Lungfish Architects turn five
Our in-house architectural practice, Lungfish Architects, celebrate its five-year anniversary by looking to the future.
Lungfish Architects, SCAPE’s in-house architects, is an innovative practice with a foot firmly in public sector design.
Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the team at Lungfish are not ones for being complacent or standing still. They’re utilising their experience and honing their skills to deliver multimillion pound residential schemes, flagship net-zero forest schools and all-through schools, community spaces and even Covid-safe office environments for frontline workers, and our very own SCAPE head office.
Every project designed by the team is derived from a passion that places the end user at the heart. Working side-by-side with clients, establishing themselves as part of the team and through careful interrogation of the brief, understanding the necessities of the project and client aspirations, Lungfish has achieved some truly remarkable outcomes.
I am incredibly proud of how the practice has grown over the past five years. From starting out with small classroom extensions, we’ve successfully delivered over 80 offsite projects and are designing brand-new, all-through schools with exceptional learning environments."
Simon Reid
Managing Director | Lungfish Architects
He continued, "We’ve taken the learning we’ve gained from our education design and utilised and enhanced this for several projects in residential, blue-light, extra care, commercial and community sectors. The team are currently working on exciting and innovative residential designs that will give whole communities much needed housing, forest schools that create a harmony with the natural environment and commercial buildings that give employees a safe working environment, even in Covid-times. We’ve won awards for our projects and our people, and as the practice continues to grow, we’re looking forward to celebrating our team, designs, exciting new projects.”
As a subsidiary of SCAPE, Lungfish work on public sector and beyond the public sector projects procured through SCAPE’s frameworks, as well as having the freedom to work with independent clients across the UK.
In particular, the team have worked with our delivery partners to achieve:
Working closely with Willmott Dixon and Kier through the SCAPE Construction frameworks, Lungfish transformed an entire borough’s education system, creating more than 9,200 school places in the process, as detailed in our Better Learning report.
Working with Wates through the old EMPA framework, Lungfish delivered Murray Park Community School’s new 15-classroom extension. The project received the ‘Best New Building’ Commendation by the Derby Civic Society and allowed the school to grow from 1,100 pupils to 1,650 pupils.
Supporting clients with a pressing need to deliver more school places for growing communities, the team worked collaboratively with Morgan Sindall Construction on Hackwood Primary Academy and Highfields Spencer Academy. Procured through the SCAPE Construction frameworks, for the public sector and beyond the public sector, the two brand-new primary schools are of modular design and were both delivered in nine months.
Through delivering more than 80 offsite, modular projects, the practice has paved the way in utilising modern methods of construction to help solve the school places crisis. Utilising offsite and traditional construction techniques, Lungfish continue to innovate, create imaginative, colourful and sustainable designs. For example, the main hall windows for Highfields Spencer Academy, despite being completely flat to the façade, give a 3D effect from all angles, and by using the rooftop areas for play spaces at the new Castleward Spencer Academy, has allowed the school to increase its overall footprint on a tiny, constrained site.
The team at Lungfish are passionate, innovative, and consistently striving to learn and broaden their expertise. With experts in civic, commercial, residential and educational buildings in sustainable architecture, interior design and community spaces, they have built a reputation of working very closely with our clients to truly understand their requirements. They’ve achieved some outstanding projects and accolades over the last five years, and I look forward to seeing what the next five years have in store.”
Mark Robinson
Group Chief Executive | SCAPE
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