Mole ArchitectsMole ArchitectsOur projects are diverse in scale and type. We’ve designed studios for artists, and masterplans for developers who have a vision to make better cities. In between these scales we’ve designed many houses and buildings, all contributing to making the places we live and work in richer. Well-designed buildings make life easier, more comfortable, and more pleasurable.
Each project at Mole is informed by the nature of the place and the specifics of the project. We’re lucky to have worked with clients with ambition and a passion for architecture. Our work reflects this, resulting in unique buildings that reflect something about the people we work with. There’s also a consistency about what we do: an interest in material, texture, and colour. A desire to make buildings that are surprising in their context but somehow feel right. An ambition to make buildings that use less energy, and feel good to be in.
Photograph: David Butler
The Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry, and Carbon Neutral Cambridge are hosting the Climate Emergency Conference on March 24th. The event brings together a wide range of speakers with a focus on how it is possible to create zero-carbon buildings, and how the Local Authority can challenge government to make it possible. The conference takes place at Robinson College, Cambridge. Director Meredith Bowles is a Trustee of the CFCI, and Mole sponsor the annual Open EcoHomes event in Cambridge. https://www.cfci.org.uk/cfci-event/243/
Director Meredith Bowles was an invited speaker at ‘The Big Debate’, organised by the Greater Cambridge Partnership to ask questions from the public about the future direction of the Greater Cambridge region. Meredith spoke about the need for a radical shift in the role of the Local Authority in enabling sustainable affordable public transport, and the need for not-for-profit housing as part of a new fairer society.
Project Architect Alice Hamlin has been shortlisted for the inaugural MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice, part of the W Awards for Architecture. Run jointly by the Architectural Review and the Architects’ Journal, the W awards recognise women’s global contribution to the profession, promote role models for young women in practice and encourage respect, diversity and equality in architecture.
Marmalade Lane has featured in two recent Government design guides: ‘Living with beauty: promoting health, well-being and sustainable growth’, written by the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, and the National Design Guide. These two documents underpin design advice that supports national planning policy, with exemplary projects used to support principles of good design and place-making.
Marmalade Lane was awarded the prestigious Richard Feilden Award at the 2019 Housing Design Awards. Named after one of the founding partners of Feilden Clegg Bradley, the award is given to the housing project that is considered to best exemplify an inclusive affordable development. The award is particularly meaningful to Mole, as great admirers of the humane sustainable buildings for which Feilden Clegg Bradley are well known.
From 54 national winners, 3 of our projects have each been awarded a 2019 RIBA National and Regional Award. Eddington Lot 1 in North West Cambridge for our client University of Cambridge, with joint architects Wilkinson Eyre, our cohousing project Marmalade Lane for our client Town with Trivselhus and Secular Retreat for our client Living Architecture where Mole were the executive architects for Atelier Peter Zumthor. (image credits, David Butler and Jack Hobhouse)
“Marmalade Lane is a delightful triumph in many ways: a single development of individual homes managing to be intimate, characterful, light, airy and civic – and clearly cherished by those seeking more.”
Olivia Tusinski, Architecture Today, June 2019
Fijal grabs another win at the Surface Design Awards 2019, picking up the best Housing Exterior Surface for its striking brick exterior.
Mole are very excited to announce that Fijal House has won an award for the Best Contemporary Self Build in The Daily Telegraph Homebuilding & Renovating Awards 2018.
We are pleased to announce that Fijal House has been shortlisted for another award, in the category ‘Small House of the Year’ in The Sunday Times British Homes Awards.
“Mole, headed up by former Manser Medal winner Meredith Bowles, has never been a practice to shout about itself; far from it, its reputation seems consolidated more by its collaborations – with the likes of Peter Salter on Walmer Yard in London, Peter Zumthor, Jarmund Vigsnaes Architects and MVRDV on Living Architecture’s high-profile one-off homes – than it has been about developing a specific profile for itself, but it’s certainly earned points by association.
But Mole may be coming up for air. This year saw it win the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize for projects under £1 million as well as a Regional award for its Houseboat project for Solidspace owner Roger Zogolovitch; and its bold, contemporary Marsh Hill House in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, also picked up a Regional award. Its external simplicity of white-painted brick and zinc belies a far more nuanced internal treatment that makes distinctions between public and private areas.
Perhaps next year will see the firm with a clutch of awards. It has worked with Wilkinson Eyre on a health centre, estates office and postgraduate apartments, part of the central masterplan of the new North West Cambridge development; a custom-build, also in Cambridge; and a ‘Design District’ on the Greenwich Peninsula for major developer Knight Dragon. Mole, it seems, is coming out of the shadows.”
