David Johnson, as a part of his ongoing work with the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC), recently had the opportunity to travel to George Town, Malaysia for the ‘We Are Site Managers’ conference, where he was a key note speaker for Session 13: ‘Resources for Site Managers: Disaster Risk Preparedness and Dealing With Emergencies’. He introduced attendees to the ‘Emergency Programme’ developed by OWHC which aims to assist member cities and their site managers to identify risks, explore methods on natural and man-made disaster prevention and longer term management with a view to protect heritage sites worldwide.

We recently presented our proposal for the transformation of the Nautical Museum in Castletown on the Isle of Man to the Tynwald and various stakeholder engagement days. Interviews with Project Lead, Jon Parry, together with our animated walkthrough can be found here and here

The project combines conservation and repair of the entire historic Nautical Museum site with an architecturally distinct, sustainable and sympathetic design for a new-build display boathouse for the historic ship, The Peggy. The completed project will transform access & interpretation, combining historic collections, vibrant new interactives and displays to provide a world class, all weather attraction for Castletown, offering engaging and enjoyable experiences that will embrace and inspire visitors of all ages and abilities.

The proposal combines the highest standards of conservation and adaptation of existing historic buildings together with innovative and accessible approaches to exhibition design, visitor interaction, understanding and enjoyment.

Dannatt Johnson Architects lead a design team including Steensen Varming and AECOM, with Project Management from Fraser Randall. This team delivered our recent award-winning collaboration at the Imperial War Museum Second World War and Holocaust Galleries. Exhibition Designers Real Studios have also worked along side us, following our previous work together for the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

We are proud to be working with Manx National Heritage on this prestigious and significant site, and look forward to the exciting possibilities and opportunities that this complex and transformational project will provide. The project is currently on hiatus, while funding applications and fundraising activities are undertaken. In the meantime, we are pleased to share some of our team’s concept images for the project, presented to the Tynwald and stakeholders in recent days.

We recently enjoyed a tour of The Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), kindly escorted by our ex-colleague who, having worked at DJA on projects including at Chiswick House and Dover Castle, is now involved in Strategic Estates at the Palace. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear about the large projects undertaken and overseen by her team, such as the recent refurbishment of the Elizabeth Tower; and the history of the site, as well as appreciating the variety of architectural details throughout.

DJA are proud to be one of 200 businesses taking part in the Mayor of London’s Business Climate Challenge (BCC) 2023. This programme is funded by the Mayor and works with London businesses to help them prepare for the green transition and future proof their organisation, and help them become net-zero by 2030. By committing to decreasing their energy usage by at least 10 percent a year, we will receive technical support to help us operate more efficiently, reduce energy consumption, and play our part in tackling the climate emergency.

As a practice, sustainability is already at the heart of what we do - adapting existing buildings, rather than building new is one of the greatest contributions we can make within the construction industry. We also strive to reflect this within our workplace: all of our energy is from renewable sources; all staff commute via public transport, on foot or by bike; and we operate a zero-to-landfill initiative. Having access to the support and resources provided through the BCC will push us even further in our commitment to sustainability and protection of the environment.

You can see a full list of participants and learn more about the scheme here.

We are delighted to announce that our recent competitive bid to deliver the transformation of the Nautical Museum in Castletown on the Isle of Man was successful.

The project combines conservation and repair of the entire historic Nautical Museum site with an architecturally distinct, sustainable and sympathetic design for a new-build display boathouse for the historic ship, The Peggy. The completed project will transform access & interpretation, combining historic collections, vibrant new interactives and displays to provide a world class, all weather attraction for Castletown, offering engaging and enjoyable experiences that will embrace and inspire visitors of all ages and abilities.

The proposal combines the highest standards of conservation and adaptation of existing historic buildings together with innovative and accessible approaches to exhibition design, visitor interaction, understanding and enjoyment.

Dannatt Johnson Architects lead a design team including Steensen Varming and AECOM, with Project Management from Fraser Randall. This team delivered our recent award-winning collaboration at the Imperial War Museum Second World War and Holocaust Galleries. Exhibition Designers Real Studios are also joining us following our previous work together for the National Museum of the Royal Navy. We also look forward to working alongside Island based architects Horncastle:Thomas and quantity surveying practice Magee & Co.

We are proud to be working with Manx National Heritage on this prestigious and significant site, and look forward to the exciting possibilities and opportunities that this complex and transformational project will provide in developing a new all-weather heritage visitor experience for the island. In the meantime, we are pleased to share some of our team’s concept images for the project which formed part of the tender submission.

We are pleased to announce that our recent galleries project at the Imperial War Museum, London has just been awarded the Museums + Heritage Permanent Exhibition of the Year Award. We are very proud to have been involved with such an important development and to have worked closely with such a well-established and engaged design and client team.

What the judges said:

“An outstanding game-changing, global exhibition, with decolonisation at its forefront. Embracing many difficult stories, juxtaposing them and blowing apart the traditional narrative. The Second World War and the Holocaust Galleries literally and figuratively, bring global and personal stories of humanity and inhumanity, into the light.”

Ealing Allotment Partnership: Grow The Universe

After a successful collaboration last year with Ascott Allotments, winning ‘Best Community Allotment 2021’ at RHS Hampton Court, we jumped at the opportunity to get involved again this year.

