Called the Grand Entrance Hall, the underground space – opening today – will be run by The Brunel Museum and is set to host plays, operas, concerts and even weddings.
Architects Tate Harmer breathed new life into the 1843 Grade II*-listed shaft – originally designed by civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his father Marc – adding a cantilevered staircase to make the 75ft-deep hall accessible.
— thespaces.com
Discover more UK content here:Serpentine Galleries appoints Yana Peel as new CEOA tall order? Wooden skyscraper could become Britain's second tallest buildingStock bricks to Brutalism: housing design in PoplarThe unbranded, hybrid approach of the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape View full entry
These buildings aren't from a distant galaxy far, far away. They're here on Planet Earth, specifically in Belgrade, Serbia. Locally based photographer Mirko Nahmijas wanted to give a new perspective to some of his hometown's historically-loaded Brutalist structures in his photo series... View full entry
ICYMI Amelia Taylor-Hochberg published a 3 part interview with Coy Howard, by students in John Southern's “Architectural Media and Publishing” Cultural Studies seminar at SCI-Arc. Ewa Lenart was impressed "Great Work and greatly inspiring teacher!" Plus, Nicholas Korody explored... View full entry
Rikers Island looms large in New York’s imagination. It is home to a notorious complex of prisons, one whose excesses are still being discovered by the media and the courts. Many would like to see the Rikers Island closed forever, or barring that, to at least change the name to something that does not honor a slaveowner.
One group of designers has a different goal for Rikers Island—one that is within reach and, in fact, already at hand.
— CityLab
"The problem: On the most prominent map of New York City, Rikers Island is a nonentity. The island simply isn’t labeled on Metropolitan Transportation Authority maps inside the New York subway. The solution: Label it. On every map."For more on the #SeeRikers campaign – or to create your own... View full entry
We need to think of technology-enabled furniture as a platform for integrating other technology because in a small apartment it is not practical to put in conventional systems...I don't believe in smart homes, I believe in dumb homes that you put smart things into. If smartness is embedded in the walls then your home becomes obsolete in five years time — BBC news
Jane Wakefield talks with folks behind various efforts to lower the cost of homes including; WikiHouse, CityHome and the Brazilian tiny apartment construction firm, Vitacon. View full entry
Boring architecture may take an emotional toll on the people forced to live in and around it.
A growing body of research in cognitive science illuminates the physical and mental toll bland cityscapes exact on residents. Generally, these researchers argue that humans are healthier when they live among variety — a cacophony of bars, bodegas, and independent shops — or work in well-designed, unique spaces, rather than unattractive, generic ones.
— nymag.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Putting entire cities on the psychiatrist's couchGetting Neural: Van Alen hosts "How Does the Brain Respond to the City?"The Quest to Measure the Brain's Response to Urban Design View full entry
bastardized visual language has become the de facto standard of Dallas residential architecture development. The explanation for its ever-increasing prevalence, however depressing, is fairly straightforward. Developers find something that’s profitable and want to reproduce it. Risk-averse banks are happy to lend them money given their track record, at least in the short term. Architects, stuck with low budgets, tight schedules, and conservative developers, serve to please and follow convention. — artsblog.dallasnews.com
"But Dallas architecture shouldn’t be a joke, and it doesn’t have to be. A look at recent developments in Los Angeles, a historically auto-centric city faced with similar growth challenges, suggests how Dallas might break the vicious cycle in which it is mired."Related stories in the... View full entry
Plans for London’s first timber skyscraper were presented to the Mayor of London Boris Johnson this week with researchers saying natural materials were “vastly underused”.
The design is for an 80-storey, 300m-high wooden building integrated into the Barbican complex. The tower would create 1,000 new residences. Architects’ Journal described the concept scheme as “toothpick-like”.
— independent.co.uk
Read relating articles on Archinect here:A guide to London mayoral candidates and their housing policiesIs London experiencing a brick boom?Design revealed for 1 Undershaft, London's tallest skyscraper by the "thinking developer’s architect" View full entry
Back in February, Santiago Calatrava was announced the winner of the competition to design an observation tower for the massive Dubai Creek Harbor development: a showstopping (it's Dubai after all) megatall and superslender observation tower, soon to be "as great as the Burj Khalifa and the... View full entry
As the story goes, the original owner of this unwieldy building located in Willow, Alaska built his house shortly after a forest fire with a clear view of Mount McKinley and Denali National Park. As the surrounding trees recovered, the pristine view was obscured and the owner decided to add few more stories, eventually spending a decade adding floors until it reached the 12-ish story tower you see today. Not surprisingly, locals refer to the building as the “Dr. Seuss House” [...]. — thisiscolossal.com
Related stories on Archinect:Obama changes the name of tallest mountain from Mt McKinley to DenaliRussia considering plans for a 12,400-mile superhighway linking London and AlaskaThe Alaskan village set to disappear under water in a decade View full entry
As an experienced architect, able to extract from drawings an understanding of what they communicate, even I couldn’t fully assess the project from the images published. A perverse wisdom in wHY’s vague, non-photo-realistic choice of rendering style: It doesn’t limit the eventual choices, leaving room to operate as the design is brought to realization. This is brilliant because... — LEO Weekly
Archinect's own Steven Ward wrote about the newly opened Speed Art Museum expansion by wHY. View full entry
you can spend a lot of money, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to come to an outcome that is going to be good over the long run. I think that, you know, it really comes to the design of the building, how the material transitions are treated, color is a huge issue that often doesn't get I think enough attention and can hugely influence the outcome in a building — Colorado Public Radio
Last month Ryan Warner talked with architect Jeff Sheppard (of the firm Roth Sheppard) and Matt Schildt (managing director of development for Trammell Crow Residential), regarding the city's current construction boom. Concerns range from "luxury apartments" whose facades are a "mishmash of... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
As one of the first major structures built during Rotterdam's post-World War II reconstruction efforts, the centrally located Groot Handelsgebouw is a marker of the city's vision for urban development through the end of the 20th century, functioning both as an office complex and monument. Adjacent... View full entry
“The lots that determine the Flatiron shape have previously been avoided since the resultant interiors are unusual and not easy to market,” Patrice Derrington, director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University, wrote last week in an email. “However, ‘as needs be’ developers are attending to these less favorable sites, as they eke out every last possibility.” — The New York Times
As new New York City real estate gets increasingly rare and pricey, architects are facing unusual design challenges. Herewith, some of most expensive, tiniest, and outré in NYC design news:My Micro NYC Apartment Complex Is Officially RentingNew York's Megatowers: Nothing but 'Vertical... View full entry