Contemporary North Yorkshire

An exhibition of contemporary architecture across North Yorkshire was held in central Harrogate during the RIBA Love Architecture Festival 2013.

The exhibition illustrated the work of architects from Yorkshire and beyond who have found inspiration from the context of North Yorkshire to create beautiful buildings that provide pleasure to their occupants. In the design of each of the buildings, the architects have solved a problem. This ranged from the need to open a Victorian house up to its garden so that a growing family can play safely, the creation of a new entrance to a primary school provides a new focal point and identity for its pupils, to the provision of an education facility to help increase the understanding of a heritage asset.

It brought together 18 projects from across North Yorkshire.

 Rossett Drive, Harrogate by Bramall Blenkharn, Malton

 Sycamore House, Malton by Bramall Blenkharn, Malton

 Fountains Abbey Visitor Centre, Ripon by Cullinan Studio, London

 Kitchen Garden, Harrogate by Doma Architects, Wetherby

 House extension, Harrogate by Horsley Townsend Architects, Wetherby

 Hinderwell Community Primary School, Scarborough by Jacobs Architecture, Northallerton

 Private House, Follifoot by Merrell O'Flaherty Dormer Architects, Harrogate

 Private House, Wetherby by OMI Architects, Manchester

 Agricultural Centre, Harrogate by P+HS Architects, Stokesley

 New School Entrance, Hipswell CE Primary School by Pearce Bottomley LLP

  Washburn Heritage Centre, Fewston by Pearce Bottomley LLP

 Greenway, Harrogate by Sense of Space Architects, Ilkley

 1 zero 4, Harrogate by Seven Architecture, Harrogate

Harrogate Cricket Club by Seven Architecture, Harrogate 

Hellifield Peel, Skipton by Shaw & Jagger Architects, Harrogate

 Link Interchange Headquarters, Harrogate by Smith Smalley Architects Ltd, Harrogate

 Whitby Abbey Visitor Centre by Stanton Williams, London

Photographer's Studio, Lower Wharfe Valley by Wildblood Macdonald Architects, Wetherby

The aim of the exhibition was to illustrate that good design can help to create better places for us all to live, work and play, and to promote architecture to the public. 

Over the 7 days that the exhibition was open, it attracted a lot of attention and a constant flow of people viewed it.

photographs of the exhibition space in the St Peter's Church, Harrogate, designed by Pearce Bottomley Architects

Commemorative plaque in Ripon for first RIBA President

Ruth Donnelly, Graham Boyce, Richard Compton, Lucinda Compton, Richard Taylor and David Wimpenny with the new plaque

Graham Boyce and Ruth Donnelly represented RIBA and NYSA at the unveiling of the Ripon Civic Society commemorative plaque outside the Prison and Police Museum in Ripon on 11 February 2013.
The plaque celebrates aristocratic amateur architect Thomas Philip Robinson (1781-1859), the Third Earl of Grantham, later Second Earl de Grey, and first RIBA President who designed the building. His great, great, great, great grandson Richard Compton of Newby Hall unveiled the plaque. 

The story was covered by the Ripon Gazette and Yorkshire Post

A little bit about Earl de Grey

photo credit: RIBA Library drawings collection. Available to purchase at RIBAPix.com

Earl de Grey became the first President of RIBA after Britain's most eminent architect of the time, Sir John Soanes, refused.

His masterwork was Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, one of the finest houses built in the eighteenth century French style. As a politician and member of the House of Lords, de Grey was in a position to promote the interests of RIBA and the architectural profession. He remained President for 25 years but since his death the rules change to allow his successors to be in post for a maximum of 2 years.

What's in a name

The former Harrogate and the Dales society of Architects dissolved in 2003. As part of a Yorkshire-wide focus on architecture communities in 2012, the society reformed. The first task was to decide whether the former name was appropriate and design a new logo.

Architects were invited to put forward their suggestions. Below are a few.

Mixd creative design agency looked through the designs, and decided that the latter design was the simplest and most effective.

Following much deliberation, we then decided that the name North Yorkshire Society of Architects abbreviated NYSA was much more inclusive yet snappy name than the former "Harrogate and the Dales Society of Architects."

Mixd then worked up our current logo for use as a favicon and header logo.