Baca Architects' Blog
The UK’s first Amphibious House has won a Gold Award in the Architecture category at the 2014 London Design Awards. The trophy will be presented to the Baca Architects team responsible for the project at a ceremony to be held at the Truman Brewery in London next week. The London Design Awards celebrate those who produce excellent design works.
To see the winning project, please visit the LDA website by clicking here.
![[1]-Formosa + river](https://bacablog01.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/1-formosa-river.jpg)
October saw the anticipated debut of the UK’s first Amphibious House, designed by Baca, on C4’s Grand Designs show. The family home on the banks of the River Thames, that rises in its dock to float in the event of a flood, is a major breakthrough for British architects and engineers who have been searching for a solution to mitigate flood-risk.
Highlights of the show included the successful passing of the float test and the site under water during last winter’s terrible national flooding. With this winter approaching and the potential for the first flood on the site of the newly-built house, it may not be long before the Amphibious House rises to the occasion.
Clients, colleagues and friends came together to celebrate Baca’s 10th Birthday this October. The party was a double celebration, with guests enjoying popcorn along with the canapes and wine as they watched the debut screening of the Baca-designed Amphibious House on C4s Grand Designs.
The party was hosted at Director Robert Barker’s fabulous Forest Mews Home, recently nominated for further awards for its design and innovative use of materials. Baca would like to thank everyone who could make it on the night and has been a part of making the company the success it is today. We look forward to the next exciting decade.
The Practice is delighted to have been asked to present to a group of visiting Chinese officials on Monday the 27th of October at the Town and Country Planning Association. The twenty Chinese delegates, largely from Guangzhou’s Zengcheng District, are local government officials working in the areas of water, planning, land resources and environmental bureaus. The presentation will focus on the Practice’s specialist expertise of designing with water. Baca projects that will be discussed include:
– The award-winning LifE Project (Long-term Initiatives for Flood risk Environments) for DEFRA
– Flood resilient typologies, including our Amphibious House, Elevated House and Hybrid House
– Island Veur Lent, Netherlands – Holland’s most ambitious room for the River Project, designed by Baca and Winner of Best Global Masterplan at MIPIM 2014
– Zac Seine, Paris – the Practice’s proposals for a France’s largest new scheme, a flood resilient district of 4,500 new units and a new park.
– Future City, Shanghai – a life study for a speculative city of £1 billion in Shanghai featured in our new book, ‘Aquatecture‘, published by RIBA Publishing in the New Year
Three water-related projects from Baca feature in a stunning new book, ‘Built on Water’, that has just been published by Braun. The impressive hardback book, by Lisa Baker, showcases some of the best in innovative designs that demonstrate different approaches to dealing with water as an architectural element.
Baca’s The Crown floating village with Water Studio, floating racetrack concept and Amphibious House are all impressively presented with illustrations and accompanying explanations. The timing of the book’s release coincides perfectly with the appearance of the Amphibious House on Channel 4’s Grand Designs show at 21:00 on Wednesday the 15th of October 2014.
Built on Water is available for purchase via the following link.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs/episode-guide
Follow us live on twitter during the show
@Baca_Architects
The Amphibious House will be unveiled for the first time at 21:00 on Wednesday the 15th October on Channel Four’s Grand Designs show this week. It has been a challenging design and even more challenging build. What an amazing project to work on. We are pleased to see it nearing completion.
Forest Mews was a finalist in the Grand Designs Best New Houses Awards 2014 and was featured as one of the seven best houses in the country by the Sunday Times. It has also just scooped the Fenestration Awards – Cool Wall, this month.
Jessica Barker, the wife of director Robert Barker and co-designer of Forest Mews, presented the award-winning development at Grand Designs Live to a packed crowd. George Clarke, who interviewed Jessica, said he thought it was absolutely beautiful and will go on to win many awards. This would be a great recognition of the care and attention put into this wonderful project and showcase for how good architecture can really add value to development. Baca is already working on plans for a similar mews development in Fulham.
http://www.fenestrationawards.co.uk/june-cool-wall-2/
http://www.forestmews.co.uk
2014’s Grand Designs Live saw the Baca stand as busy as ever with visitors taking advantage of the popular ‘Draw my Dream Home’ service. Baca’s architects translated vague visions into real representations on paper, with proposed projects ranging from earth houses, barn conversions and a modular pre-fab house to tree houses in Costa Rica. Here’re a few of the best sketches.
The capacity to sketch live in front of clients greatly speeds up the design process and clients are often amazed at how quickly the Baca team can sketch out ideas in front of them – it really gets the design discussion going.
Richard Coutts’ sketching abilities were enjoyed en masse by an audience of Grand Designers during his ‘Live Design Workshop’ on the Monday of the exhibition. Richard drew 12 individual designs as he demonstrated the Baca design process over the hour-long session before he returned to the Baca stand to continue bringing to life individuals’ dreams and visions in front of their eyes.
It has been a busy bank holiday weekend at the B2 stand with a host of exciting projects explored with Grand Designers.
Projects sketched have included 2 tree top houses for holiday lets, a floating lakeside annex, a farmers retreat in Missouri, USA and many wonderful extensions and renovations, contrasting existing and modern features.
Baca will be at the stand B2 all week to do not hesitate to pop in to explore some ideas with a no obligation sketch service. You can also book ahead with Amy at adron@baca.uk.com with details of your project. You can also give the office a call on 02073975620
It is under a week until the Grand Designs Live show opens it’s doors at the Excel centre. Baca will be at the show from May 3rd – 11th at stand B2 offering a complementary ‘Draw my Dream Home’ service where we explore aspirations and ideas with you at the stand.
The unique service attracts 100s of visitors each year. Baca director, Richard Coutts explains: “Many people know what kind of house they’d like to build. They have loads of ideas buzzing around their head… but they’ve no idea how to translate these into a practical brief for their builder. Our trained draughtsman specialise in interpreting – and visualising – vague thoughts. It’s a real delight to see faces light-up when we capture a dream so accurately.”
You can simply visit stand B2 during the week however, if you would like to prebook a session with one of our team please email adron@baca.uk.com with details of the project and a preferred time during the show. You can also call the office on 02073975620.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Baca Architects' Blog 
