Progress on our Wolves Lane Community Hub project is moving forward at pace! 

The project re-animates a dilapidated site by retaining existing glasshouses and adding much needed community assets by way of creating new teaching, meeting and learning spaces accommodated in new build innovative spaces. The scheme has been designed with a strong emphasis on ideas relating to food education, circular economy, and social inclusion.

We have designed the new community structures based around an innovative and sustainable construction approach. This included a firm commitment for circular design principles, sustainable and low-carbon materials, and embedding opportunities for skills and knowledge transfer in the construction and management of the buildings.

Recently, our founder and director Pedro Gil co-authored an article with Matthew Lloyd, the founding partner of Matthew Lloyd Architects, for Building Design magazine.

In their open conversation, they shared their thoughts on the industry’s need to talk more openly about race, shedding light on the topics of privilege, discrimination, and equity. We all benefit from having plurality in the voices shaping our built environment.

Find the article by clicking the link above!

Our practice Director, Pedro Gil, is one of the Mayor of London’s 14 Commissioners advising on policy and diversity in London’s public spaces.

Recently Pedro spoke at the Museum of London event hosted by the Mayor’s office on themes around equity, diversity, and our shared public and cultural spaces.

Congratulations to all graduating students from Bartlett BSc Architecture Unit UG10! The unit takes an interest in Latin America and the Global South as design inspiration for London.

The students have worked hard all year based on ideals such as race, gender, equity, social justice, and community value.

The summer show is a celebration of their design projects, tutored by our Director Pedro Gil, Neba Sere, and technical tutor Freya Cobbin.

Graphic design by Celina Carlilse.

Image produced by Marta Catillo

The Ledbury Estate achieves planning!

Delighted to announce that our masterplan to renew the Ledbury Estate in Peckham, south-east London has achieved planning! Created for Southwark Council, our proposals to re-envision the 1960s estate will re-provide 224 council homes for existing residents with an additional 116 mixed-tenure homes, alongside a new community (TRA) hall, commercial spaces and a green and playable landscape and public realm.

The renewal by Southwark Council was decided upon following concerns raised in 2017 by residents regarding fire safety and the structural integrity of the four existing tower blocks on the estate. Having evaluated options for the retention and replacement of buildings, residents voted via ballot in 2021 for renewal to take place. Our masterplan proposals are the outcome of sustained engagement and co-design with the estate community who have been directly involved in the design process to steer decisions on all aspects of the scheme. Work is planned to begin on-site later this year

Pedro joins Rashid Ali, Eleanor Fawcett & Fiona Scott on the jury for the 2022 AJ Small Projects Award. Since its launch in 1996, the award’s intention has remained the same: to recognise projects that may not make the headlines but nevertheless give a real indication of the design talent in Britain today.

We are delighted to announce that Pedro Gil has been appointed as a member of the brand new Festival Committee for the 2022 London Festival of Architecture. Alongside Pedro, the advisory board includes the Head of Architecture for the Department for Levelling Up, Sarah Allan, as well as director of LSA, Neal Shasore and former curator of the British Pavilion, Manijeh Verghese. Together, the board will advise and inspire the strategic direction of the festival, as well as helping to develop its networks and outreach.

Pedro Gil is one of the guest conference speakers at this year’s Guerrilla Tactics at RIBA, calling on architects to recognise the power of collaboration for winning work, levelling up their skills, and fostering resilience. Pedro will be discussing his experience in collaborating with communities, peers, and larger practices.

Pedro Gil and Neba Sere’s UG10 Architecture students at the Bartlett School of Architecture have started the academic year. UG10 is focused on narratives around The Global South and Latin American diaspora communities in London. This year the unit will celebrate Haiti, Blackness and Afro-Latin American culture through the lens of our design projects, sited in London.

Pedro Gil has been appointed to the New London Architecture (NLA) Expert Panel on Education, which will focus on the future needs of the education, healthcare and knowledge economy sector. The Panel will explore how to plan and design the right spaces for high tech, life sciences and innovation that will lead the UK economic recovery in the future years.

We are happy to be continuing work on Wolves Lane with Practice Architecture, as we progress towards detail design stages. Drawing from circular economy principles, the new buildings will be highly sustainable and constructed from a palette of natural materials that sequester rather than generate carbon – designed so that they can be easily maintained and adapted. They will be built by black-run or minority ethnic-owned construction companies, with participation from the local community.

We are excited to have completed a feasibility study for Applecart Arts, a creative hub that celebrates the community of Newham. Studio Gil has been commissioned to develop designs for the organisation’s new site at Passmore Edwards Library, to house a community theatre, workshop spaces, artists studios, an exhibition space and a café.

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‘In Practice’ is a series of portraits of British architects at work in their studios by Timothy Soar for Architecture Today. As part of the series, Pedro was photographed at the studio in Ilford.

Founding director, Pedro Gil, was appointed as one of 15 panel members for the Mayor of London’s Diversity in the Public Realm Commission, to work to improve diversity in the capital’s public realm, including statues, street names, memorials and building names. He is the only representative for the built environment on the Commission, which also includes Riz Ahmed and Robert Bevan.

As part of their 30 Objects in 30 Days series, the London Festival of Architecture asked Pedro Gil to nominate an object that represents the theme of ‘care’. Pedro nominated the studio’s toy collection.

Studio Gil are named in the AJ100’s 2020 Disruptors list, which celebrates practices and networks who are challenging the norms of traditional practice.

We are pleased to announce that Southwark Council has appointed Studio Gil and ArchitectureDoingPlace to build a new community space and social housing on the Old Peckham Library site.

Studio Gil, in collaboration with ArchitectureDoingPlace, have been named as one of the five finalists in an ideas contest led by Enfield Council, for an intergenerational housing scheme at Meridian Water.

See Project

Architects Pedro Gil and Fiona Scott join Lendlease’s director of masterplanning Selina Mason and last year’s winner Martin Edwards as judges for the AJ Small Projects 2021 Award.

Studio Gil completes feasibility study of the public realm in Ilford Town Centre for Redbridge Council.

Pedro Gil joins Black Females in Architecture co-director Neba Sere and BFA Member Umi Baden-Powell for the second in their ‘Decolonising Architecture?’ series.

Students of UG10 at the Bartlett UCL, taught by Pedro Gil, Freya Cobbin & Neba Sere, showcase their work at this year’s online degree show.

Flex House is nominated as a finalist in LEAF Young Architect of the Year award.

Featured in the Architecture Foundation’s New Architects 3, a guide to Britain’s best emerging architects.

Studio 55, taught by Pedro Gil & Christo Meyer, at the University of Brighton‘s school of architecture, complete installations for East Street Market in Elephant and Castle.