London-based firm Tate Harmer has won a competition to design a new £6 million ($7.4 million USD) museum for The Scout Association (TSA) at the group’s headquarters in Chingford, east London. Their proposal takes the form of a big, colorful tent that will tell the story of the Scouting movement within a fun, environmentally conscious structure.
BDP and Wolfgang Buttress’ pavilion, The Hive, has been awarded the 2016 Landscape Institute Award for Best Design for a Temporary Landscape as part of their 2016 awards program.
Judges for the award noted the project’s ability to interact with its site, remarking that they were ‘impressed by the quality and simplicity of the design and execution, in particular the way in which the design works with a sensitive landscape to provide a beautiful and functional temporary setting for the installation, and a longer-term facility for events and education.”
In 2017, British news magazine The Economist will move to a new home, leaving behind its iconic home of 52 years, Economist Plaza.
The project represents the first major commission by British duo Alison and Peter Smithson, who would go on to have esteemed careers as champions of the Brutalist style. Located at 22 Ryder Street, not far from Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, Economist Plaza marked a significant breakthrough in tall building design, replacing the traditional streetfront of a podium and tower design with stairs and a ramp leading to an elevated plaza from which 3 buildings would rise.
Watch the video above to learn the story behind the project, and read more about the legacy the Economist will leave behind, here.
The Sir John Soane’s Museum is often cited as a seminal inspiration for architects of all generations. Located in London's Lincoln's Inn Fields, the house—designed by Soane (born in 1753), architect of the Bank of England—is a remarkable biographical bricolage of unique spaces, objects and ideas. Kept exactly as it was at the time of Soane's death in 1837, the museum is packed with paintings, sculpture, furniture and drawings – all curated and composed by the architect himself to "enhance their poetic qualities."
Brett Steele, Director of London's Architectural Association (AA) since 2005, has announced that he will become Dean of UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture in August 2017. Although American-born, Steele has since become a naturalized British citizen. He studied at the AA, the University of Oregon, and the San Francisco Art Institute respectively, before working as a Project Architect at Zaha Hadid Architects in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Next year the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) will open a seminal new exhibition: Mies van der Rohe & James Stirling: Circling the Square. The show will examine two iconic schemes proposed for the same site in the City of London: Mies van der Rohe’s unrealised Mansion House Square project (developed by Lord Peter Palumbo) and its built successor, James Stirling Michael Wilford & Associates’ No.1 Poultry.
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The team led by light artist Leo Villareal and architects and urban planners Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands has been announced as the winner of the Illuminated River International Design Competition.
Selected from a six-strong shortlist of internationally acclaimed architects and designers, the winning design was lauded by Illuminated River Foundation Chair Hannah Rothschild as “beautiful, ambitious and realisable but always considerate to the environment, lighting levels and energy conservation.”
With the opening of the new Design Museum in London, the former Commonwealth Institute building designed by RMJM in 1962 has been given a new lease of life. With an exterior renovation by OMA and Allies & Morrison, and interiors by John Pawson, last month the building reopened after a fourteen-year closure—finally offering the public a chance to experience the swooping paraboloid roof from the inside. Read on to see photographs of the Design Museum's new home by Luc Boegly & Sergio Grazia.
Originally built to house over 7,000 people in the 1970s, the Aylesbury Estate in South East London was once one of largest housing projects in Europe. In recent years it has "fallen into rapid decline" and, according to British filmmaker Joe Gilbert, "perfectly encapsulates the growing housing crisis and problems caused by gentrification." With narration by Tom Dyckhoff, this short film aims to capture the reality of a housing utopia which has de-evolved into an uncomfortable reality.
Between March of 2013 and December of 2014, Simon Henley of London-based practice Henley Halebrown wrote a regular column for ArchDaily titled “London Calling,” covering architectural topics of note in the UK's capital. Now, Henley is returning to his column – but in the wake of 2016's shock political developments, his column is re-branding. Thus, here he presents the first of his column “Beyond London” – a look at architectural topics around the UK. Here, Henley presents his opinion on those political developments, and the role architects should play as the UK embarks on a new period in its history.
Post-Brexit, British architects need to think hard about the profession’s London-centric position. There has been a policy of inclusion of non-London architects on panels, their work in magazines and on awards shortlists, but this is not enough. It was quite clear on June 24th when the London design community awoke to the realization that Britain will leave the European Union, that a “Remain”-minded bubble had formed within the capital. The same may be true of the other large cities around the country which voted largely in favour of “Remain.”
This week London's Science Museum will open The Winton Gallery, a new space dedicated to the study and exploration of mathematics, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. While this is the practice's first permanent public museum exhibition, it also represents the first UK project to open since the death of its eponymous founder and director.
Inspired by the Handley Page aircraft, the design of the space was conceived through observing equations of airflow used in the aviation industry. The layout and lines of the gallery therefore represents the movement of air that would have flowed around this historic aircraft in flight – a metaphor which extends from the positioning of the showcases and benches to the three-dimensional curved surfaces of the central pod structure.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced the President’s Medals Student Awards at a special event today in London. The awards, recognised as the world’s most prestigious in architectural education, were inaugurated in 1836 (making them, including the RIBA Gold Medal, the institute's oldest award). Three medals in particular—the Bronze for a Part I student (Bachelor level), the Silver for a Part II student (Masters level), and the Dissertation Medal—are awarded to “promote excellence in the study of architecture [and] to reward talent and to encourage architectural debate worldwide.” In addition to these, the winners of the Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing and the SOM Foundation Fellowships alongside a rostra of commendations have also been announced.
