Our team, including Landscape Architect Gross Max, Structural and Services Engineer Buro Happold and Amara Architects in Palestine, presented our scheme to the The Welfare Association in early December.

The CIBSE (Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers) Building Performance Awards recognise projects that have shown the best performance, innovation and practice in design and operation of sustainable buildings. The awards focus on actual, measured peformance.

The John Hope Gateway has many innovative design features to reduce the base energy consumption for running the building as far as possible. At the beginning of this year the building achieved an A rating in its EPC (Energy Performance Certificate).

Photo: Paul Raftery

The competition is looking for innovative and economic ways of bringing low-energy living to the design of three terraced houses in the Eco-town at Whitehill Bordon in Hampshire. The zero-carbon homes will inform the ambition and quality of housing across the eco-town and explore how thought-provoking and intelligent design can create beautiful, resilient places where people will want to live now and in the future.

The nitrate and acetate film collection is fragile and unstable, and without proper storage conditions is at risk of deteriorating and being lost forever. The pioneering new building is the first of its kind to store large quantities of film, over 450,000 canisters, in optimal environmental conditions.

The project has been realised through the Screen Heritage UK (SHUK) programme, a nationwide initiative funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. One of its key objectives is to prevent the deterioration and loss of the nation's films so that they can be made accessible now and in the future.

>> 'Inside the BFI's new film storage facility' BBC film

Photo: Edmund Sumner

The School's colours of green and gold have been used as a motif for the connecting and re-imagining of this complex school building. These colours are echoed from the bright cladding of the new entrance building (pictured left) across into the depth of the original buildings. Through introducing natural light and simple strategic principles, we have turned what was once an incoherent muddle of corridors into a clear sequence of enjoyable and coherent new spaces.

The new scheme has successfully achieved the School's key aims, which included the desire to improve links with the local community via a student-managed coffee shop.

Photo: Edmund Sumner

The Herbarium at Kew has housed a botanic library and dried plant specimens, collected from all over the world, since 1853. We designed the new 5,000sqm extension to the existing Herbarium buildings to provide a modern archive for existing and future acquisitions.

The design for the new wing, located in a World Heritage Site, integrates with and enhances the setting for the existing listed buildings and protected trees near the banks of the Thames. A circular set of rooms in the new wing both connects to the old herbarium and is a compositional device, pivoting the orientation of the new archive vaults to align with the old boundary wall.

Photos: Tim Soar

Roddy Langmuir, Project Director of the John Hope Gateway and a senior partner at Cullinans, said: We are delighted to receive this award for a project that we hope is seen as taking an optimistic view on sustainability. We have tried to show visitors to the Garden what great opportunities there are in creating a low-energy building with activities, views and daylight all framed in a carefully wrought timber shell. As architects the best response you can hope for is that people 'get-it' and vote with their feet, as they have done here. To be sustainable, buildings need to be enthusiastically adopted by their hosts and to serve an enduring role in the community."

Last year the Gateway received an Institution of Structural Award for Best Arts or Entertainment Structure and contributed to us winning Building Magazine's Architectural Practice of the Year and Building Design's Public Building Architect of the Year Award. Earlier this year the Gateway received a Civic Trust Award Commendation and is currently shortlisted for a 2011 RIBA Award.

Building 4 has 170 apartments with commercial space at ground floor level. It is the final residential building to go ahead from our Canon's Marsh masterplan, and its implementation will complete the 'Brunel Mile' from Temple Meads station to the SS Great Britain.

We have worked with public artists Sans Facon and landscape architects Grants Associates to integrate an innovative design to celebrate the passage of rainwater from the roof of the building through a new public park to the floating harbour as part of a visible sustainable urban drainage scheme.

The project will go on site later this year.

The IIPSI will provide a dedicated facility and support to regional small and medium enterprises based on the demonstration of new technology, new processes and new applications to enable the creation and testing of market leading products and services.

The IIPSI is our third building for the University of Warwick. The International Manufacturing Centre was completed in three phases in 2002 and the BREEAM 'Excellent' International Digital Laboratory was completed in 2008.

With the course leader Gabriel Tang, John worked with the architectural students in design workshops culminating in the construction of a full size timber gridshell structure in the grounds of the University.

The Hub won the Special Award for its demonstration in successful community engagement and how this helped to deliver the highest standards of design whilst meeting the needs of local people: It dynamically demonstrates that physical and social regeneration can and should improve the life chance of local people"

The John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was recognised with a Commendation for making a significant contribution to the quality and appearance of the built environment.

John Romer, a Senior Partner at Cullinans, provided Structural Engineering services for The Mulberry Centre by Knox Bhavan Architects, which was awarded Community Recognition for its positive social benefit to the local community.

Co-curated by the V&A and Maggie's, the exhibition entitled 'The Architecture of Hope: Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres', will run from 26th February - 8th May 2011. Marking the 15th anniversary since the opening of the first Maggie's Centre, the display will explore the architecture of the seven existing centres and six of the future centres.

The North East Maggie's Centre, due to go on site this summer at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, gained planning permission in January this year.

The Brit Insurance Design Awards have established themselves as one of the most comprehensive design awards in the world; "the Oscars of the design world". An exhibition of the shortlisted entries will take place at the Design Museum from 16th February - 7th August 2011. This will showcase the most innovative and forward-thinking designs from around the world.

The jury, chaired by one of the Design Museum founders Stephen Bayley, includes art and design curator Janice Blackburn, graphic designer Mark Farrow, novelist Will Self, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University Penny Sparke and co-founder of digital agency Poke Simon Waterfall.

The Hillside Hub, along with the John Hope Gateway, has also been shortlisted for a Civic Trust Award. Established in 1959, the awards recognise projects with the highest quality of design that have also made a positive cultural, social or economic contribution to the local community.

The aim of the Sustainable Development Foundation(SDF) is to encourage a step-change, radical improvement in the performance of the UK's built environment, with an ultimate goal being healthy, environmentally sound and productive buildings that support sustainable lifestyles and communities.

The SDF delivers change through a series of learning networks, undertaking research and gathering evidence about leading-edge practices, providing education and training about their implementation, and then collaborating with leaders in each field to create exemplar projects, before finally measuring their actual performance and feeding this all back into the learning cycle again.

Their main programmes are focussed around groups of leading clients, with other members of the supply chain providing additional knowledge and support. Programmes include:

• the Good Homes Alliance - a gathering of leading-edge private and public sector housing developers and others (including Cullinans)
• SHINE - a learning network for sustainable healthcare estates
• LoCO2CO - looking beyond individual buildings to low carbon communities
• The Passivhaus Trust - a member-led organisation that promotes the Passivhaus standard in the UK.

For more information on the SDF, please contact info@sdfoundation.org.uk

Designed by Ted Cullinan the new Maggie's Cancer Caring Centre at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle is due to go on site this summer.