Building Out

        New Address: 10 Clifton Avenue, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1BS

          J I A Email Addresses, Telephone Number and Website Address remain the same

Change of Location

J I A's new postal address, from 21st October 2025 will be:

10 Clifton Avenue, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1BS

J I A Email Addresses, Telephone Number and Website Address remain the same.

Summerhouse Construction Update

 JIA's whimsical design for a summerhouse, in a walled garden in Hampshire, is taking shape. 

The building is designed to be unheated. When glazed it will avoid excessive summer temperatures by employing a system of automatic opening vents. These will be powered by oil-filled pistons reacting to changes in weather. It is the same system as used on greenhouses for the same purpose. 

Office Update

JIA's current office, a historic Listed Building in Hotwells, is going to be converted into much needed residential apartments. 

Our centre of gravity will remain in Bristol, with office and meeting room accommodation now spread across several sites to provide a more responsive service to our clients. 

New contact details:

Telephone: 0117 462 7050

Mail: JIA Architects, PO Box 720, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 9UA. 

Website and email addresses remain the same. 

Conserving Conservatories

There is a heavily advertised business converting conservatories into ‘garden rooms’. This involves swapping over the glass roof panes for insulated panels.

The argument goes that conservatories were originally installed to take advantage of VAT exemption and now everyone is aware that they are too hot in summer and too cold in winter. So a massive dose of insulation is needed to make them habitable again.

But Is that assessment fair?

The VAT reduction is probably an urban myth, but are conservatories really more trouble than they're worth? 

For clarity, we are talking about glass structures attached to a house with a linking door(s). They usually face in a southerly direction and don’t have any source of heating other than the sun.

If you have one of these the main benefit is free solar heating. And this can be enormous during the spring to autumn months:

This graph (downloaded from a Tado smart thermostat *) shows the heating potential of a conservatory in mid March on a sunny day. Heat input from the conservatory (A) is just as significant as the gas boiler working flat out (B). The conservatory catches the energy from sunshine and turns it into an enormous surge of warm air. Clear evidence that,  potentially, solar heating could provide a large proportion of a dwelling’s annual heating.

Especially if there is some efficient means to store heat during the day. In this example the warm air was allowed to waft into the house, warming up the fabric, before it eventually started to cool down in the late afternoon and evening. However, a more organised heat store might extend the benefit over many more hours.

Other positive features of conservatories are:

 -    A buffer space, increasing the thermal insulation of the outside wall of the part of the house it abuts.

 -    Living space warm enough during several hours of the day with no supplementary heating, even in  the depth of winter.

-    An area where washing can be dried without consuming fossil energy, even when raining, like a boiler room.

-    Likely reductions in internal humidity, resulting in a dry house and no mould.

-    Protection from frost for garden plants during winter.

* Recorded by a thermostat placed on the first floor landing of a typical Victorian terrace house. The conservatory is approximately 8 metres long x 2.4 metres wide and is overshadowed by nearby buildings in the afternoon.

Further areas for study:

-   Linking greenhouses to dwellings.

-   Very thin conservatories.

-   Heat stores.

-   Case study figures for annual space heating fuel savings.

-   Different scenarios for varying occupancies and ages of house.

Finishing touches

Decorations are finally complete in the Manor House drawing room following lengthy drying out. Gallons of water were used to cool and lubricate drilling through the external walls before the insertion of structural anchors to prevent further movement. 

Project Update

Restoration of an eighteenth century manor house is moving towards a satisfying conclusion. Subsidence has been stabilised with the insertion of structural tie rods. Cracks in the front elevation have been pointed with lime mortar and gaps in window surrounds filled. 

The portico over the front door has been strengthened, where it appeared to be moving away from the facade, with stainless steel. The front terrace paving is being re-laid with a granulated stone strip to absorb rainwater. This is designed to reduce splash back onto the front elevation, avoiding further deterioration of the first few courses of blue lias stone. 

Home Office Aery

 

Change of lifestyle during the Covid lockdown created a need to create a dedicated work area in a small two bedroom cottage. Our solution is to carve out an aery-like space within the roof void, accessed from the back bedroom. Planning permission has been granted, on appeal, and we are now preparing working drawings.

