The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
Chris Bryant, 36, Caspar Rodgers, 39, and Tristan Wigfall, 39, co-founded alma-nac in 2009, having previously worked at practices including Edward Cullinan Architects, SimpsonHaugh, Cottrell & Vermeulen and Make Architects.
They describe their practice as driven by ‘collaboration and participation’ and ‘an appetite for experimentation’ with a ‘social agenda to broaden the remit and democratise the output of the profession’.
Early projects included the spatially inventive 2.3m-wide Slim House and The Animal Hospital, a 24-hour veterinary surgery retrofitted on a very tight budget, in which research into colour and animal psychology resulted in a notably calm series of spaces.
Source:Jack Hobhouse
House Within a House, Brockley, south London
Recent work, reflecting the practice’s belief that ‘the environment is our only real priority going forwards’, includes an impressive run of further clever retrofit projects, including the AJ Retrofit Award-winner Paxton House, the radical rework of an office block into flats. Last year saw the completion of the Russian doll-like House Within a House. This retained a 1940s box-like house as the core of a highly-insulated new envelope, which re-established the silhouette of the original Victorian house on the site – which is situated in a conservation area – saving 12,670 bricks and 13m3 of concrete in the process.
Continuing the practice’s sustainability agenda, a major current project is a £12 million scheme for Dulwich College in south London, currently in planning, which the practice aims to make carbon net zero.
Milestones
2009 Practice founded 2011 Completes Slim House, Clapham, a 2.3m-wide, 16m-long, three-storey home
2017 Completes The Animal Hospital, Camberwell, a retrofit of a 24-hour veterinary surgery 2018 Paxton House, Croydon, a refurbishment and extension of an existing office building into 43 homes, wins the AJ Retrofit Award for Housing under £5 million
2019 Completes House Within a House, south London, the entire existing structure wrapped with a new homogeneous insulated brick skin
2020 Dulwich College, Southwark, a 550-student, net zero carbon school for phased delivery over two years, submitted for planning permission
New practice: Alma-nac Collaborative Architecture
Building study: Alma-nac’s House Within a House
Alma-nac reveals conversion of south London townhouse into nursery
RetroFirst stories: alma-nac’s low-cost, zero-waste warehouse upcycle
AJ 40 under 40 in association with
