Contextual Cotswold stone residence gets the nod
AJA have just won consent for this picturesque rambling stone house on a very sensitive site squeezed between two listed structures in the Old Headington Conservation Area.
Shrewsbury School Girls House Ready to go
The builder’s on board and work begins in April on the new girls’ house at Shrewsbury School.
Shrewsbury School Girls House granted planning consent
Our new girls house for Shrewsbury School has been granted full planning permission.
Cherwell House expansion gains planning consent
Our Cherwell House expansion has bagged consent.
Another award for Graven Hill
AJA bags the gong for Best Residential Development at the Oxford Property Festival 2020!
For designing three of the houses on The Street at Graven Hill, as featured in Grand Designs.
Read more…
Three new AJA houses completed
The Bluff and Cumnor Hill projects freshly minted and glowing in the sunshine
AJA bag another gong: the 2019 Build It Award for Best ICF Home
Probably the most obscure in our trophy cabinet, but still very welcome.
2019 Office Trip: Booming Manchester
This year we stayed in the UK: it happened that we had booked the same weekend as Brexit was due to happen so could not risk crossing the Channel.Read more…
Another prestigious prize for Incurvo
AJA have been awarded the biennial Chilterns Buildings Design Award 2019.
Read all about it here…
Grand Designs: The Street features two houses both designed by AJA
Watch Lynn’s self-build pioneer interview video here.
Recognition for St Michael’s Threshold
We’re thrilled that our church extension project, St Michael’s, has been shortlisted for FOUR awards: Oxford Preservation Trust Award, Civic Trust Award, Architects Journal Award and National Churches Trust President’s Award.
St Michael’s Threshold is blessed
On April 22nd, the Bishop of Oxford opened, and anointed, our freshly minted entrance building for St Michael and All Angels church in Summertown.
Kiss House wins its first award
Oxford Property Festival 2018 – Best Housing Solution for Oxfordshire.
The judges were seeking “a plan, idea or business plan which provides a solution for helping to provide new housing and helps to solve the housing challenges for the county of Oxfordshire. Entries could showcase new innovative ideas and approaches to housing delivery such as off site and modern methods of constriction (MMC). “ – Kiss ticked all the boxes and bagged the gong.
AJA wins best of Houzz 2018 Design Award
Adrian James Architects has been awarded the best of Houzz 2018 for having the most popular projects among the 40 million-strong Houzz community for the third year running.
Adrian James to chair the jury for the RIBA South Awards 2018
Following an extraordinary run of RIBA Awards for AJA – 5 awards in the last 6 years – Adrian has been invited to chair the jury panel for the RIBA Regional Awards 2018.
2017 Office Trip: le Corbusier’s Marseille
The AJA annual excursion was something of a pilgrimage this year; to stay in the architectural Mecca that is le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseille.
AJA wins design competition for a prestigious Oxford University building
AJA have been awarded the contract to design a new accommodation block for Wycliffe Hall.
Incurvo wins 2 RIBA South Awards 2017
Following last year’s epic double gong for Sandpath, Incurvo has done it again – winning two RIBA Awards of its own:
RIBA South Award 2017
RIBA South Sustainability Award 2017
What a result. Four RIBA Awards in two years. For more information go to this page of the RIBA’s website architecture.com.
AJA wins best of Houzz 2017 Design Award
Adrian James Architects has been awarded the best of Houzz 2017 Design award for having the most popular projects amoung the 40 million-strong Houzz community for the second year running.
The Good The Bad & The Ugly
AJA office trip to London to critique the architectural highs and lows. Plus coffee shops and fine dining, obvs.
AJA goes Social
Adrian James Architects can now be followed via social media.
Add us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for the latest news, project updates, awards and more.
Incurvo is shortlisted in the prestigious annual brick awards.
The Brick Development Association has selected it as one of six up for the gong for the best brick house in Britain in 2016.
Click here to see the shortlists for The Brick Awards 2016.
Sandpath wins 2 RIBA South Awards
Sandpath has won 2 awards at the RIBA South Awards 2016. Awards won were:
RIBA South Award 2016
RIBA Sustainability Award 2016
More information about the awards can be found at architecture.com
The Most Popular Portfolio on Houzz
Our portfolio on Houzz has been voted the most popular of 2016 by the Houzz design community!
Check out our Houzz portfolio here…
2015 Office Trip: Hamburg in the snow
This year AJA tucked into a feast of meaty Germanic urbanity: purposeful warehouses marching around the docks, big contemporary confections from Herzog & de Meuron et al.
