Projects
Brighton Rocks
The future of the Brighton’s beach between the Palace Pier and the marina has been the subject of an extensive investigation by a team of consultants led by We Made That to provide a spatial vision for the historic areas both in front and behind the massive seawall. The area contains numerous often vulnerable heritage…
Dock Branching Out
Birkenhead across the Mersey from Liverpool has a proud history but its built fabric has suffered. Working with Maccreanor Lavington, Robert is devising a vision for much of the extensive, mostly derelict area between the Grade I Hamilton Square, the docks, and Birkenhead Park. The work includes the preparation of an in-depth heritage baseline that…
Camden Highline
Camden is to have its answer to New York’s High Line and the Viaduc des Arts in Paris. Eventually the elevated and landscaped path will run alongside the railway line from Camden Lock to King’s Cross. Field Operations led the Manhattan project and is now leading in London too. The Architects vPPR are a long-time…
Almost Essex
Lea Bridge was for more than a millennium the marshy boundary area between London and Essex. Surviving heritage assets are not, though, always obvious. Traces of its ancient morphology drew out of elements of the past to inform Haworth Tompkins’ strategy for transforming today’s fragmentary industrial zone. Other elements include interesting interwar industrial architecture (previously…
Grey’s Elegy
Beyond neoclassical Grainger Town, Newcastle has a vital historic centre with structures spanning from Hadrian’s Wall to its magnificent 20th century Civic Centre. In between is the retail core, now the site of a wide-ranging public realm masterplan designed to bring uplift to the faltering commercial city centre offer. Authentic Future worked with LDA Design…
Ancient History
Known for its important Roman ruins, Colchester also has an unsung but extensive collection of medieval buildings rivalled by few other places in the UK. This offers enormous potential alongside, highways changes, a mooted residential expansion and the renewal of a retail centre in flux. Working in a multi-disciplinary team including We Made That, HAT…
Valuing Tottenham
Authentic Futures has been engaged in a number of projects to regenerate Tottenham’s historic high streets. These have included a proposal for the adaptive re-use of a fire station for Assemble, a Good Growth funded conversion of a redundant and decaying public toilet with DKCM, and a successful bid to Historic England with LB Haringey…
Piccadilly Gardening
Authentic Futures is part of LDA Design’s team on the six-strong shortlist for the prestigious international competition to redesign Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. As well as the central green space, the 10-acre site includes surrounding historic streets, a transport hub and contested statues and monuments.
Shrub Hill
Historic Shrub Hill Station (believed to incorporate Brunel designs) sits on a rise above the cathedral city of Worcester and is surrounded by an industrial area which contains important but fragmented structures from the city’s railway and canal past. Authentic Futures worked with a team led by AR Urbanism to deliver a regenerative blueprint for…
Rose Red Hackney
Hackney Central, from the Regent’s Canal north via London Fields and Mare Street to Hackney Downs, has been the subject of wide-ranging town centre strategy. Robert Bevan has provided heritage advice on this complex and extensive project led by We Made That and regeneration specialists PRD. The project builds on Hackney Central’s unique culture, heritage…
Slough cooking
A Postmodern wit characterises the work of growing practice Office S&M who in 2020 won BD Young Architect of the Year and inclusion in the AJ 40 under 40. On busy London Road in Slough, opposite a conservation area and listed school, the practice, after some negotiation with reluctant planners, is replacing an undistinguished post-war…
Butterfield Revisited
Authentic Futures has been involved in a series of heritage tasks to transform a semi-derelict farmyard complex by William Butterfield into an office complex, café and yoga studio. As well as first determining curtilage and then devising a strategy for restoring the Gothic Revival outbuildings, the project on the historic Aldenham Estate near Elstree will…
Bolton Wonderers
Authentic Futures is provided ongoing heritage advice for architect Damion Burrows’ remodelling of a grand Kensington townhouse including the complicated and sensitive matter of extending an underground swimming pool in the garden of the asset set within The Boltons Conservation Area.
