Judges also praised parklets, planting under the flyover and two King Street shop fronts

The refurbished St Augustine's Church in Fulham Palace Road has been presented with the prestigious Tom Ryland Conservation Award by the Hammersmith Society.

The Hammersmith Society's annual awards, which aim to recognise improvements in our borough’s townscape, were announced at its AGM at Olympia's Apex Room and presented by the Society’s President, Hans Haenlein.

Tom Ryland Award for Conservation recognises successful conservation projects in the borough.  This Award was formerly named the Conservation Award, but was renamed in 2019, the 30th year of the Awards, in honour of the society's past chairman Tom Ryland.

The judges said of St Augustine's Church, which also recently won a Royal Institute of british Architects award: " When you step through the doors you enter an inspiring, simple church interior, white walls, light stained roof timbers, clear polished joinery and a wood floor, a building transformed in a refurbishment project in 2017 from the over-painted overdecorated interior which came before.

" The project team was led by Father Notarianni, himself an alumnus of the Slade, who saw the
potential for the transformation, with the architect Roz Barr.

"The new interior creates a wonderful haven, a refuge which welcomes you from the noisy city outside, whilst maintaining the quiet solemnity of the church interior. The Society applauds the courage of the project, the creative insight, the design sensitivity and restraint."

The Nancye Goulden Award is given for smaller schemes, either a building or landscaping, which have improved the local environment in some way. This year there were four Nancye Goulden Awards in two distinct pairs, all judged to be projects which have made positive contributions to the Hammersmith streetscape.

The first two are King Street shop fronts: Paintbox Studios and Coffeeology.

The judges said: "A good spell seems to have been cast on this end of King Street, where we are seeing a more intimate and diverse high street emerging, counterbalancing the more commercial character of the Broadway end.

" Paintbox has spotted a wonderfully quirky original frontage, and brought it back to life – and Coffeeology, its immediate neighbour, has celebrated the qualities of its original shopfront, restoring the fabric with careful colour selection and restrained graphics. These two shopfronts complete another wonderful thread in the King Street tapestry."

The other two Nancye Goulden Awards recognise another type of improvement to the streetscape in the form of the Hammersmith Grove Parklets, pictured below and The Planting under the Flyover.

Last year the Society noted their appreciation of the guerrilla gardening, undertaken by local residents, that was taking place in the borough and fully back the Council’s initiatives in supporting other greening schemes such as those identified here.

The Planting Under the Flyover scheme is a collaboration between Hammersmith BID (Hammersmith Business Improvement District), Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Medidata – a company working in the new offices at 10 Hammersmith Grove – and the Mayor’s office. The landscaping includes a hedge climber at the roadside railing designed to provide screening from the traffic and to absorb some of the heavy concentration of exhaust pollutant.

There was one other award this year - the Wooden Spoon, given each to eyesores or ones that just got it wrong.

This year, the unlucky recipient was Sovereign Court Phase 1, the Berkeley Homes development behind Kings Mall from local architect Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands.

The judges said: "There are many qualities to this new building, but the corner is what you see from so many angles, from the town centre approach and from Lyric Square, and we are concerned that this very prominent element of the building presents an unattractive
and confused profile which offers a poor addition to the town centre streetscape."

The Society said that this year there was no building project considered to be worthy of the main prize, the Environment Award, adding that this is in part a reflection of the relatively few projects completed this year - and it is hoped that there are more contenders next year.

July 4, 2019