Fruity brick Expressionism, an awesome planetarium masquerading as a mausoleum on steroids, all topped with a seasonal sprinkling of snowflakes.Read more…
Sandpath wins the gong for THE BEST (modestly-sized) HOUSE IN THE UK
At the prestigious Sunday Times British Homes Awards 2015 Sandpath was given the award for the best One-Off House or Extension up to 2500sq.ft.
Find out more about this award-winning project here…
Shrewsbury School’s new flagship teaching block is complete
On time, on budget, on point, Hodgson Hall had its official opening ceremony on October 3rd 2015.
As the headmaster said in his speech, the building “is universally regarded as a fabulous addition to our teaching facilities. We are very grateful indeed to Adrian James Architects for the work that you have done in interpreting our vision and delivering it to such a high specification.”
See the building here.
See the head’s testimonial here.
Sandpath is shortlisted for The Sunday Times British Homes Awards 2015
Sandpath has made it onto the (very short) shortlist of finalists in the category for One-Off House or Extension up to 2,500 sq ft
AJA’s Oxford Transport Vision is published
The Oxford Times has featured the practice’s proposal for a radical solution to Oxford’s intractable transport problems.
A new ‘Park and Stride’ facility leading straight from the ring road to the city centre with no need for buses and no need to use the existing city roads. At an (admittedly expensive) stroke it would free the city of cars and allow comprehensive pedestrianisation. Oxford can breathe again literally and metaphorically. At last.
Meander House is shortlisted for a 2015 RIBA Award
Out of 48 entries in the RIBA South region, Meander House is one of only 13 buildings in the RIBA South region to have been shortlisted.
The RIBA Awards are the most prestigious architectural awards in the country; they are awarded annually to buildings from across the whole of the UK.
This follows our RIBA Award in 2012 for Hilltop House.
Sandpath goes viral
has grabbed the imagination of the homebuilders online, and is popping up all over the place:
Scenic Country Home Made of Flat-Packed Panels – dwell
Sandpath House in Oxfordshire – e-architect
Sandpath House – Contemporist
Bauhaus Styles Houses – Homify
Homes for the Modern British Family – Homify
Architecture Today’s quarterly magazine devoted to new houses features Meander House
The Autumn 2014 edition of “Inhabit”, the quarterly supplement devoted to the best new houses in the country, has a feature on Meander House.
2014 Office trip: Bruges and beyond
This year the office went through the tunnel to Bruges, and Ostend, and Ghent.
Getting around the sites by train, tram, foot – and Segway for the boys – we covered everything from Hieronymus Bosch and his cohort to the fine shuttering on the concrete bunkers of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. These were the more sinister ends of the spectrum which also included fine seafood and brickwork galore.
RIBA selects Meander House for its 2014 Housing Directory
Meander House is given a full page spread in the RIBA’s annual directory of chartered practices.
Shrewsbury’s steel frame is complete
The new academic block at Shrewsbury School is progressing well on site, with the steel frame topped out.
The pupils are going to have excellent views over the campus to the Welsh hills.
AJA project featured in concrete review
Hill Top House is singled out in the latest issue of Homebuilding & Renovating magazine, as an ‘architectural gem’.
AJA scoops national design award: OVERALL WINNER at the national Concrete Society Awards 2013
has done it again. Against stiff competition from many major projects all across the UK, the Concrete Society chose our humble project as the best concrete building in the country in 2012/13.
The shortlist of buildings and engineering works included the tallest residential tower in the UK, the Co-operative Bank HQ in Manchester, new civic offices and several new school and college buildings by some of the biggest and best practices in the country.
Hill Top House was the smallest nominated project by some margin. But the Concrete Society judges felt it was an outstanding exemplar of architectural design featuring precast concrete, and awarded it the top (concrete) gong.
Planning consent won for the Shrewsbury School teaching block
Planning permission has been granted for the new Humanities Hub for Shrewsbury School.
The building is located at the heart of the historic campus in the town’s Conservation Area between two listed buildings; but the planners welcomed it, noted its sensitivity to its context and gave it a relatively smooth ride through.
St Peter’s Rooms wins design award
Another Oxford Preservation Trust Award chalked up in 2013 for the small but perfectly formed community facility carefully inserted in an ancient churchyard.
More about St. Peter’s Room…
AJA wins design competition for a prestigious new school project
AJA have been awarded the contract to design a new teaching block housing five departments for Shrewsbury School.
The building will occupy a pivotal position on the school’s spacious green campus in Shrewsbury’s Conservation Area.
