The Library at the London School of Pharmacy was formally opened on 9 December 2009 by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, Professor Sir Graeme Davies. The re-ordering of the library has been welcomed by staff and students, footfall has increased by 40% since the refurbishment, completed in a contract period of only 15 weeks.

The photo shows Professor Anthony Smith (Principal and Dean), Mr James Gemmell (Honorary Treasurer), Mrs Michelle Wake (Chief Librarian & Head of Library and Information Services), Professor Sir Graeme Davies (Vice-Chancellor of the University of London), Lord Tim Clement-Jones (Chair of Council) Photo © School of Pharmacy.

A new sports pavilion for King’s College School at Raynes Park has been submitted for planning. The building’s location, identified by the head groundsman, involves no loss of playable pitches, as well as a grandstand view of the playing fields. MBA worked with this idea to design a wedge-shaped building, carefully adapted to the path of the sun. The roof is a solar farm of photovoltaic panels generating 20% of the building’s energy requirements, fed back to the grid when the pavilion is not in use.

MBA’s conservation arm Stow & Beale Conservation Architects are carrying out a feasibility study for English Heritage at the Dover ‘Secret Wartime Tunnels’, a system of tunnels, now over 1km long, originally cut into the chalk cliffs in 1793, brick lined in 1810, and extended during the second world war to form a combined HQ for admiralty, army and air-force, complete with an underground field-hospital.

The tunnels were used for planning and directing ‘Operation Dynamo’ – the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in 1941 – and later for the invasion of Europe in 1944. Such was secrecy, those working in the tunnels did not know of their extent, access was allowed on a need-to-be-there room-by-room basis.

During the Cold War, the tunnels were upgraded and re-used as a Regional Centre of Government, before being declassified and handed to English Heritage in 1995. They are now a major visitor attraction at Dover Castle, and are to be represented as part of a regeneration programme aimed to make seaside towns thrive through improvements to heritage and tourism.

The London School of Pharmacy have selected MBA as architects for a major renewal of the UK’s only dedicated library of pharmacy. The new facility will be a bright, modern, humane space for study, group work and research, incorporating the latest principles of sustainable, holistic library design. Work is due to be carried out in summer 2009.

The new Cumnor House School Theatre in Sussex, was opened and used for the first time during the school’s Winter Term of 2008 – 4 September 2008.