-Credit: The RIBA Journal, April 2018 issue
Our concept models for two new workplace buildings have gone on show in an exhibition at Greenwich Peninsular. Designed for developers Knight Dragon, the buildings form part of a new district of low-cost rent for creative sector industries. The models present the metal-clad buildings as jewellery boxes, open to expose the timber interiors and set up on the piled foundations. The exhibition showcases all 16 buildings of the district and is at The Now Gallery, Peninsular Square, SE10 0SQ: http://nowgallery.co.uk
Our project at Eddington in North West Cambridge has been published in a special issue of The Architect’s Journal ‘New town’ featuring pieces on the masterplan and other architects. The first phases of Eddington, a £1 billion city district in the North West of Cambridge, will include 1500 homes for its staff, 1500 private houses for sale and accommodation for 2000 post-graduate students. Mole Architects worked in partnership with Wilkinson Eyre on Lot 1, the centre-most area of the masterplan, which included a range of mixed uses to serve this new city district.
Our project for The University of Cambridge, as part of the first phases of Eddington, was completed in February 2018. Mole Architects designed three linked buildings, including a health centre, estates offices and postgraduate apartments as part of a larger proposal for an ambitious new city quarter, involving an intensive programme of collaboration with other professionals over many years.
Our model is off to New York!
Social Housing – New European Projects
Exhibition Public dates
Thursday 15 February – 19 May
Public launch 6pm on Thursday 15 Febru- ary at the Center for Architecture
Venue
Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012, USA
Event website
https://www.centerforarchitecture.org/exhibitions/social-housing-new-europe-an-projects/
“One of Britain’s top 10 architect provocateurs, who are shaking things up with bold, innovative designs.” – Sunday Times
Mole are working with developers TOWNhus, Cambridge Cohousing Ltd and contractors Coulson Building Group to deliver this 42-unit custom build co-housing scheme in Cambridge, the first of its kind in the city. We are using an innovative pre-fabricated timber frame system to construct the houses, and a cross-laminated timber system for the apartment and community buildings. Due for completion in 2018, this scheme innovates in briefing, specification and construction, with high levels of technical performance, providing this new community with a beautiful place to live.
Photography: Coulson Ltd
Announced at the annual RIBA Stirling Prize dinner, the Houseboat has been awarded the 2017 Stephen Lawrence. Established in 1998 in memory of Stephen Lawrence, who aspired to be an architect, the Stephen Lawrence Prize is awarded annually and rewards the best project in the UK with a construction budget of less than £1 million. Mole would also like to congratulate everyone involved, especially our site architect Rebecca Granger and our client Roger Zogolovitch.
Mole are working on an exciting project at the heart of the new development on the Greenwich Peninsula, called ‘The Design District’, for developers Knight Dragon. This project for a new pedestrian quarter with buildings designed specifically for creative industries: designers, artists, and makers of all types, is the first of its kind in London. The Design District is an ambitious architectural project comprising 16 compelling buildings by eight leading architectural practices. As Knight Dragon’s chief executive, Richard Margree, puts it, Greenwich Peninsula Design District is designed by “creatives for creatives.”
Mole's Houseboat is a new house, located on a site overlooking Poole Harbour. After winning the regional RIBA South West Regional Award earlier this year, It has now been shortlisted for the Small Works Prize at the World Architecture Festival, which runs from 15 - 17 November 2017 in Berlin.
Photography by: Rory Gardiner.
Walmer Yard forms a discreet and private set of four interlocking houses totalling over 9,000 square feet set around an open courtyard in W11. It has won the 2017 RIBA National Awards for Architecture. Photography by: Hélène Binet
Mole have won a trio of 2017 RIBA Awards for three recently completed residential projects, Marsh Hill in Suffolk for private clients Ben and Richard, Houseboat in Dorset for Roger Zogolovitch of Solidspace and Walmer Yard for Crispin Kelly of Baylight Properties. High quality residential design is the cornerstone of our architectural practice, and it is terrific when all the hard work that goes into a project – by us and by others – is recognised by these prestigious awards. We collaborated with Rebecca Granger Architects on the Houseboat, and with the contractor for Walmer Yard which was designed By Peter Salter and Associates.
K1 Cohousing is featured in RIBA exhibition on Social housing at the RIBA at Portland Place, London. The exhibition captures some of the most innovative examples of social housing across Europe. Drawing together 24 case studies by 20 practices from eight European countries, it explores a range of typologies, design approaches and refurbishment strategies. Based on 'Social housing - Definitions and Design' produced by Karakusevic Carson Architects in collaboration with RIBA Publishing it offers a challenge to housing professionals to rethink how we build and highlight the vital role of public and low cost housing in the life of our cities. Between April 18 - May 28, this exhibition is free entry and open Monday to Sunday 10am to 5pm; Tuesdays 10am to 8pm. www.architecture.com