AJA were one of four practices invited to submit a design proposal in competition and were selected on the basis of a design which successfully stretched the brief to include a central atrium/forum. Other competitors included Eric Parry Architects and Glenn Howells Architects.
Two more houses completed
To start 2013, two more houses completed: equally distinctive but very different.
The Laurels is a finely crafted curvy stone casket; beautifully finished with a glass coup de theatre at its heart.
Broadmere is a sleek contemporary barn ( not quite so curvy ), designed as a new sustainable model for rural housing.
Harlequin House complete
A striking new landmark has landed on the Oxford ring-road.
Both a contextual assemblage of domestic gables and a bold abstract chequerboard composition. The vernacular archetype is subverted by its dazzle camouflage.
Walton Lane houses scoop local design award
Our pair of houses in Jericho has won an Oxford Preservation Trust Award as one of the best new buildings in the city in 2012.
The judges heaped praise on them for being ‘brave’ and ‘perky’….
AJA shortlisted for the prestigious RIBA Stephen Lawrence Award
The RIBA Stirling Prize for the best UK building of the year is well known.
But there is another prize awarded at the same ceremony: the Stephen Lawrence Prize is awarded to the best UK building of the year for under £1M. Hill Top House is one of only five projects in the country completed in 2011/2012 to be shortlisted for the award.
All five contenders are pictured in the Architects’ Journal.
The Lava House wins planning permission
AJA have been granted consent for this radical new house in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The planning strategy involved first getting permission for a large extension to the existing lacklustre house on the site, and then going the replacement dwelling: something rather more interesting. The design uses the local brick to dramatic and dynamic effect.
Another happy client
Unsolicited email received 29.6.12:
“…the house is a joy to live in, I feel like I’m on holiday every day with so much sky and light.”
Hill Top House wins an RIBA Award
AJA scoops one of the definitive awards of the industry for the concrete tour-de-force that is Hill Top House.
Hill Top House is featured in – and on – the Architects Journal: the weekly magazine for the profession
The cover of the AJ is a good place to be.
All credit to Mike Marshall, our Associate in charge who nurtured this building from inception to completion, and to the client Anthony Waite, who pushed for and paid for this hymn to concrete (and to David Fisher, our local photomeister)
2011 Office outing – AJA visit Belgium
For their annual outing this year AJA took the train under the Channel to savour the extravagant Art Nouveau delights of Brussels, cycle around the architectural highlights of Antwerp, and enjoy chips with mayo, crisp northern light and Tintin.
If Antwerp – at the same latitude as Croydon – can have such a rich pavement life in their graceful cobbled streets and squares, in November, then why can’t we?
Hill Top House is complete: it’s the very Essence of Concrete.
Prefab technology applied with singular purpose: the result is worth the effort put into every detail.
By thinking through everything we have succeeded in keeping the concrete walls, floors, ceilings, stairs completely unfettered and clean and pure. The route through the house is a toplit shimmering concrete causeway. Ascetic poetics.
Planning permission won for the Friars Entry site – again.
Now reborn as a slender tower of 29 smart student residences, right in the heart of Oxford.
The new design once again won the full support of the planning officers and the planning committee as a radical solution to a tricky site, which will make a positive contribution to the city’s Central Conservation Area.
The key design decision here was not to pussy-foot around but to go for broke: the design does not take the easy path and mediate between its 3-storey and 7-storey neighbours. Instead the strategy is to disguise the ugly rear-end of the tall department store next door by matching it to its full height and effectively re-facing it with a sculptural architectural delight.
Cherington Leisure Quad shortlisted for a 2011 Brick Award
The dynamic rippling brick wall of our small but special domestic leisure building has been shortlisted for a brick award in the “Innovative Use of Brick” category.
It’s up against much larger projects but the radical use of these wavy bricks – many of which had to have bespoke moulds made so the waves could flow around the corners – has been recognised for its joyful invention.
St Peter’s Room is opened
The Bishop of Oxford opens the new St Peter’s church meeting room, now completed.
The unstinting fund-raising efforts of the congregation and its buildings committee finally bear fruit; a small but perfectly formed building which will be of real benefit to the Wolvercote community.
Walton Lane houses completed
The twin villa houses in Jericho are now finished, after a complex build programme with full basements sunk on a tight urban site.
The developer has moved in to one and sold the other. The copper has gone a deep lustrous brown and the garage doors are a rich nutty hardwood; only just finished but they feel as if they have been there forever.
Client’s post-occupancy email 18.5.11: “You designed a super building.”