Arched Opening

Restoration of an arched gateway in the boundary wall of a listed building in Bishopsworth, Bristol. Sand/cement mortar will be replaced with a traditional sand/lime mix.
 

Placeholder

For better or worse, collaborating is increasingly an online activity. 

This image sign posts a shared space for ideas and conversations.

More information at: biohybridbodies.wordpress.com 

Living with Living Machines

A UCL research project into Biohybridity has adopted this twitter logo designed by JIA:

The term ‘Living Machines’ has appeared in the last decade, announcing a science to understand and harness the convergence between biology and technology. This banner includes projects that create new technologies inspired by nature (biomimetics), projects that engineer/orchestrate living matter (synthetic biology), and projects that intimately couple biological entities with manufactured components for new biohybrid systems.

String Theory

 

Preliminary design for a guitar teaching and practice suite with workshop and storage for a guitar shop in Bristol.

A new courtyard will be formed at the end of the shop, which is currently being fitted out.

One Bedroom House

 This design for a one bedroom house in Brislington has just been submitted for planning approval. It works with the very tight constraints imposed by the site, sitting next to an existing house with a distinctive profile. The new dwelling would respect the amenity of its neighbour, while also creating a combined larger visual entity. 

The living room faces north. However, high level windows allow sunlight to enter from the south, also promoting cross ventilation.

 JIA have achieved Listed Building Approval with KB-2 structural engineers for extensive structural repairs to this historic Grade II* building in Bristol.

Soft Space Cubicle

JIA are developing a prototype design for a safe clinical room at Bristol Royal Hospital For Children. It is designed to be inclusive, catering for a wide range of patients, including those with challenging mental conditions.

The brief called for a calm, neutral space adaptable to individual needs. The scheme places all the usual clinical paraphernalia in smooth, laminate casings with flush, fob-operated doors. When closed, the equipment does not intimidate or present a ligature risk to young patients. The skin of the casings doubles as a screen for a video projector. Patient packs containing toys and sensory materials are stored on shelves, which also house phone-charging points, data outlets and other services.

Following sign-off by stakeholders it is proposed to progress through detailed design to tender and building out early in 2020.

Beach House

Proposals for a new structure to replace a dilapidated house on a site facing the sea at Sand Bay near Weston-super-Mare.

Views over the Bristol Channel are spectacular, especially from higher levels.

The client is keen to enjoy the outlook to a maximum, so living space is arranged on the top floor with a vaulted roof over. At the centre is a large roof lantern that also serves to drop light into a central staircase leading down to bedrooms.

The house is revealed to view through incisions in the land, as this massing study demonstrates.

Garden Room

This preliminary visualisation explores proposals to take down a rear kitchen extension (with a pitched roof and small windows) to replace with a new, wider structure with large windows and a roof lantern.

Walls would be constructed in timber frame with a rendered finish to keep construction thicknesses to a minimum. New windows and French doors would be powder coated aluminium.

Community Hub

The new Llanedeyrn community hub extension is settling in as a valuable local resource with the library and cafe on the entrance level both well used. South Wales Police occupy the first floor (I'm assured they take no interest in enforcing library fines).

The outdoor seating area, stepping down from road level was a bit wet on the day of our visit, but later in the year it could provide additional social meeting space.

The red railings are formed with laser cut panels designed by JIA, set between steel posts.

Office Fit-Out

JIA prepared this design for GSH Projects to create an office interior in a vacant shop unit in the centre of Bristol. The 1625 Independent People charity, moving into space provided by the Unite Student Group, wanted a welcoming and informal arrangement of spaces for drop-in meetings and group working. The project was completed in just 5 weeks on site, which included selection and procurement of finishes and furniture. The decorations include elements from the charity's corporate colours.

Making an Entrance

A bold sign, strategically positioned against a back-drop of coloured cladding panels, double glazed windows and powder coated trims signals the way to enter the recently completed Llanedeyrn Hub extension. The new building houses a library and cafe on the ground floor and offices for South Wales Police on the first.

Curved steps form a route down from the road with an outside seating area bordered with laser cut railings.