Hodder and associates were founded by Stephen Hodder in 1983. With over 40 national awards, Hodder and associates work across all the sectors nationally. Their arena of work includes everything from interior designing to master-planning and urban designing.
The practice is committed to designing excellence, producing thoughtful and sensitive solutions. The work seeks a future in the extension and transformation of the modern tradition wherein recurring themes of space, the composition of form, proportion, light, and materiality are explored within a framework that is concerned with context and ideates a functional building.
Below are mentioned 15 projects by Hodder + Partners.
1. Ovatus I and II, Liverpool
Ovatus I and II are residential towers located at the notable gateway to Liverpool waterfront and UNESCO World Heritage site. The site contains two towers out of which Ovatus II was intended to become one of the tallest towers in the Liverpool area. Ovatus I is 28 stories with 168 apartment blocks, while Ovatus II is about 50 stories high with 530 apartments.
The facade is designed to reflect the beautiful light of the adjacent estuary. The pattern of fenestration repeats across the elevation and generates the dynamic spiraling ‘grain’ on the facade.
2. Duncan House, Stratford
Duncan House is a mixed-use typology development in the heart of Stratford. It consists of about 511 rooms for student accommodations for the university of London. It rises to 32 stories and has the sky lounge on the top floor which provides a panoramic view of London city. Other than residential apartments, uses also include academic and commercial spaces along with the basement car parking for residents and employees.
The podium block adds a definition to the street edge and reflects its context having low-rise buildings, while the tower block sits on the east corner of the podium. There is also a central open courtyard in the podium which facilitates the natural light and ventilation to the internal spaces.
3. Motel One, Manchester
Motel one is the structure catering for sports and leisure, it is part seven and part fourteen floors. It has about a 330 bed hotel along with a bar. It could be observed that the context has different scaled buildings, which makes it stand out in the surrounding.
The form is geometrical, having a repetitive rhythm in the facade. Even the color palette chosen is subtle and calm. The external cladding is pre-cast concrete with a hydrophobic coating, while the window frames are bronze anodized aluminum.
4. St Catherine’s college phase II, Oxford
Being an educational and residential category, St. Catherine’s college phase II comprises 132 study bedrooms, a new porters’ lodge, and four seminar rooms. Completed in 2005, it has won several awards. The strategic planning where study bedrooms are arranged around staircases in pavilion form and define a new courtyard can be seen.
Each pavilion is ventilated passively by using solar gain which is being mitigated by horizontal cedar louvers to the lodge. Concrete fins are placed in the study bedrooms, together with the yellow ochre quarter-bonded brickwork, which creates a similarity with the original college buildings.
5. St Paul’s place, Sheffield
St Paul’s place is a workplace completed in the year 2016. The building adopts the sectional heights of its neighbors, but significantly the offices rise 9 stories above ground. This seeks to terminate the run of office buildings along Norfolk Street but also to establish nodal relationships with other taller buildings beyond Union Street and within the New Retail Quarter.
The core is situated in the center of the north elevation and is placed to permit the column-free floor plates to be subdivided into three autonomous offices, which in turn wrap around the core, affording views towards the Town Hall and St. Paul’s Place.
6. Corporation Street Bridge, Manchester
Corporation Bridge is the sky-walk that passes through Corporation street in Manchester. The old footbridge in Manchester was utterly damaged in the 1996 Manchester bombing. The renewal program was launched and the competition was won by Hodder and associates in 1997. The project was soon completed and opened to the public in 1999.
The bridge is shaped in the form of hyperbolic paraboloid and connects the Marks and Spencer building to the Manchester Arndale. The bridge appears as a light-weight glazed membrane and its transparency and symmetry optically redress the change in the level of the boardwalk which threads through from side to side. Its truncated conical collars anchor the structure to buildings at the end and naturally ventilate the bridge.
7. Cube Gallery, Manchester
Cube gallery located in Manchester city center is the gallery for architecture and built environment, part of a network throughout the UK. Built-in 1999, this gallery has hosted quite a lot of exhibitions featuring photography, multimedia, and architectural models.
The location of Cube house was formerly listed as a cotton warehouse. The two-floor structure was refurbished and converted for the gallery adding a contemporary layer to the then-present historic framework. The galleries are designed with simplicity having a subtle interplay of new screens.
The spaces are designed with clarity and provide a certain sense of ease for the users to navigate through them. Throughout the galleries, there is an interplay of volumes, surfaces, and quality of light, while tracing the sense of space rooted early on.