Medway Headway
A Town Centre Strategy for the county town of Kent is in preparation by a team led by We Made That. It covers an extensive area on both sides of the River Medway between Maidstone’s three stations and the impressive County Hall. There are hundreds of heritage assets ranging from many timber-framed survivors to Georgian…
Intensifying Hackney
Hackney Council has commissioned a team including Authentic Futures, Adam Khan Architects, Muf Architecture/Art and Apparata and others, to investigate nine small sites across Dalston and Hackney Central with a view to providing additional housing. Each site comes with complex histories and heritage issues. There are public buildings, street markets, historic factories and ancient routes…
White Hart Lane
Tottenham is undergoing rapid change, not least in the vicinity of its large new football stadium. Muf Architecture/Art and Authentic Futures were commissioned to provide proposals to improve the environs and public realm of White Hart Lane itself – one of the area’s oldest streets and increasingly traffic clogged. Robert’s research underpins the proposals for…
Tunbridge Wells
Heritage impact assessment for a theatre and offices by Allies & Morrison (with the Built Heritage Consultancy). Working with the Built Heritage Consultancy, Robert provided an extensive heritage impact assessment for the new theatre, public realm and council offices development by Allies and Morrison at the edge of the sensitive Calverley Grounds landscape. This Registered…
Bruce Grove
A small building with a big local impact, the statutorily listed public toilets at Bruce Grove in North London have been empty for decades but are set to be converted to a new use with GLA Good Growth funding. Authentic Futures is working with DK-CM on proposals to repair the above- and below-ground elements and…
Plymouth
A narrative informing the regeneration of Plymouth’s post-war city centre. Authentic Futures was part of the team devising a public realm strategy for Plymouth City Council as part of its Better Places scheme. The practice provided a heritage narrative to underpin design interventions in the mid-century city centre and urged the declaration of a city…
Private Houses
Heritage statement and advice for improvements to an historic manor house for a high profile private client
Pride Of Place
Online exhibition and draft guidance for Historic England on identity and place. Robert was commissioned to provide heritage input into Historic England’s Pride of Place project to identify and celebrate LGBTQ heritage places and the people associated with them such as Anne Lister and Edward Carpenter. He conducted research, co-wrote an online exhibition and prepared…
St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol
Heritage advice underpinning the competition brief to devise a new context for one of the UK’s most important churches. This Grade I listed church in Bristol is one the grandest in the country but its surroundings have been degraded in the post-war period with nearby demolitions and large highways projects segregating the churchyard from its…
Whitechapel
Public Realm strategy for LB Tower Hamlets with Muf Architecture/Art and J&L Gibbons. With Crossrail and the creation of a new town hall for Tower Hamlets, the area around Whitechapel High Street and the Royal London Hospital is undergoing profound change and an intensified use of its public realm. Authentic Futures was part of a…
Clerkenwell Green
Heritage input into public realm proposals into one of London’s oldest squares. Originally the open space between a monastery and a nunnery, Clerkenwell Green is one of London’s most historic enclaves. However, while its edges have been substantially redeveloped or restored, the open space itself, has become run down with ever increasing pedestrian and vehicular…
Medieval Oxford
Pre-application heritage assessment and advice for the redevelopment of two housing sites at Oxford Castle and Osney. Beyond Oxford’s central colleges survive important medieval streets and archaeology. Authentic Futures prepared heritage advice for two post-war housing sites where redevelopment was proposed. The first, a former hostel directly abutting the castle walls (a Scheduled Monument) and…
Henry’s Hotel, Marylebone
Heritage impact assessments with vPPR, Simon Hurst and Russell Sage for a new boutique townhouse hotel. The ‘Henry’ here refers to Jane Austin’s banker brother who lived in a newly built townhouse in Marylebone. This history was uncovered as part of winning planning permission and listed building consent for a serviced apartment/hotel project undertaken with…
