Archinect - News

Vivienne Westwood, doyenne of punk rock British fashion, passes away aged 81

2022-12-30T12:01:00-05:00

Celebrated fashion designer Vivienne Westwood passed away peacefully at her home in South London, The Guardian reported late Thursday.

The 81-year-old Dame was behind some of Britain’s more salient countercultural movements, becoming synonymous with the late-70s punk rock scene in London and later playing an outsize role in the early-career development of her muse, Naomi Campbell.

Known as much for her outspoken activism on issues such as nuclear proliferation, civil rights, the environment, and other social justice issues as she was for her clothing line and collaboration with Malcolm McLaren, Westwood’s influence in the broader world of design is hard to overstate.

Zaha Hadid was among the torrent of prominent figures within the UK to have worked with Westwood on collaborations for shoes, flagship boutiques, clothing lines, and even home designs on her way to becoming the “U...

Anglo-Saxon burial ground uncovered during work on Britain's HS2 railway

2022-06-17T16:57:00-04:00

“A vast Anglo-Saxon burial site containing 138 graves has been unearthed by archaeologists working on the HS2 cross-country rail route under construction across the UK. The site, near Wendover in Buckinghamshire, contains the remains of more than 140 people, some of which were buried with jewellery, knives and a personal grooming kit. “It is one of the best and most revealing post-Roman sites in the country,” says the historian Dan Snow.”

According to a statement by HS2, the site contained 138 graves, with 141 inhumation burials and five cremation burials, making it one of the largest Anglo-Saxon burial grounds ever uncovered in Britain. According to Rachel Wood, the lead archaeologist for Fusion JV, the company behind the fieldwork, Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are rare. The items uncovered date back to the 5th and 6th century, a period in which there are gaps in historical and archaeological record. Nearly three quarters of the graves contained high quality items, including jewelry, swords, shields, spears, and personal grooming items such as ear wax removers and tweezers, suggesting the site was the resting place for a wealthy community.

Additionally, nearly all of the burials were found with decorated brooches on their collarbone, indicating they were holding up garments such as cloaks or peplos, a long garment worn by women with shoulder brooches. This archaeological find was discovered similarly to that of a well-p...

UK recruits modern day "Monuments Men and Women" to recognize historic structures

2019-10-28T14:15:00-04:00

Heritage campaigners have welcomed the government’s plans to increase the number of listed buildings across the UK...Under the new scheme, which has been allocated £700,000, people will be encouraged to nominate buildings in their area and a heritage champion will be appointed to encourage councils’ local listings.

"These activists will form a task force, which the government describes as a modern version of the ‘Monuments Men’ who recovered countless artworks from the Nazis during the Second World War," Architects' Journal (AJ) reports.

According to AJ, the plan is for the "heritage activists" to identify pertinent buildings and "get them listed, locally or nationally as soon as possible." The initiative will commence with 10 English counties, in an effort to populate their local lists.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography grows to include early women architects

2019-07-23T18:44:00-04:00

The lives and work of England's first practicing women architects are being highlighted in a new update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in Britain (DNB), the country's standard reference of notable figures from British history.

Crafted by Dr. Elizabeth Darling, reader in architectural history at Oxford Brookes University, the new entries signify part of an effort by DNB to mark the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 that allowed women in Britain to serve in certain branches of the government.

Although women were not legally barred from practicing architecture at the time, they did face significant cultural barriers to entering the profession due to long-held apprentice-oriented training practices that were prevalent into the 20th century, according to DNB. Women architects existed prior to 1919, but only in small numbers. When architectural education began to take place within schools of architecture, according to DNB, women were able to und...

Architects in the UK reconsider their relationship with manufacturers and mass standardization

2019-07-12T13:49:00-04:00

It is now almost 80 years since the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act enabled the construction of the post-war prefab, but controversies and concerns about building a home in a factory have run deep ever since. While practically every other item we buy rolls off a production line, housebuilding’s transition to the factory remains, for many reasons, problematic.

