





An architectural collective has won the £15,000 competition prize to redevelop the Ambassador House forecourt despite not submitting a ‘finished design’. The team comprising of Compendium, Studio Yu and Tomos, fought off local competition to lead on designing the £75,000 meanwhile project entitled Made in Thornton Heath. The main focus of their submission was about creating a collaborative process and their desire to work closely with local residents and artists to create a strategic framework and toolkit, to ‘help Thornton Heath to succeed in co-authoring a new civic square. ‘ They promise to offer expertise as consultants, agents, facilitators and coordinators, but we will ‘let locals have the final say! ‘ The competition hosted by the council’s regeneration team will also include Thornton Heath artists Van Dang and Bareface who impressed the review panel of council officers with their submissions for the site. The winning architectural trio are made up of architects Christopher Paxton who is based in Denmark, Jeremy Yu, who starts a job this month with Croydon Council developer Brick by Brick and designer Tomos Owen, all (pictured in order) have worked together on similar projects, creating pieces for events in London and Copenhagen (pictured). As a collective, the team will be developing a design for a meanwhile civic space to host community events, while also producing wall art reflecting the local area. The submissions were reviewed, shortlisted and based on; concept, local connection, design quality, buildability, ongoing maintenance requirements and budget. Tomorrow (Sat 9th), the project team will be bringing a ‘listening station’ to the Tesco store in Thornton Heath, in order to hear people’s ideas for the new public space, between 11am and 2pm. Councillor Paul Scott, cabinet lead for regeneration and planning, said: “The architectural team selected did not submit a finalised design because they want the idea to emerge through engaging with the community that is going to benefit from the transformation of this public space. “I look forward to seeing the design develop and become something residents in Thornton Heath can really get behind and be proud of.” The winning team will be known as the CR7 Square team. In a statement they said: “We are delighted to have been selected to deliver this new community-led public space in the heart of Thornton Heath. “This project offers an exciting opportunity to design from the bottom up, listening and learning from what the community want through a series of workshops and events. “With a shared authorship approach we will deliver a community space that truly belongs to the people of Thornton Heath.”