Archinect - News

Another free climber scales London's Shard skyscraper

2019-07-08T14:39:00-04:00

A free climber has scaled the Shard, one of the tallest buildings in Europe. [...] Onlookers posted footage of the climber, who, according to the Daily Mirror, made most of the ascent without ropes or suction cups.

"Police were called at 5.15am on Monday 8 July following reports of a free climber on the Shard. Emergency services attended and the man went inside the building where he was spoken to by officers. He was not arrested," The Guardian quotes a section of the Metropolitan police report from this morning.

The daredevil free climber has been identified as 19-year-old George King who shares images of risky free climbs on his Instagram account.

View this post on Instagram Freesolo the shard. 45mins. A lot of misinformation about suction cups in the media at the moment. Here is a little snippet video. Enjoy I was thirteen and on a school trip when I first laid eyes on The Shard. I felt an immediate passion to climb it - the same type of passion I want to the world to feel. In the past I’ve been called a daredevil, an adrenaline junkie, a reckless teenager and much more. I’ve always found that these names come from those who are ignorant or misunderstood about what I real...

Renzo Piano about the "idea of openness as an antidote to terrorism"

2017-05-30T13:46:00-04:00

For Renzo Piano, every building should tell a story. The 79-year-old architect is as busy as ever with a workload that spans from Los Angeles to Uganda. With no signs of fatigue in a nearly 50-year career, Piano doesn’t struggle to find meaning in each new project. “I’ve wanted to make buildings since I was a kid,” says the Italian-born architect, who fondly recalls spending time at construction sites with his dad.

CityLab recently sat down with Piano for a conversation that, among other topics, touched on urban peripheries, Columbia University’s new Manhattanville Campus, and "the importance of designing buildings that reject paranoia in a world increasingly concerned with terrorism."

Sir Terry Farrell faces off against Renzo Piano over Paddington Place plans

2016-01-13T04:00:00-05:00

...the Paddington Place scheme – a huge development around the eponymous London station intended to include a 72-storey tower designed by Renzo Piano... [has] drawn the ire of Sir Terry Farrell, the famous architect and local resident who was also, slightly awkwardly, previously in charge of the developers’ masterplan for the area. Farrell, known for designing the MI6 building on the Thames and Charing Cross station, made his views known in a dense, 1,500-word objection...

10x10 London auction renders 100 drawn perspectives around The Shard

2014-10-30T18:14:00-04:00

10x10 Drawing the City London is an annual fundraising event established by British architect Tim Makower and organized by charity group Article 25 that gets its name from the 100-square grid that captures one particular area in the city of London.

Each square of the grid is assigned to 100 participants, who are typically some of the U.K.'s most well-known and emerging architects, designers, and artists. Participants will then create and donate an original work of art inspired by the buildings and public spaces within their assigned square. For 2014, The Renzo Piano-designed Shard will be the center of the grid.

This year's set of participants include notable names and 10x10 favorites like Norman Foster, Ivan Harbour, Sheila O'Donnell, C.J. Lim, Piers Gough, Chris Wilkinson, textile designer Celia Birtwell, artists Norman Ackroyd and Roger FitzGerald, and 10x10 founder Tim Makower himself.

Online bidding for the art begins November 4 through November 25, followed by an exclusive evenin...

Shard becomes London’s ‘eyeful’ tower

2014-05-12T13:22:00-04:00

The first guests at western Europe’s tallest hotel came expecting unforgettable views – but may have got more than they bargained for. The bedrooms in Shangri-La’s luxury hotel, which opened last week in London’s 310m-tall Shard building, come with binoculars so guests can survey the city’s landmarks through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But thanks to a quirk in the building’s design, some rooms also come with potentially revealing views of other guests.

Renzo Piano: my inspiration for the Shard

2012-12-31T12:18:00-05:00

Piano apparently sketched his idea on a restaurant napkin while meeting property developer Irvine Sellar in March 2000. According to Piano's architectural firm, RPBW, Sellar keeps the famous napkin in his offices. "He saw the beauty of the river and the railways and the way their energy blended and began to sketch in green felt pen on a napkin what he saw as a giant sail or an iceberg," Sellar recalled in a recent interview.

