UK: The Latest Architecture and News

Grimshaw can claim their horticultural Eden Project in Devon, South West England as being among their most iconic works. Nestled in a disused quarry, simultaneously acting as an embedded landscape feature and an alien spacecraft holding precious specimens and plants, the scheme has been celebrated as a successful modern interpretation of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome concept.

Having been speculated upon both in Qingdao, China, and loosely on the Planet Mars, the Architects Journal reports that Grimshaw has begun work on a new £100 million Eden Centre in Morecambe, on England’s north-west coast.

They say that bad publicity is good publicity. Nevertheless, late August is a time for baited breath among UK architects, as the readers of Building Design generate the shortlist for Britain’s "ugliest" building. Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder and judgment towards these unpopular designs shouldn't necessarily be generalized. However, this competition opens up important dialogues about architectural aesthetics and public reception of new projects.

Continuing the 12-year tradition of what has been called the RIBA Stirling Prize’s less fortunate sibling, the shortlist for the 2018 Carbuncle Cup showcases the six projects which British architecture followers love to hate. Previous winners of the prize include the Cutty Sark by Grimshaw in 2012, and Rafael Viñoly Architects' 20 Fenchurch Street in 2015.

Schmidt Hammer Lassen has won an invited competition for the design of the Marine Knowledge Hub in Liverpool, United Kingdom. The 70,000-square-foot (6,400-square-meter) scheme, intended for marine engineering research, survival training, workspace, and events, seeks to elevate the status of both Liverpool and the United Kingdom in the maritime research industry.

The scheme forms part of the Wirral Waters regeneration project, a £4.5 billion masterplan, which represented the largest planning application ever submitted in the UK in 2009.

Since 1996, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has hosted awards for exemplary buildings across the UK by RIBA Chartered Architects and RIBA International Fellows. This year, 93 projects were shortlisted out of 203 entries for the 2018 RIBA London Awards; including designs by Foster + Partners, Hawkins\Brown, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and Make Architects. Each project will be visited by one of five London juries during the month of April. Winners will be announced at the award ceremony on May 15th at the RIBA headquarters at 66 Portland Place, London.

Scroll down to see a complete list of the shortlisted architectural works.

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Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham’s CRAB Studio has revealed the design of a new Innovation Studio being constructed at the Arts University Bournemouth in Poole, England.

A conceptual successor to the blue Drawing Studio completed by CRAB on the university campus in 2016, the Innovation Studio will serve a larger program – a space for small start-ups led by recent graduates to develop with support from business experts within the university and from across the globe.

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The Architectural Association has announced that Eva Franch I Gilabert has been selected as their new Director, following a public months-long search to replace former Director Brett Steele and interim Director Samantha Hardingham.

The AA School Community, consisting of students, staff and Council members, selected Franch i Gilabert from a shortlist of 3 candidates by a majority vote of 67%, the highest percentage received in a contested election since 1990. Over 1,000 total ballots were cast.

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Zaha Hadid Architects has revealed a proposal for the pedestrianization of their home city, London, that would gradually transform the city into an interconnected system of walkable roads.

Named Walkable London, the research proposal has identified the arteries and areas of the city that would most benefit from pedestrianization. The transformation would be implemented over three phases: primary avenues, secondary avenues, and finally, entire districts.  Notable avenues marked for alteration include Upper Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street. 

Henning Larsen Architects has revealed plans for a £400 million development that will transform the waterfront of Belfast. At 16 acres, the master plan constitutes the Northern Irish capital’s largest single ground-up development in recent history.

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Just four months after winning the 2017 Stirling Prize, the UK’s top honor for architecture, dRMM’s Hastings Pier is now up for sale, as the charity that owned and operated the structure was declared insolvent for failing to reach self-funding status.

The Architectural Association has announced a shortlist of 3 candidates in the running to become the new AA Director, who will lead the direction of one of the world's foremost architecture schools and institutions.

Facebook is closing in on a deal to create a new London headquarters, and will be bringing along the design talents of Frank Gehry, according to reports from The Times and Architects’ Journal.

Described as a “growth space” that will allow the company to expand their European presence, the new headquarters would span four buildings in King’s Cross Central – the same part of the city where Google is building its own 11-story “groundscraper” campus designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studios.

Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the new flagship building of the Royal College of Art’s Battersea campus has been granted planning approval by Wandsworth Council. Unveiled last fall, the £108 million building will mark an “important step” in the evolution of the RCA into a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics)-focused postgraduate university.

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Lord Norman Foster has been named the next President of the UK’s Royal Fine Art Commission Trust, an independent charity aimed at promoting “visual awareness and public appreciation of high-quality design” within the United Kingdom.

Chaired by one of architecture’s foremost patrons, Lord Peter Palumbo, the organization was established in 1987 as a complement to the Royal Fine Art Commission (since absorbed into the UK Design Council), the Government’s advisor on matters affecting public amenity and aesthetics in England and Wales.

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The celebrated modernist architect and innovator of social housing, Neave Brown, has sadly passed away following his battle with cancer.

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A month after its critically-lauded run came to a close, Francis Kéré’s 2017 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion has found a permanent home halfway across the globe.

As reported by the Star, the structure has been purchased by Kuala Lumpur-based Ilham Gallery, who are now searching for a permanent site of the pavilion in Malaysia.

British firm Allies and Morrison has been selected as the winners of an international competition to “restore, reimagine and rebuild” the historic Clandon Park mansion in Surrey, England, bringing the the National Park property back to life after it was badly damaged from a fire in 2015.

Selected from a star-studded shortlist, Allies and Morrison’s proposal was lauded by the jury for its bold yet balanced approach and ability to “respect the quality and character of the mansion house in its historic setting.” The jury found the proposal to be clear and thoughtful, while providing an appropriate level of drama and excitement.

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