October 15, 2018

The first phase of replacement classroom works is nearing completion with the unveiling of the new ‘tree-house’ library designed to make reading more fun, particularly for boys. Clad in charred timber and profile sheet cladding with galvanised metalwork it is intended to have an abstract / home-made appearance which contrasts with the more traditional building elevations to the high street and conservation area. The building will be connected to the main classroom block via a bridge link improving accessibility on a challenging sloping site.

Client – Wiltshire Council

Contractor – Bray and Slaughter

August 9, 2018

Congratulations to Alex Cammack, one of our students on placement with us from the University of Bath.  Alex has been awarded runner up in an open design competition proposing a concept plan for a new community just outside Manchester.  It illustrated some thought provoking ideas on how to address the need for new, genuinely sustainable communities to meet the housing crisis. Alex entered the competition with his friend Adam Jones and produced all of the work in his spare time.  We are obviously not working him hard enough.

Alex has been a great member of the NVB team and will shortly be returning to university to complete his studies.  Good luck Alex!

June 11, 2018

NVB are pleased to announce that the New Day House Village at Dean Close School has now formally commenced on site. The project achieved planning approval in July of last year and NVB are pleased that Integral Build have set up site and the project is now full steam ahead and due for completion next spring.

May 17, 2018

We were delighted to see our new Sports Centre at St Mary’s School, Calne opened by Clare Balding last Saturday.

The opening was the culmination of a “Celebration of Sport” with pupils both former and current competing with parents in the new sports centre and on the astroturf pitches which our landscape team completed recently.

Clare gave an inspiring speech encouraging the pupils to think about the wide range of benefits of taking part in sport and even risked a impromptu live interview with some of the younger members of the audience before cutting the ribbon to formally open the centre.

The new facilities include a four court sports hall, dance studio and new changing facilities and connects to the swimming pool designed by NVB some twenty years ago.  The project is the latest in NVB’s extensive portfolio of sports facilities.

May 3, 2018

Four years on, the Florence Dyas Boarding House at St Mary’s Calne is still looking great and very much feels like a place with heart, topped-off with the orchard in the front courtyard blossoming. It is always a pleasure to visit a client with a long-standing relationship highlighted by the opening of their new sports hall next month that NVB have designed from start to, nearly, finish.

April 25, 2018

Our landscape team continues to flourish, grow and a handful of other horticultural metaphors and we are delighted this week to welcome Gabriele Ziliute to the team.  She will be working with the team on their increasingly diverse portfolio of work and by the looks of things, raising the bar in the cycling-to-work stakes too.

January 10, 2018

NVB are delighted to have reached the longlist for the RIBA Journal McEwen Award for their Frome Town Hall project.  The Award focuses on projects which deliver community improvement or wider social benefit.

Frome Town Council had been operating in cramped unsuitable accommodation on a number of sites, mainly with poor public access and visibility.  NVB were appointed when the council had the opportunity to buy an 1892 Public Office building which had latterly been used as back office accommodation by the county council.  The challenge was to restore this elegant building to its original glory whilst creating an open democratic building to suit the Town Council’s innovative, collaborative ways of working.

In addition to publicly accessible areas and council offices, the restored building hosts a number of local organisations including a counselling charity and a local radio station and deals with the issues of privacy and technical performance which go along with this.  Having also addressed modern requirements for fire safety and accessibility for all, the magnificent council chamber can now be used for presentations, social and community events, and in the long term, weddings, completing a neat circle back to the initial public consultations where one local resident recalled that their parents were married in that very room.

December 14, 2017

NVB Landscape are experiencing prolonged growth in our workload and team, with new projects continuing to come into the office. These include:

• Residential Masterplanning
• 5 Primary Schools
• 5 Secondary Schools
• 1 Brewery
• 1 Public Park

We are therefore recruiting for landscape staff. We welcome applications at any level as we are focused on the right people to join our team:

• Graduate Landscape Architects (Recent or P2C)
• Landscape Technicians (Focused on CAD)
• Chartered Landscape Architect (CMLI)

We are a design focused practice with a small stream of LVIA work. We work across all sectors with a predominance of education projects. We are based in a listed chapel that is a feature of the town of Frome in Somerset. Frome is a great market town within an attractive part of the country. Click this link to the landscape section of the website for a flavour of our work: https://nvbarchitects.wpengine.com/landscape/

Please email applications to Peter Baker at peterbaker@nvblandscape.co.uk with CV and a portfolio that demonstrates as much depth of the landscape design process, i.e. from inception to completion on site as well as a sample of LVIA if applicable. We’re interested to see a good grasp of the process of design at the key stages of concept, planning, tender and construction.

November 6, 2017

Planning has been granted for the new Day House Village at Dean Close School, Cheltenham. The four day houses will provide a pastoral hub for 240 pupils at the upper school with dedicated senior and junior study spaces as well as social spaces arranged around a new landscaped courtyard. The school hopes to begin construction early 2018.

October 18, 2017

The new Kingfisher Primary School for Somerset County Council continues on site with the frame and floors installed. The roof is going on and the adjacent sports field was recently seeded to allow it to develop for handover next Easter.

The project is the latest in the education sector to be delivered with BAM Construction and Somerset County Council.