William Matthews, Shard Project Architect, will leave Piano to start new practice

2012-12-21T14:21:00-05:00

He has split his time between London and the French capital for the past decade but next year will open a new office in the central London architecture hotspot of Clerkenwell where his neighbours will include Zaha Hadid Architects and Wilkinson Eyre. Before he goes, Matthews has agreed to complete all his work on the Shard including the viewing gallery, due to open in February, and the restaurants on floors 31, 32 and 33 which are expected to open in the spring.

Editor's Picks #272

2012-07-08T12:50:00-04:00

HandsumCa$hMoneyYo commented "Norman Foster seems like a really odd fit for this project. He's a wealthy corporatist architect from northern Europe...taking on an abandoned arts academy in a communist state in the tropics, hmm. What could possibly go wrong, yo?"

News

Reports surfaced via an interview in the Sunday Times that Sir Norman Foster has been engaged to plan for a conversion of the famed Scuola di ballo, Escuela Nacional de Arte in Cuba. HandsumCa$hMoneyYo commented "Norman Foster seems like a really odd fit for this project. He's a wealthy corporatist architect from northern Europe...taking on an abandoned arts academy in a communist state in the tropics, hmm. What could possibly go wrong, yo?"

Gov. Brown granted fast-track status to Apple headquarters because "Apple's state-of-the art campus brings at least $100 million dollars in investment to California and generates no additional greenhouse gas emissions". holz.box corrected "tax breaks and fast tracked status! also, brown's dead wrong on this: 'generates no additional greenhouse gas emissions' - only if the project is off-grid. grid-tied net zero ain't 'emissions free’.” and Apurimac added "Suburban superblocks are just as boring as urban ones."

SCI-Arc student Brian...

Renzo Piano's The Shard in London, Europe's tallest building, is officially open

2012-07-05T18:01:00-04:00

The tower, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, will contain offices, exclusive residences, a luxury hotel, restaurants and a viewing gallery across 72 floors which can be occupied. There are a further 15 levels which make up the 'spire' - six of which have the potential to be used, with another nine exposed to the elements. The 1,016ft skyscraper was inaugurated by the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Qatar, Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, and The Duke of York.

The Shard: Renzo Piano's great glass elevator

2012-06-15T12:28:00-04:00

It has transformed the London skyline, but the giant Shard faced hostility all the way. Its Italian architect Renzo Piano meets Steve Rose on the eighth floor – and answers his critics

Base jumping inside the Koekelberg Basilica!

2012-04-12T12:28:00-04:00

To continue with Javier's recent place hacking post of this dude climbing the Shard, I bring you this insane video of base jumpers "hacking" the Koekelberg Basilica in Brussels.

Residential skyscrapers come of age in Britain

2012-04-12T12:23:00-04:00

Because towers take so long to plan and construct, the current crop reflect a vision up to a decade old, reckons Nick Offer of Arup, an engineering firm. Economic conditions and the scale of such projects mean that only the very brave will invest now... In 2010 the coalition scrapped the previous, Labour government’s density targets, which were designed to encourage developers to build more units. Instead it has endorsed “garden cities”

Editor's Picks #245

2012-01-08T15:56:00-05:00

Y Design Office has proposed Unit Fusion, a modular, plug-in high-rise residential typology for Hong Kong. However, as of yet, the 75-story tower project is still in its conceptual design phase. Liebchen quipped "Who wants to bet it won't leave the conceptual design phase?"

As we enter another new year (Archinect's 15th!), it is an opportunity to reflect back on the previous year and share the most trafficked pages in Archinect's diverse online ecosystem, with a list of 11 top 11 lists for '11, based exclusively on visits by unique page-views.

The most popular news item was the post Plans for new Apple HQ, by Norman Foster, officially released. Orhan Ayyüce, had two of the ten most popular features namely: his review of Central Park at Playa Vista by Michael Maltzan Architects, which came in at number 1 and his factual and fictional manual to the types of people who sit on architectural juries, coming in at number 6. Javier Arbona’s post inspired by a NYT article which profiled Rafael Viñoly and his wife’s Sunday Routine, earned the number 1 slot, out of all blog posts this year. While Lian at GSD had 4 of the top ten blog posts. Additionally, it should come as no surprise that the number one discussion thread of the year was the annual (2012) M.Ar...