Surface Design Awards – Complete

• INTERIOR SURFACE OF THE YEAR - NEW
  This is a new category that recognises wall, floor, ceiling and surface design products, including decorative, creative and inventive surfaces for the interior of buildings including both commercial and residential properties.
• COMMERCIAL BUILDING - INTERIOR
  Commercial Buildings that are used for commercial purposes, and include retail, hospitality, workplaces, factories and warehouses and buildings where commercial services are provided. At least 50 percent of the buildings’ floor space will be used for commercial activities.

BIKEWORKS- 09/2023
Foster Kirk Architects were proud to work with Bikeworks to create their new HQ and Inclusive Cycling Centre at the heart of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. With bespoke joinery expertly crafted by Constructive and Co, services design by Skelly and Couch, and construction by Sara-Int, FKA were lead designer and CA to deliver an eye-catching fit-out that provides dedicated office and workshop space for an essential community charity. The new Bikeworks hub is located opposite the Lee Valley Velo Park (Velodrome), the spiritual home of British cycling. Innovative features bring delight and function to the project, such as ‘The Penknife’ - a flexible storage wall
containing shelving, desk space and a unique curved door and ‘The Gantry’ - a movable soffit containing power, lighting and storage.
The scheme is ostensibly a fit-out of a retail unit at the ground floor of the Chobham Manor Estate (built by Taylor Wimpey, designed by PRP). The brief was to design and install new cladding, internal partitions, linings and services and bespoke fitted joinery for Bikeworks.
Foster Kirk Architects have been selected as one of five Design Partners in London’s Open House Festival 2023. “The festival’s Design Partner award is an accolade that represents both the architectural merit of a project, and the practices that champion genuine public engagement and the social value of architecture.” Zoë Cave, chief curator of Open House Festival

CREDITS
Location: 12 Abercrombie Road, E20 3AB, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Newham London
Gross internal area: 100m2
Budget: £2000/m2 (ex VAT)
Construction Schedule: November 2022 - July 2023
Client: Bikeworks
Architect: Foster Kirk Architects
Building Contractor: Sara Int
Services Engineer: Skelly and Couch
Joinery: Constructive and Co
Metalwork: MorFab
Glazing: Unique Window systems
Photography: Agnese Sanvito
Approved Inspector: Stroma

Durable finishes were used throughout, being both robust and economic, to create storage, worktops and fitted furniture. Existing in situ concrete and fair faced blockwork finishes were expressed as a utilitarian backdrop to the charity's incredible work. These existing finishes were complemented by softer tones and textures of new interventions. Warm cork linings to the feature door, pale birch plywood linings to the walls, plywood soffit, and Egger melamine faced chipboard (MFC) (U114 Brilliant Yellow) to the fitted joinery. Mosa colours tiles (17950 Spectra Yellow) were used in the accessible bathroom. The floor finish was an industrial poured resin (Resintek, Portland grey). Services were exposed with copper pipework and galvanised conduit and ducting.

The project incorporates sustainable strategies to minimise energy consumption and environmental impact. Bikeworks are a cycling charity and as such are an inherently sustainable organisation. The services strategy used passive cooling and natural ventilation during warmer months, and radiator space heaters connected to the district heating circuit during the winter, with ducted fresh air supplied to the meeting room. Heating and hot water are supplied via the District Heating network thus providing a low carbon supply to the unit. The incoming supply is sent through a Heat Interface Unit on site which then distributes heat to wall radiators positioned around the permitter of the unit.

– Annual mains water consumption m3/occupant assess after 1 year
– Annual electrical consumption m3/occupant assess after 1 year
– Overall area-weighted u-value 0.28 w/m2k
– Design Life 15 Years
– Embodied / whole-life carbon KgCO2eq/m2 to be provided by Taylor Wimpey
– Annual CO2 emissions KgCO2eq/m2 to be provided by Taylor Wimpey

The unit is on the ground floor of a 5 storey development on the Olympic Park. Residential units are located above which were fully finished and occupied in advance of Bikeworks taking the lease. The unit was handed over as a shell with no glazing/cladding or consideration of how the space was going to be occupied by a future tenant. Waste pipes from the residential units above were randomly positioned in the space and the lease agreement prevented any rerouting or alterations to the internal structure. The design was coordinated in a way to hide the existing pipework above a timber slatted soffit and positioning of new services was set out in a BIM Level 2 CAD model (a digital twin) and shared with the consultants and contractor. There were few issues faced during construction as a fully coordinated design and services BIM model identified any significant clashes and technical issues were resolved at the design stage. Conduit and ducting was face fixed to the internal surfaces and designed to avoid collisions with new joinery and structure. The lighting gantry was a successful way to provide power and lighting at ceiling level to the office desks to avoid untidy extension leads and cabling trailing along the floor. The contractor's works programme was streamlined to ensure all trades could work sequentially and overlap without interference by others. The long lead items (joinery and resin) programmes were agreed in advance. The resin contractor required 7 days for the surface to cure before the 2nd fix electrical, plumbing and joinery installation could take place. The joiners required 4 days dedicated possession to the site to complete the joinery fit out.

Client's view:
Bikeworks is a social enterprise that believes everyone should have access to cycling to increase physical activity, wellbeing and connectivity. We set up Bikeworks in 2006 in the heart of the East End, inspired by London winning the bid to host the2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, seeing this as a chance to seize the opportunity for excluded people and the wider community. Since then, Bikeworks has been moving from location to location, including our living room, warehouses and shopfronts before moving into the Lee Valley Velo Park on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2018. While still keeping a presence in the Velo Park, it was important for us to establish a more public-facing base for operations and management. The ground-floor unit of a mixed-use block opposite the Velodrome became available and provided the perfect opportunity to accommodate the Bikeworks offices and a new Inclusive Cycling Centre of Excellence. Nicky Kirk and Jeremy Foster of Foster Kirk Architects were brought on board to help us formalise the brief and provide a creative response to combine office accommodation with a showroom to display our adapted bikes and vehicles. Their solution tapped into the ethos of Bikeworks, forming a series of flexible spaces that could be arranged to suit different uses at different times of the day. Their design provides extensive amounts of storage to house tools and equipment which also doubles up to provide separation between the spaces. The installation of a moveable lighting gantry allows flexible working in the office and adds a playful quality through the integration of cycling components. We are very happy to have moved into our new headquarters which provides a more permanent base for us to grow and continue our work of using the bicycle for good. Having the best time in the new space, the impact has been instant!! Thanks so much for creating this for us, looking forward to Open House.
Zoe Portlock and Jim Blakemore, founding partners, Bikeworks