs and big structures – fascinated by, not only my uncle’s posters of the Twin Towers, Manhattan and the Eiffel Tower, but also by the illustrations in natural science books that compared the Earth with other huge objects.

“At University in Spain, I discovered that an awful lot of hard work was involved in just about any project, so I started to prefer more simple architecture that I could understand. The early residential works of Souto de Moura and Vázquez Consuegra quickly comes to mind. The requirement to address many technical aspects alongside the social and composition studies very early in the process also resulted in smaller projects. I credit architects like Enrique Abascal, Carmen Llatas and José Pérez de Lama for this approach.

“My fascination for conflicting scales and complexity continued with masterpieces like Blade Runner, to more personal yet powerful films such as Mon Oncle and Red Desert.  Writers such as Neruda, Berger, Guattari and Pallasmaa have also broadly influenced me over the years.”

Gaunt Francis I.T manager, Simon Dodd, recently headed to the Digital Construction Week in London – a 2-day event dedicated to innovation, technology, and digital services  that would serve the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industries. The event featured interactive, hands-on demonstrations, seminars, workshops, classes, and networking events.

Its aim is to help companies explore the potential of tools and to understand how best to adopt and implement them to reduce costs and carbon emissions, improve profitability and efficiency, and create a smarter, more diverse industry. ​

Simon expressed: “As a technology wizard, when I heard of the opportunity to discover potential innovations in the AEC sector I immediately undertook a quest to London to visit Digital Construction Week.

“Always keen to find new ways to develop the practice for our architects, I have been working on a number of projects and ideas for several months, including 3D mapping technology, extended use of VR, drone photogrammetry and more, and DCW gave me the opportunity to connect with potential partners or to try some of these concepts first hand, including things I had never considered.

“One of the highlights of the trip was experiencing the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality as a potential for seeing a design overlaid onto the real world. It is still early days, but a fantastic potential for the future. I also had the chance to meet some of our partners from Scan Computers where we discussed the potential of virtual workstations, VR technology, and future IT trends for the industry.”

Perhaps the best part of the day for Simon was meeting the Enscape team. Enscape is a leading technology company developing real-time Rendering & VR software for the AEC industry. GFA has been working with Enscape software since 2017 and it has, and continues, to transform working practices in Gaunt Francis.

Simon added: “I was praising the product to such an extent that other visitors to the booth started to ask me questions and not the Enscape team! Our input for the development of their system has always been well received and we discussed options for some collaboration in the future as we continue to work together.

“Overall the day was worth every minute. It was so busy that I wasn’t able to attend any of the talks or seminars. Two days will be a must next year”.