The “Backstage Building” topping out ceremony was held on the 17 October to mark reaching the highest primary structure of the Glulam timber frame. To mark this milestone, tours of the building site were led by Haworth Tompkins and speeches took place in what will be the new event space with a toast in the Back of House rehearsal room. 

With only 9 months to go on site, the new, six-storey backstage building will include a daytime café and script library, writers' room, Clore learning studio, green room and event space. Its realisation will also make the Old Vic stage and back-of-house areas accessible to visitors as well as staff and working creatives for the first time in more than 200 years.

Haworth Tompkins is excited to welcome our first two architectural apprentices to the studio offering both Level 6 and Level 7 opportunities. The apprenticeship programme has been launched to offer a more inclusive and diverse route into architecture, combining work-based learning with academic training. The programme reflects our social value commitments and support for the growth of the profession via alternative and holistic routes.

Our Level 7 apprentice, Aneesha Irika joined HT as a Part I and we will now support her via the Level 7 apprentice route at Cambridge university integrated Part II and Part III degree.

“I chose this apprenticeship for its focus on practical experience and career growth. In today’s competitive landscape, hands-on skills are valued alongside traditional learning, and Cambridge’s programme embraces this shift. It provides the ideal platform to develop real-world abilities essential for thriving in architecture. Additionally, the Part 2/3 study group at Haworth Tompkins further supports this ethos to nurture talent beyond traditional academia.” Aneesha Irika

Our Level 6 apprentice Jamila Saha was an Architectural Trainee as part of the Build the Way programme receiving creative and technical support by industry professionals and studies as part of the London School of Architecture Part 0 initiative. We will now support her to work through her Part I qualification via the Level 6 apprenticeship route at South Bank University.

“I couldn’t be more excited to embark on my journey as an apprentice with Haworth Tompkins and LSBU. The chance to gain valuable work experience with such a creative practice whilst pursuing architectural education is a fantastic opportunity for me”. Jamila Saha

The Mayor of London has selected Ken Okonkwo, Associate Director at Haworth Tompkins and Mayor’s Design Advocate to the role of Town Architect for the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. The programme is part of Khan’s wider plans to support local growth and improve design in London through the £1.25 million Local Growth Capacity Support Programme. The two-year pilot scheme will utilise built environment expert knowledge from ten architects in ten locations to ensure that new buildings and public spaces in their respective area ‘benefit all Londoners by promoting quality and inclusion in the built environment’.

Ken will be supporting BeFirst and the borough on projects within the Thames Road Factory District and strategic projects in the southern part of Barking and Dagenham. In 2020, Haworth Tompkins developed strategic masterplan proposals for the Thames Road Area, providing a framework for its transformation over the next 30 years. Key objectives were to create a vibrant, cohesive and sustainable mixed-use district, incorporating a mix of industrial, residential and community uses. Forming part of the intensification strategy for the area, Haworth Tompkins designed Industria, an innovative multistorey ramped building, developed for BeFirst as a catalyst development for the district. Completed in 2023, it provides 11,500sqm of flexible, modern industrial floorspace and represents a groundbreaking new typology for UK industrial buildings.

Ken has been a Mayor’s Design Advocate since 2022, is vice chair for the Royal Borough of Greenwich design review panel and sits on design review panels for Ebbsfleet Development Corporation and the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/mayor-picks-top-names-for-londons-new-town-architects

‘I'm delighted to have been selected by the Mayor of London as Town Architect for Thames Road Factory District and South Barking and Dagenham as part of the GLA’s Town Architect pilot scheme. Along with the fellow MDAs working in different neighbourhoods across London, I will be promoting the 6 pillars of the Good Growth by Design programme, ensuring that new buildings and public spaces ‘benefit all Londoners by promoting quality and inclusion in the built environment’.

Building on Haworth Tompkins’ previous masterplanning work in the area, I am especially thrilled to be supporting BeFirst and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in making its first steps to realising the vision for Thames Road as a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive, mixed-use district, co-locating residential and industrial uses for the existing and future diverse communities within Barking.’ Ken Okonkwo, Associate Director Haworth Tompkins

St George's Guildhall King's Lynn (Grade I & II) has received planning and listed building consent with unanimous committee decision. Located on the banks of the River Great Ouse in King’s Lynn, the St. George’s Guildhall site is a unique heritage asset with enormous potential to become a major visitor attraction, a landmark performance venue and a vibrant hub for culture, creativity, and local enterprise. As the largest surviving medieval Guildhall in the UK, the refurbishment project will restore the historic and theatrical potency of this unique space.

The Guildhall is to be a thriving heritage attraction by day, supported by a new foyer with café bar, a riverside restaurant, enhanced back-of-house accommodation and a landscaped courtyard. By night, the venue will be an intimate and distinctive performance space hosting audiences of up to 300 people. Existing gallery space will be enhanced through fabric and servicing upgrades to increase its potential as a nationally recognised gallery. Across the remainder of the site, the project looks to return a series of warehouses into use, delivering a range of lettable spaces to help establish a flourishing community of local creatives. Air-source-heat pumps will replace gas boilers to provide low-carbon heating to virtually the entire site.