8. The National Wildflower Center, Knowsley
The National Wildflower center was completed in the year 2000 and is a working organization for ecological and regenerative concerns. It also won the RIBA award and Civic Trust awards in 2002. The center offers an opportunity for the visitors to understand the process involved in growing the wildflowers. It houses a visitor center, a cafe, and a shop. The center is also designed around the concept of wildflowers.
The 160 meters long sculpted inhabited wall extends through the Park linking the play/visitor areas with the working area of the Centre within an existing walled garden. The concrete wall at the east end is wholly permeable and lined with oak to define covered education areas. Upon entering, this palate is inverted with adjustable oak shutters cloaking an internal skin of concrete to the café bar and offices located at the west end.
9. Daisy Band road, Manchester
Daisy Bank Road is a residential development consisting of 8 semi-detached three-storey dwellings. The arrangement of houses is semi-detached and hence creates a sense of permeability allowing a visual link to the listed Addison Terrace which is to the rear side. The built-form reflects the massing in the context in terms of scale.
The highest element of the house is placed a little behind the elevation line so that the overall perceived height and mass differ. The elevation is designed in such a way that it reduces the visual scale of the structures and rather creates a sense of depth.
10. Oswald Medical practice, Chorlton
Oswald Medical practice completed in 1993 is a healthcare facility. Conceptually, wherever it was possible, elements of the Victorian shell have been conserved. The planning is in such a way that the public areas begin with the calm and reassuring waiting room within the old framework of the building. It further flows into the drum of the reception, through a secondary waiting area to consulting rooms in the near rear garden extension.
The material textures and light settings are following the concept. The elevation is entirely glazed with etched glass blocks and the composition is symmetrical to create an interplay with the arrangement of the rear access and landscape.
11. Colne Swimming pool, UK
The design was completed in 1992, and serves as a sports and leisure center. It comprises a main 25 × 13 m pool and a smaller teaching pool, a bar and cafeteria, a small health suite, and associated facilities. It acts as an extension to an English Sports Council Standardised Sports Hall. The location of the project is on the urban site.
The structure had two levels of which the plinth of stone offers a layer of memory. It has an amicable, tactile material in response to the local vernacular and which eventually brings a human scale to the whole.
The roof extends beyond the envelope as a canopy reinforcing the transparency of the east-facing public space which acts as the mediator between the building and the street. The permeability of natural light into space enhances the internal environment.
12. Centenary Building, Salford
This structure is a fusion of design and technology as stated in its brief. It consists of the Departments of Spatial, Graphic, and Industrial Design. The form is developed in response to the building context, the building defines a collegiate courtyard to an existing University building.
The street life becomes an aspect of the life of the building; common areas, adjoining offices, and studios engage with the street and imbibe it with a sense of purpose. The structure has won a lot of awards including the RIBA and Stirling prize.
13. Arena Central, Birmingham
Located within the Birmingham city center, it is one of the prominent sites adjacent to Richard Seifert’s Alpha Tower and part of the Arena Central masterplan. The design responds to the angled geometry of the site by creating two blocks placed around a core. One block of 24 stories has 324 apartments and 405 sqm of commercial space. While one block is 19 stories.
The ground floor has commercial activities to enhance the surrounding. The building material utilizes a precast concrete frame that contains the apartment balconies. It majorly responds to the mostly commercial context.
14. St Michael’s, Manchester
St, Michaels is a mixed-use development consisting of residential, retail, leisure, and work-place. As the site lies in the historical context, demolition of old buildings was prohibited in the conservation area. The strategy was developed after evaluating previous proposals, approached by Manchester City Council.
A new 150,000 sqft Grade A office building has the ground floor as retail. It is sited immediately behind the retained Portland Stone element of the original police station which is converted to a 30-bedroom boutique hotel. It is also equipped with a restaurant incorporated in a glazed addition at roof level.
15. Market House, Newcastle
Market House is located on Market Street in Newcastle City Centre, it houses both educational and residential functions. The site is close to the Central Conservation Area and is surrounded by significant heritage assets. The streetscape is taken into consideration for designing the layout and massing. There are 225 student bedrooms and associated communal facilities and landscaping.
The upper floors house the student’s accommodation while the ground floor is occupied by communal and management facilities. To the rear elevations, the glazed panels are reversed to allow the glazing to angle away from adjacent bedrooms, this gives more sense of privacy. The project was brought to completion in 2019.