With the rise of automation and advances in building manufacturing, architects have considered if machines can replace the profession. However, makes the job so rewarding is thinking of new and creative ways to execute ideas. This level of creativity and design distinction is something architects argue towards replacement by automation alone. However, in the UK, architects are learning to reassess their relationships with manufacturers and understand the silver lining in mass standardization. In 1944 the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act was passed by the British Parliament as a response to providing families with homes after World War II. Several decades later, the housing market is forcing architects to acquire new perspectives when it comes to manufacturing and how new relationships could foster better results.

According to Josephine Smit of the RIBA Journal, "with a skills shortage, a push from government and impetus from the build to rent sector, manufacturers and offsite s...

Rowan Moore reviews book on British mosque design

2018-03-14T05:38:00-04:00

The dominant theme is that of the expression of identity, the overwhelming preference in British mosque design being for traditional elements and decoration – especially dome, minaret and arches – applied to sometimes basic box-like structures. From time to time the cry goes up, including in Jonathan Glancey’s introduction to this book, that a “contemporary” Islamic British style should be developed.

There are about 1,500 mosques in Britain most of which have been designed in the last decade. Rowan Moore reviews architect and academic Shahed Saleem's book The British Mosque, a survey looking at why British mosque design is mostly traditional. Saleem presents both sides of the argument for traditional and contemporary designs. While some accuse the traditional of architectural timidity, others argue that innovative design is a financial and cultural luxury.

One of Britain's most important 20th-century housing complexes may be demolished

2017-12-26T10:00:00-05:00

Despite being in the midst of a housing crisis, the United Kingdom seems bent on destroying some of the finest examples of social housing the post-war era has to offer, even tampering with the heritage-listing system in order to do so. The Robin Hood Gardens council estate, an icon of brutalist architecture, was recently demolished despite a huge effort involving nation wide press coverage and support from architects like Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers to save it—a three story segment was even purchased quite unusually by the V&A Museum in order to salvage an intact piece of the building.

Now, it appears the Alton Estate in Roehampton may be next in line for the chopping block. According to Apollo Magazine, the complex is under threat "from proposals to demolish the center of the estate and replace it with a very large, very clashing new development." Inspired by Le Corbusier's L'Unite d'Habitation in Marseille, the Alton estate designed by London County Council's architects departme...

This Man Designed an AI to Generate British Placenames

2017-07-21T12:21:00-04:00

As any American who tuned into the last British election realized, UK placenames are a bit out there (at least to American ears, that is), from Droop in Dorset to Westward Ho! in Devon. So Dan Ho decided to train a (quirky) AI to generate its own.

Here are some of the ones the computer crafted:

Ospley
Stoke Carrston
Elfordbion
Hevermilley
Ell
Elle’s Chorels
Capton Briins Forehouint Eftte Green
Waryburn Torner Midlwood
Wasts Halkstack
Kinindworthorpe Marmile
Dompton Ole
Dimmer Common
Pairinggleat
Catley Holtbridgeham Ruse
Colon-in Mead

Check out the full list, as well as how he did it, here.

Say no to a "Brexit," says David Chipperfield

2016-03-30T17:18:00-04:00

‘If we accidentally complete our isolation from Europe, please don’t let us imagine that this creates a new openness to the rest of the world – isolation is isolation. We would not only give up the distinct practical advantages of collaboration but the social, political and intellectual advantages too’, he said. Chipperfield, who has offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai, has hit out at politicians for failing to articulate the cultural significance of the European Union.

For more UK-specific news, take a look at some past coverage:

Bank of England proposes new limits for "buy-to-let" landlords

2016-03-29T13:00:00-04:00

Buy-to-let landlords should face new limits on the amount they can borrow, the Bank of England has proposed. It suggested that lenders should be much stricter when deciding whether or not to grant landlords a mortgage. Instead of just taking their rental income into account, the Bank wants lenders to look at their wider financial situation as well. If adopted, the new rules could reduce lending to landlords by up to 20% over the next three years.

According to the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), the newly-proposed standards should "curtail inappropriate lending, and the potential for excessive credit losses."

The new strictures would take into account the costs a landlord accrues in order to rent a property, tax liabilities associated with the property, a landlord's "personal tax liabilities, 'essential expenditure' and living costs," and, in cases where it supports the loan, a landlord's extra income.