Stamford Works, Dalston
Heritage and townscape impact assessment for expansion of historic former tramworks into apartments, workspace and restaurant use. Historical research by Authentic Futures revealed that this Dalston building on the north side of Gillett Square started off life as a drive-through tramshed before going through various incarnations including use as a clothing factory before arriving at…
North Woolwich
Heritage advice and impact assessment for the conversion of a redundant station to creative uses. This redundant former station in London’s docklands became a small railway museum (with a scheme by Julian Harrap) before funding dried up and the building was left empty and decaying once more. Authentic Futures provided the heritage advice and a…
Seven Dials Public Realm
Heritage advice on public realm improvements in Covent Garden. Earlham Street in London is one of the historic streets radiating from Seven Dials in Covent Garden. Working with LDA Design, Authentic Futures, devised a public realm scheme to improve the appearance of the street including provisions for improved market pitches. The scheme drew on the…
Fleet Valley Strategy
An award-winning public realm strategy with LDA Design for LB Camden on a suite of central London sites. Authentic Futures worked on this long-term and award-winning strategy with LDA Design for LB Camden. The project began with a character appraisal for an area extended from King’s Cross Station to Farringdon and Hatton Garden and used…
Imperial House, Windsor
Heritage Statement and expert witness for Darling Associates on its successful housing and office development. Once an extensive public school on the fringe of Windsor town centre, this sensitive site, surrounded by heritage assets including a conservation area and listed buildings, had been used for a variety of uses before falling into dereliction. Authentic Futures…
Romford Town Centre
In progress: A masterplan focusing on the historic market square. In conjunction with Maccreanor Lavington. Authentic Futures is working with a team lead by Maccreanor Lavington on a masterplan for Romford town centre. The town is set for growth with the arrival of Crossrail and there is already considerable interest in the area from residential…
Wood Green Town Centre
Characterisation study informing the regeneration and reconnection of the north London retail district. Wood Green in LB Haringey is north London’s largest metropolitan shopping centre. This retail character is layered on top of a diverse history that encompasses industry, historic infrastructure such as the New River, and a pattern of common land that lends the…
Hackney Wick
Design and Planning Guidance for the creative quarter plus conservation area appraisal and designation. With Muf and dRMM. One of London’s most celebrated creative quarters, Hackney Wick was facing radical change in the wake of the 2012 Olympics held on the opposite bank of the River Lee. Demand for residential in the historic former industrial…
Harrow Arts Centre
In progress: A masterplan with DKCM for HAC’s expansion of its historic campus of listed and locally listed buildings. Working with architects DK-CM, Authentic Futures is devising a masterplan for a successful and expanding arts centre housed in a former school at the edge of London’s greenbelt. The aim is to insert contemporary buildings into…
Baltic Triangle, Liverpool
In progress: A heritage-led regeneration framework (SPD) for Liverpool’s creative quarter. Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle is in the hinterland of the city’s waterfront – between the city centre and the Anglican Cathedral. Once integral to the fabric of Liverpool, it has been long isolated by bombing and slum clearance. In recent years it has emerged as…
Paradise in Birmingham
Robert provided heritage advice for Argent’s £700 million regeneration project across 7 ha of central Birmingham. Working for Alan Baxter Associates, Argent Group, and masterplanner Glenn Howells Architects, Robert led the heritage and townscape advice on Birmingham’s 7 ha Paradise redevelopment. Numerous listed structures, tall buildings, and infrastructure issues including the removal of an arm…
Victoria Theatre, Halifax
Working with the Built Heritage Consultancy, Robert is preparing a Conservation Management Plan for the listed Victoria Theatre, Halifax. Robert collaborated with the Built Heritage Consultancy on a Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for this listed theatre/concert hall in Halifax. It is one of a many historic auditoria in the town and this sheer number of…