The team decided to go bigger this year, by involving reps from allotments across Ealing, to share ideas and work together to produce a garden truly representative of the diversity of people and ways of growing found in this West London borough. Ealing Allotment Partnership is a community-led group, working with Ealing Council, on behalf of all allotment tenants in the borough. EAP represents 45 allotment sites and aims to develop community involvement, offer mutual support, raise funds and generally improve all sites within the borough.

The design for 2022 is entitled ‘Grow the Universe’ and incorporates elements which are important to us at this time and are symbolised by the Mandala – a geometric configuration of symbols used in various spiritual traditions as a focus for meditation, a beautiful art form and a living tradition used in everyday life and at important celebrations.

While looking out to the wider universe, the show garden is very much rooted in the allotments of Ealing with most of the plants having been grown by allotmenteers across the borough and materials borrowed and sourced locally. Upholding the values of ‘grow locally’ and ‘involve the community’, all the plants and materials will be re-used after the show in Ealing allotment sites - a truly sustainable garden.

We are very much looking forward to the finished product and wish our allotment friends good weather and good luck for the growing season.

DJA celebrated Christmas together with a visit to the Second World War and Holocaust galleries at the Imperial War Museum. It was a great opportunity for the whole office to experience the spaces out of hours and for those involved with the project to present their work to the team.

We enjoyed a meal at the wonderful Garden Museum, where our tradition of sharing hand-made ‘Secret Santa’ gifts was fulfilled; with a huge variety of individual artistic and creative talent was on display.

From everyone at Dannatt, Johnson Architects we wish you a very happy and healthy Christmas and look forward to seeing what 2022 has in store!

We were delighted to attend the private opening of two newly completed permanent exhibitions at the Imperial War Museum in London, which will be open to the public from 20th October.

The new Second World War and Holocaust galleries implement phase two of the Foster and Partners masterplan for site, which had commenced with a major refurbishment of the atrium and creation of new First World War galleries at the lower level of this Grade II listed building.

DJA were appointed together with our own sub-consultant team of structural and services engineers AECOM and Steensen Varming and acoustic consultants Sound Space Design to design all of the basebuild works required to create the new spaces for these exhibitions across two levels of the building, working closely over the last 5 years with both teams of exhibition designers and IWM’s curatorial and project leadership.

This BIM Level 2 project involved major structural and services interventions to create nearly 3000 square meters of gallery floor space through a combination of a new floor structure inserted into the former cinema and the interconnection and conversion of existing gallery spaces, back of house storage spaces, conference spaces space and former education spaces. The structural work in the cinema required over a year to complete the necessary demolition and major structural alteration works, and these took place directly beneath the existing Holocaust Gallery on Level 3, and directly above the First World War galleries on Level 0, both of which remained fully open to the public throughout the entire course of the project. The services work also involved provision for complex temporary services works building-wide to ensure that the building could remain open throughout.

The new galleries build upon the high standards for narrative-based museums set by IWM. The Second World War Gallery (Exhibition Designer: Ralph Applelbaum Associates) provides IWM London for the very first time with a complete exhibition exploring the course of the Second World War from its beginnings to its conclusion, detailed in its full global context and importantly, in parallel with the historical course of the holocaust, which at one point is linked with this exhibition through a double height space connecting the two galleries around a single artefact linked to both narratives. The look and feel of this gallery connects directly to the First World War gallery on the level below, but there is a much greater emphasis within the new exhibition towards connecting artefacts to the personal stories of individuals experiencing all aspects of a global conflict that was of unprecedented scale in all of human history.

The Holocaust Gallery (Exhibition Designer: Casson Mann) sets out the course of the history of the Holocaust from the 1930’s to beyond the Nurembourg trials, ending with an exhibition of survivor testimonies. This new exhibition, informed by the vast amount of new scholarship and study that has taken place since the creation of the previous exhibition, is brightly lit and created as a set of overlapping spaces in shades of blue. This, together with the use of compelling video pieces showing the sites of atrocities as they are today in their natural beauty makes the point that these events did not happen in the shadows. There are personal stories both of victims and, importantly, perpetrators ranging from the familiar to the great many unknown and often unremarkable individuals who became the instruments of this Nazi programme of unspeakable horror.

If you’d like a preview of the exhibition, IWM have released a short video which can be seen here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/preview-of-new-second-world-war-and-the-holocaust-galleries

Our celebration of the life and varied works of Trevor Dannatt RA is currently being exhibited as a part of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021. Trevor was also an artist in addition to his considerable accomplishments as an architect and teacher and made a point of contributing sketches, drawings and paintings every year to the Summer Exhibition, which raises funds for the RA’s own post-graduate School of Art through the sale of the artworks shown.

Exhibited together with a bronze bust sculpted by Aidan Crawshaw are three models by his own hand; each representative of a different strand of artistic exploration, just as his architecture always sought to combine and drawn on conceptual and diverse artistic ideas in its resolution of architectural needs.

Alongside this are several hand-rendered architectural drawings, indicative of his era-spanning career in which he created an undeniably modern architecture that was nevertheless imbued with respect for traditional techniques and materials.