For more on the real estate landscape of the UK, check out some past Archinect coverage:

London's V&A to host a robot construction team this summer

2016-02-04T20:40:00-05:00

Robots will take over the courtyard of London’s V&A Museum this summer to build a pavilion inspired by flying beetles. The installation – designed by architect Achim Menges – features an undulating canopy of tightly woven carbon fibre cells, drawing on the shells of insects called elytra. Visitors will also be able to watch the robots in action over the course of the summer as they continue to add new sections to the evolving ‘Elytra Filament Pavilion’.

For more robo-news, check out these links:

Britain's last deep-pit coal mine closes — the end of the industrial revolution?

2015-12-18T12:25:00-05:00

The last deep-pit coal mine in the U.K. plans to shut its doors here next week, heralding the end of a centuries-old industry that helped fuel the industrial revolution and build the British Empire. The shutdown [...] represents a victory for advocates of reducing carbon emissions after world leaders gathered in Paris to discuss how to combat global warming, with coal in the cross hairs. It also reflects a glut of energy on world markets, from crude oil to natural gas and coal itself.

Encroaching on the green belt: UK loosens protections on rural land

2015-12-16T17:46:00-05:00

If there is one thing Britons dislike more than their country’s housing shortage, it is the idea of building more houses. Even as a lack of homes has sent prices through the roof... cities have remained ringed by protected “green belts” of land that are off-limits to developers. Attempts to build on them provoke outcry. But on December 7th the government published a consultation on letting councils allocate “appropriate small-scale sites in the green belt specifically for starter homes”...

Assemble wins Turner Prize, becoming first architects to win "UK's most prestigious art prize"

2015-12-07T16:20:00-05:00

The 18 members of London-based Assemble were named winners of the 31st Turner prize on Monday night, receiving their £25,000 prize from the Sonic Youth co-founder and artist Kim Gordon at an awards dinner broadcast live on Channel 4 from Tramway, Glasgow. Assemble are the first non-artists, in the strictest sense of the word, to win the prize. They were nominated for their work tackling urban dereliction in Toxteth, Liverpool...

Assemble, the architecture-ish collective known for their direct action urban interventions, has just won the prestigious Turner Prize. Working "across the fields of art, architecture and design," they are the first non-artists, in the strictest sense, to win the prize, and the first whose work so directly contends with the urban environment.

Specifically, Assemble was praised for their work in Toxteth, Liverpool, that involved using design to improve the living conditions and the houses of a derelict area called Granby Four Streets.

"[Assemble] draw[s] on long traditions of artistic and collective initiatives that experiment in art, design and architecture," the judges stated. "In doing so they offer alternative models to how societies can work. The long-term collaboration between Granby Four Streets and Assemble shows the importance of artistic practice being able to drive and shape urgent issues.”

With their Granby Four Streets project, Assemble created a showroom to display product...

Grimshaw and Arup release designs for new high-speed rail hub in central London

2015-09-12T05:15:00-04:00

Beginning in 2017, the London transit hub that's been described as "a dingy, grey, horizontal nothingness"* will undergo a massive redesign to incorporate a new high-speed rail line connecting London and Birmingham.

The first phase of the so-called HS2, connecting London and Birmingham (before forking out to reach Manchester and Leeds in phase two), is expected to open in 2026, and developer HS2 Ltd. has just released designs by Arup and Grimshaw Architects for its outset station in central London, a redevelopment of Euston station.

Grimshaw and Arup's design crafts an incremental approach to maintain current activity at the station during construction. Additions to the station include 11 new platforms for the HS2, a new glass façade and three new entrances.

First opening in 1837, Euston station was London's first intercity line, and ranks as its 6th busiest. Its original classical design was demolished in 1961 and replaced with what has been derided by Richard Morrison of The Times as...

British public housing is not all that bad now, thanks largely to architects

2015-08-18T18:07:00-04:00

Regulations have progressively made homes more sustainable and energy-efficient, and voluntary codes take these standards further. Architects like to push them further still [...] There are now housing associations and developers who can see the point of good design, and others who can’t quite, but still feel as if they should employ it. The public, too, perhaps encouraged by the TV programmes of Kevin McCloud, are more open to contemporary architecture.

According to The Guardian's Rowan Moore at least, who takes the long-view on how Britain's public housing policy and execution have changed in the last 50 years.

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