Archinect - News

Will Alsop's posthumous Neuron Pod completes at Queen Mary University of London

2019-03-08T15:08:00-05:00

Will Alsop's posthumous building, the £2m Neuron Pod, has completed at the Queen Mary University of London's campus. Shaped like a giant porcupine, the structure comes complete with illuminated fibre-optic spines and will serve as the school's new neurological education pod, where science shows, youth member activities, workshops, new adult initiatives and weekend activities will take place.

Courtesy of aLL Design.

The pod is a new addition to the school's Blizard Building, which houses the School of Medicine and Dentistry and was also designed by Will Alsop and his former firm, aLLDesign. Now, a RIBA award-winning building, the Blizard is a vast subterranean laboratory featuring fantastical architectural elements that demonstrate Alsop's knack for instilling his designs with a sense of humor and amusement.

Courtesy of aLL Design.

Similarly, Neuron Pod—a 23-meter-long creature poised on three legs—inspires a joyful response. From the street, the rusted steel exterior is punctured wit...

The late Will Alsop's unconventional housing block Heliport Heights to be built along the river in Battersea

2018-08-24T14:55:00-04:00

Heliport Heights, an unconventional orange-steel housing block and the final major London project designed by the late British architect Will Alsop, will be moving forward. The 20 story building, comprised of 15 floors of apartments built atop the pre-existing Heliport House, is set to rise along the river in Battersea and expected to complete in 2020.

Approval of the project, which is intended to fill the unsightly gap on London's south bank skyline, was granted back in 2014. However, shortly thereafter, construction was stalled when the developer Damsonetti UK went into administration. With financing now back on track, Heliport Heights is scheduled to resume within the next few months according to Alsop's studio aLL Design.

Heliport Heights model by Will Alsop at the Royal Academy.

Plans involve 15 stories of apartments rising above an existing four-story building using stilts, a feature common in Alsop's work that will allow existing tenants to remain in-situ in the Heliport Hou...

Will Alsop, British maverick architect, remembered after unexpected death

2018-05-14T19:47:00-04:00

The news of British architect Will Alsop's death over the weekend was met with an outpouring of sympathy from fellow architects and journalists around the web.

A recipient of the RIBA's Stirling Prize for his Peckham Library building in 2000, an avid painter, and master of seemingly floating buildings on playful stilts, Alsop never settled for the expected but rather embraced the 'maverick' reputation for balancing genius and wacky, recognized and controversial.

RIBA Worldwide Award winner: Sharp Centre for Design, Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, Canada, 2004. Photo: Taxiarchos228/Wikipedia.

"Will has inspired generations and impacted many lives through his work," Marcos Rosello, director of Alsop's firm aLL Design, said in response of his passing. "It is a comfort to know that due to the nature of Will’s work and character, he will continue to inspire and bring great joy. He had an exceptional ability to recognize particular strengths in individuals which he would draw ou...

Will Alsop leaves RMJM

2011-08-08T14:27:00-04:00

Will Alsop has announced he is leaving international architecture firm RMJM to form a new practice. The new company, established with fellow RMJM principal Scott Lawrie and covering architecture, masterplanning, interiors, landscape, product and graphic design, involves a number of other staff who worked at Alsop’s division within the firm.

WSJ discusses Will Alsop's work and body shape

2011-01-20T20:14:00-05:00

Mr. Alsop is a famously convivial figure whose well-upholstered frame suggests that restaurants and sofas loom larger on his recreational agenda than rollerblading and tae kwon do.

- Wall Street Journal

Will Alsop has been appointed Ryerson Distinguished Visiting Practitioner in Architecture

2009-11-05T12:04:00-05:00

Toronto's Ryerson University has announced the appointment of Alsop to Distinguished Visiting Practitioner in Architecture. Press release after the jump...

WILL ALSOP APPOINTED RYERSON DISTINGUISHED VISITING PRACTITIONER IN ARCHITECTURE

TORONTO, Nov.5, 2009--- Famed British architect Will Alsop has been
named a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner in Architecture at Ryerson
University for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Alsop is one of the most prominent UK architects and is known around
the world for his avant-garde, modernist style. Since his foray into
architecture at the age of 16, Alsop has completed projects in England,
Wales, France, Germany, The Netherlands and here in Toronto, including the Alsop Toronto Sales Centre, the Sharp Centre for Design and his current project, the Westside Lofts. An Officer of the Order of the
British Empire (OBE), he has set up practices in Beijing, London,
Shanghai, Singapore and Toronto.

'Will Alsop's decision to come to Ryerson is a tremendous
endorsement of ...

Studio "Will Alsop at RMJM"

2009-10-01T12:02:00-04:00

Following up on the latest buzz about Will Alsop: we received an official statement from Alsop's new employer RMJM about future collaborations under the branded design studio "Will Alsop at RMJM". More after the break.
Internationally acclaimed architect Alsop turns focus to NYC

(NEW YORK) — Will Alsop OBE, the internationally acclaimed British architect and designer of the Glenwood Waterfront project on the Hudson River, is to turn his attention once again to the U.S. after announcing he is to create a studio called “Will Alsop at RMJM,” as part of the RMJM worldwide architectural firm.

Alsop has extensive international experience with major projects in Toronto,Marseille, Hamburg,Singapore, Shanghai,New York and throughout the UK, picking up prestigious awards including the coveted Stirling Prize in 2000 for the Peckham Library in London.

Although Alsop is to be based in London, where he will take up the pole position at the newly branded studio “Will Alsop at RMJM,” he will lead on p...

Architect Will Alsop admits bending truth about ‘quitting’

2009-09-30T19:10:00-04:00

Alsop admitted that his claim about devoting his time to painting had not been the whole truth. TimesOnline | Previously on Archinect

Will Alsop relocating to Toronto

2009-08-14T12:36:00-04:00

Will Alsop, who we reported the other day has left his own UK-based architecture practice, has just been announced to join the faculty at Toronto's Ryerson University architecture department. The Star

"Let's put it this way," says the unconventional architect/painter, "if Harvard were to ask me to do something, I'd probably say no."

As the man who always cheers for the underdog explains it, "I like the graduate department at Ryerson because it's fairly young, it's only been around for a few years, and I like things that are new."

Alsop quits practice ‘to spend more time painting’

2009-08-06T10:25:00-04:00

British architecture’s most colourful personality, Will Alsop, is to leave the practice that bears his name in a dramatic cutting of ties with parent company Archial.

Following 30 years of running a private practice, the 61-year-old has told BD that he will shortly hand over day-to-day management of Battersea-based Alsop to others, in order to devote more time to painting and teaching. BD

Will Alsop at Coney Island

2008-10-29T11:43:00-04:00

For a redesign of Coney Island—if not the world’s most famous amusement park, certainly its most iconoclastic—who would be the ideal architect? How about Frank Gehry? Too mainstream. Asymptote? Too polished. Lebbeus Woods? Too theoretical. Well what about Will Alsop? Now there is a carnival architect if there ever was one. AN