London: The Latest Architecture and News

Architects: Serie Architects Location: London, UK Design Architects: Serie Architects Executive Architects: Franken Architekten Structural Engineering: AKT II Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Edmund Sumner

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Now in its eighth year, the Maggie’s London Night Hike invites you to participate in a ten to twenty mile “hike” through the capital city and explore a number of landmark buildings and iconic structures. In collaboration with the Open House London, the event aims to raise money for charity and give recognition to important, well-designed places and spaces that have a positive effect on everybody’s well being.

London Night Hike patron actress Hermione Norris said: “I have been involved in the Maggie’s London Night Hike for four years and I am really looking forward to taking part again this year. It is always an incredible event with great buildings, entertainment, support and most importantly – amazing people. I’m looking forward this year to exploring the Roca Gallery, which is a new building on the route as well as having a night time trip on the London Eye.”

Other buildings confirmed include the Sterling Prize-winning Maggie’s West London centre, City Hall, Leadenhall Market, Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Geographical Society, and 20 Gresham Street with more to be announced.

Maggie’s Night Hike will take place in London on Friday, September 21, 2012. Register here!

As the world turns its eyes to London in 2012, Design Stories examines the architecture and engineering behind the 2012 sporting venues. It provides a unique Olympic experience – a place where people can explore and view drawings, images, videos and amazingly detailed models of London’s key new sporting venues.

In our final segment of Thinking Past Day 17 – our series examining the larger implications of hosting the Olympic Games – we conclude with ideas for the future host cities that involve dividing the Games across 7 permanent sites, complete with reusable architecture and a focus on sustainability at the urban level.

The effects of urban displacement coupled with post-Games housing concerns for the Athletes’ Village in Olympic Park – which we addressed in Part II - will definitely test the future viability of the Olympic Committee’s planning strategies. It is interesting to note that in relation to the entirety of the Olympic map, the area designated for the Village represents only a minuscule portion of the land that must be reintegrated post-Olympics. So, if we zoom out from the Athletes’ Village, what will become of the vast expanses of land currently supporting the major sporting facilities?

With a quarter million LEGO bricks and 300 hours of finger intensive labor, Warren Elsmore and his wife constructed a mini replica of the 2012 Olympic Park in London. As Gizmodo reports, the model weighs about 80kg and would cost around $300,000 to build for scratch!

The miniature world is complete with Anish Kapoor’s Orbit, Zaha Hadid’s Aquatics Centre, Wilkinson Eyre Architects’ Basketball Arena, Hopkins Architects’ Velodrome, and Populous’ Olympic Stadium.

Continue after the break for a time-lapse video and more images.

Dover Street Market has commissioned Zaha Hadid to design this site-specific installation to showcase in their London store during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The concept behind “Aqua” references the formal language of Hadid’s London Aquatics Centre.

Zaha Hadid: “Designing for Dover Street Market is an exciting opportunity to install a piece inspired by the fluid geometries of the London Aquatics Centre: a wave of liquid, frozen in time, right in the heart of London.”

Continue after the break for more images.

This summer, New York artist Kurt Perschke brought his celebrated art project RedBall to the UK. Co-produced by Torbay Council and The Dartington Hall Trust, it arrived on the streets of the English Riviera in Torbay in June before touring to Plymouth, Exeter, Weymouth & Portland and London, finishing the tour at Dartington Hall and popping up in a total of 20 sites. The project engaged thousands of people on its tour of alleyways, underpasses, high streets, town squares, heritage sites and bridge arches across the country. Alongside the tour, the RedBall UK education project worked with hundreds of young people and staff in 5 schools to raise the aspirations and achievements of Year 6 pupils. Text Courtesy of Danny Cooke. For more information on RedBall UK, please visit here.