Monthly news updates on live projects, ongoing research and what others are saying.
Jun 2020RIBA London Award Shortlist
The V&A Photography Centre has been shortlisted for a 2020 RIBA London Award. The project more than doubled the space available to display photography whilst reinstating the grandeur of three galleries in the Grade 1 listed building. Works to the fabric of the building and its systems significantly improved environmental performance and control allowing fragile photographic materials to be put on display for much longer periods. The Centre was opened by HRH Duchess of Cambridge on 10th October 2018 and received over 600,000 visitors in the first ten months. Read more about the project here.
May 2020Belgian Planning First
We are delighted to have made a planning application for our first project in Belgium. The Hasselt Beguinage project, in collaboration with Antwerp-based Bovenbouw Architectuur, was won through the Flemish Bouwmeester’s Open Call in 2018. Commissioned by the Province of Limburg and the University of Hasselt, the project will provide a new home for the university’s architecture faculty and a major public space for the city. For more information, visit the project webpage.
Mar 2020Covid-19
At DKA we have been working from home since 16th March in order to protect our team from the risk of contracting Coronavirus. We are set up to continue projects remotely, with appropriate IT arrangements in place. We would like to reassure our clients and collaborators that it is business (almost) as usual and to contact us if you have any queries. David has written weekly updates for the Architect's Journal which can be viewed on its website.
Mar 2020Live streamed lecture for the Royal College of Art
David is giving an online lecture for the Royal College of Art as part of a series addressing the issue of reuse, from reusing building fragments to repurposing past uses through performance.
"A Joyful Convergence", 6.30pm Monday 23rd March 2020.
Please click this Zoom invitation link to join the lecture: https://rca-ac.zoom.us/j/501443053
The Zoom invitation link will prompt you to download the Zoom app (free) in order to live stream the lecture.
Jan 2020Birmingham Smithfield Market Competition
We are delighted to announce that we are the winners of an international competition to design a new home for the historic Smithfield Markets in the heart of Birmingham. Our team includes Birmingham-based artist multiverse, Eastside Projects alongside, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Mark El-khatib, Charcoalblue, Price & Myers, WSP, Urban Space Management, Plan A Consultants and Max Fordham.
Smithfield has been the productive centre of markets and makers since the foundation of Birmingham and integral to its success as the ‘City of a Thousand Trades’. The new markets will be the centrepiece of the £1.5 billion Smithfield development which will deliver significant cultural and family leisure opportunities, a new public square, integrated public transport and more than 2,000 homes surrounding a public park.
We are looking forward to working with Lendlease, Birmingham City Council, local businesses and the wider community on such an important project for the city.
See The Architects’ Journal’s exclusive for more information.
Dec 2019Seasons Greetings
Wishing all our clients and collaborators a restful holiday and successful 2020.
Nov 2019Two new-build workspace buildings in Greenwich
The structural frames of two new-build workspace buildings designed by DKA for developer Knight Dragon are nearing completion. Part of the Greenwich Peninsula Design District — a new quarter comprising sixteen buildings that offer rent-capped spaces to attract creative businesses — the first phase will complete in Spring 2020. For more information visit our project webpage and the Design District website.
Oct 2019Teaching at AA
David Kohn and Bushra Mohamed are leading a new diploma unit at the Architectural Association from October 2019. The unit will build on DKA's practice-based research and explore issues of critical importance to contemporary architecture such as the climate crisis, the role of public space in cities and the language of architecture.
This year the unit will collaborate with artist-run multiverse, Eastside Projects, on the regeneration of central Birmingham. Entitled, 'Play for Today: The Performance of Architecture' the unit will consider major urban change through the lens of performance in all its many forms. For more information visit the AA's website here. Follow @aadip19 on Instagram here.
Sep 2019Oslo Architecture Triennale
DKA is participating in the Oslo Architecture Triennale from 26 September–24 November 2019. Responding to OAT's theme 'Enough: The Architecture of Degrowth', DKA revisited its 2008 proposal for a carbon neutral arts complex, Heterotopia.
As part of ongoing practice-based research into the future of galleries and museums, DKA invited artist Pablo Bronstein, graphic designer Mark El-khatib, along with engineer Jane Wernick and sustainability consultant Nick Cramp, to critically reappraise the proposal. Would we want to build Heterotopia now? What has changed? A transcription of the round table debate is being exhibited at OAT and can be read here.
Aug 2019Scaffold Podcast
Matthew Blunderfield has interviewed David Kohn for the podcast, Scaffold. “The contemporary economies of architectural production inevitably tend toward the shed. The shed is this panacea - everything can be a shed. […] We can now build these vast, expansive structures, and the idea is that they’re kind of good for everything but in fact they rob everyone of all of these other spaces that allow you to be sociable in many more ways [….] We all need this, we need spaces where you can sit with a couple of other people and enjoy a meal or a drink.” Listen to the podcast here.