Television Centre Shares Hammersmith Society Environment Award

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While office development in Loftus Road wins award for smaller schemes

The redevelopment of the iconic Television Centre in Wood Lane was joint winner in the Hammersmith Society's prestigious Awards for 2018.

It shared the Environment Award with Hammersmith's Queen's Wharf and River Walk.

The awards, presented by Cllr Daryl Brown, Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham at the society's AGM in the Bush Theatre on Thursday 5 July, gave the thumbs up to four local developments.

The society says this coveted Award is made to a development that it feels best meets its ideals.

Television Centre

Television Centre was described by the judges as:

A successful marriage of the new and old which restores the Helios building and includes a new office building which is respectful of  its Listed neighbour.  The public space has excellent landscaping which includes lawns, a miniature woodland, semi-mature trees and york stone paving.

Developer: Stanhope
Architects:  Alford Hall Monaghan Morris; 
Landscaping:  Gillespies 

The Wood Lane development share the award with Queen's Wharf and Riverside Walk in Hammersmith.

The judges said:

The building provides a well-mannered backdrop to Hammersmith Bridge that offers a successful composition of the riverside elevation. The River Walk, a wonderful wide promenade that was a planning condition required by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham without which it would not have been realised, is integral to the success of the Queen’s Wharf building and is a great example of successful town planning.

Developer: Mount Anvil and A2 Dominion
Architects: Assael Architecture and Fourpoint Architects

The Nancy Goulden Awards, given to smaller schemes which have improved the local environment in some way - be it through a building or landscaping - was also shared between a new Sports Pavilion in St Paul's Girls School in Hammersmith and an office development at 2a Loftus Road in W12.

The judges said of the sports pavilion, which was officially opened earlier this month:

This is a wonderful neighbour to the houses around, proudly contemporary but responsive to the sensitivities of the surroundings, elegant and understated, with an excellent use of materials.

Architect: John McAslan and Partners

Of 2a Loftus Road, the judges said:

The building offers stylistic interest of a scale that acknowledges the neighbouring residential buildings. It is tidy resolution of the meeting of Uxbridge Road commerce with Loftus Road residential and offers an element of wit and surprise to its location.

Developer and architect: Dandi Living

As always, the society also gave out Wooden Spoons, to eyesores or ones that just got it all wrong.

This year spoons were awarded to two projects, the new extension to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and BT InLinkUK Phone Boxes, which were also winners of last year’s Wooden Spoon!

The judges said of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) new extension.:

Whilst the Talgarth Road site is a challenging one, hemmed in as it is by the A4 and the tube line, the building offers nothing to the community and appears like a shipping container left on the roadside that offers no insight into the architectural and cultural creativity within.

And of the BT InLinkUK "Phone box":

BT InLinkUK Phone Boxes (also winners of last year’s Wooden Spoon) are not only ugly and block the footways but are an undisguised method of attaining advertising revenue while pretending to offer a public service, which in the era of mobile phones and wifi is largely redundant.

The Conservation Award, for successful conservation projects in the borough and Jane Mercer awards, for initiatives of benefit to Hammersmith which have involved proactive co-operation, collaboration and communication were not given this year.

The Hammersmith Society inaugurated its annual awards scheme in 1989. Its purpose is to recognise improvements in our borough’s townscape, whether a new building, an imaginative renovation or adaptation of an old building, the creation or improvement of a green open space, a well-designed streetscape, an improved shopfront, or the removal of an eyesore.

If a new scheme – large or small - makes a positive and beneficial contribution to our townscape, The Hammersmith Society invites anyone living or working in the earea to nominate it by spring each year.

Schemes must have been completed within the last two to three years, and must be visible from the public highway or accessible to the public.

July 11, 2018