V&A Museum: The Latest Architecture and News

The UK Government has announced £140 million in public funds will be granted to the planned "Olympicopolis" cultural quarter in East London, in the former 2012 Olympic Park. The museum and educational district is planned to feature a new outpost for the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum and Sadler’s Wells theatre, and a new campus for the University of the Arts London.

The site, which is just North of Zaha Hadid's Aquatics Centre, is the focus of an ongoing design competition which reportedly attracted almost 1,000 expressions of interest in the contest's pre-registration phase. The winner of the competition will be announced in March.

Drawings have long been used as a method for architects to represent their projects. However, architects sometimes make drawings to communicate a sense of space in a deeper and more meaningful way - in a manner that begins to venture into the realm of art. A new exhibition opening at London's V&A Museum this Saturday entitled Architects as Artists examines the overlapping relationship between architecture and art, and documents the many ways in which it is used and created.

Videos

Terence Conran asked nine of his friends in the design world "What have you always wanted in your home, but have never been able to find?" The result is The Wish List, a set of ten projects dreamed up by big name designers such as Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers, but designed and crafted in collaboration with emerging designers.

Sponsored by the American Hardwood Export Council, the only restriction was that the product had to be made of wood, leading to designs ranging from Foster's modest geometric pencil sharpeners to Paul Smith's dream garden shed.

As part of the 2014 London Design Festival, the resulting ten products will be on show at the V&A Museum until October 24th.

+ 16

The competition to design a cultural complex at London's new 'Olympicopolis' site formally opened today, seeking to attract "an exceptional team" of architects, masterplanners, engineers and landscape designers to transform the site next to London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Organizers Malcolm Reading Associates say that the competition has already registered over 960 expressions of interest from firms worldwide before the details were even announced, thanks to their early announcement seeking interested parties in July.

The complex will house outposts for the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, Sadler’s Wells and University of the Arts London. The designs for the complex will also respond to proposals for a new campus for University College London which is planned for an adjacent site, making it "one of the most exciting international developments in arts and culture," according to Director of the V&A Martin Roth.

Read on after the break for more details of the competition

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced a new competition for the designs of a cultural quarter next to the 2012 Olympic park. The site has been dubbed 'Olympicopolis', and so far has expressions of interest from University College London, University of the Arts London, the V&A, Sadler's Wells Theatre and now possibly - according to the Guardian - Washington DC's Smithsonian.

Read on after the break for more details of the competition

The Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki has revealed early designs for China's "first major design museum", a project in the Shekou district of Shenzhen commissioned by China Merchants Group (CMG) in collaboration with London's V&A Museum. The design model was unveiled yesterday at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London, where representatives of CMG and the V&A signed a collaboration agreement to deliver the museum, which is hoped to open at the end of 2016.

Maki's design for the Shekou Museum features three severely cantilevered volumes atop a deconstructed plinth; a staircase at the corner of the building also leads to the green public space on the roof.

More on the project after the break