Haworth Tompkins is leading the design team with conservation support from Richard Griffiths Architects along with a team of specialists including Theatre & Acoustic Consultants - Charcoalblue, Structural Engineers – Momentum, Building Services Engineers - Max Fordham, Landscape Architect – JCLA, Access Consultants – HADA, Fire Engineer - The Fire Surgery, Catering Consultant – Mackintosh Solutions, Cost Consultant – Andrew Morton Associates, Project Manager – Pulse, Planning Consultant – Lichfields and Archaeologist – FAS Heritage. Construction work is planned to commence summer 2025.

HT Director Lucy Picardo is taking part in this year's Theatres Trust Conference at The Lowry in Manchester. The theme for the conference 'Making Theatres Thrive' looks to re-examine how theatres can reinforce their role in placemaking, contributing to vibrant and liveable communities and creating a resilient future for all. Lucy is participating in the Capital Lightning Round - 'Design for Resilience', and is presenting Hexagon studio theatre in Reading which revitalises the brutalist 1977 theatre with the creation of a flexible new hub for arts, performance and community uses. The extension and refurbishment will create a new 300-seat auditorium, a café, bar, rooftop terrace, and rehearsal and workshop rooms.

Industria Barking has won Commercial Project of the year at this year’s London Construction Awards with the judges commenting ‘the project is an innovative and elegant design solution and a very exciting use of industrial land, inherently sustainable with a powerful visual impact’.

The project was designed in collaboration with Ashton Smith Associates for client BeFirst and represents an innovative and ambitious approach to modern industrial design that densifies and diversifies workspace in a move away from the traditional typology of single-storey, low density ‘sheds’. Congratulations to everyone involved in the project. Read more here - https://www.haworthtompkins.com/work/barking-industria

Haworth Tompkins has completed the transformational redevelopment of The Warburg Institute in London, one of the world’s leading centres for the study of art and culture. Founded by Aby Warburg in Hamburg in 1900, the Warburg Institute has been part of the School of Advanced Study, University of London since 1944. Its open-stack Library, Photographic Collection and Archive serve as an engine for interdisciplinary research, postgraduate teaching and a prestigious events and publication programme. It is housed in a historic Charles Holden Building, as part of the University of London’s Bloomsbury campus.

The refurbishment project presented a unique opportunity for the re-birth of the Warburg Institute, to open its hidden collections up to new audiences and facilitate a more public-facing programme. The project brief was expanded beyond the repair of the long-neglected fabric and infrastructure, to include new and enhanced spaces, the Institute’s first public gallery, a dramatic 140-seat auditorium, improved teaching spaces and new storage and study areas for the Library, Archives and a state of the art centre for Special Collections. The unique Library Collection, the largest in the world focused on the afterlife of antiquity and the survival and transmission of culture, is housed over four stories preserving Aby Warburg’s original system of organisation with one floor each devoted to subjects of Image, Word, Orientation and Action. A reconfiguration to the layout of the shelving has expanded stack areas to make space for new acquisitions to the growing collection of 360,000 volumes, and it has opened up the library to natural light. Other enhancements throughout the building incorporate the refurbishment of the reception area, in which the newly restored Coade stone frieze of the nine muses of the arts and sciences is installed to welcome visitors upon entry.

“Through the Warburg Renaissance project we set out to honour the legacy of both its architect Charles Holden and founder Aby Warburg, while opening its unique contents up to new audiences. Striking a balance between modernisation of the Institute’s publicly accessible aspects, alongside the preservation of its extraordinary character and atmosphere has been a forensic and important process. Its architectural re-birth will allow continued discovery and enjoyment of the collections for many future generations.” Elizabeth Flower, Project Architect, Haworth Tompkins

On Thursday 12^th September, HT Associate Director Hugo Braddick took part in an online webinar ‘designing sustainable, employee-centric warehouses’ alongside Holly Lewis, Co-founding partner, We Made That, Mike Teague, Head of Industrial & Logistics at Corstophine & Wright and others. The event was chaired by Architecture Today’s Jason Sayer.

They gathered to discuss a new demand in the market for commissioned work on light industrial spaces with new regulations around sustainability and wellbeing. Hugo presented our recently completed Industria project in Barking for client BeFirst, a multi-level industrial building designed to maximise efficiency, sustainability, and community integration.

The design helps connect workers with nature, a rarity in industrial settings, and contributes to the building’s sustainable credentials. Shared amenities, including a public café and business hub, foster a sense of community, while the upper floors offer breakout spaces for relaxation and socialisation. You can watch the full webinar here - https://architecturetoday.co.uk/at-webinar-designing-sustainable-employee-centric-warehouses-webinar-replay/