The Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners-designed Leadenhall Building, more commonly known as the ‘Cheesegrater’, was sold to a Chinese property tycoon for £1.15B—the second-biggest sale ever of a building in the UK. The tallest building in the City of London, the Cheesegrater was previously... View full entry
In a ceremony packed with construction workers, news crews, and real estate folk, the final bucket of concrete made its way to the top of 3 World Trade Center, marking the topping out of this 1,079-foot supertall tower. The 80-story building was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and spans 2.5 million square feet. Once complete in 2018, it will be the fifth tallest tower in New York City. — Curbed NY
↑ Silverstein Properties Chairman Larry A. Silverstein (right) and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Executive Director Pat Foye at the topping out ceremony signing the final bucket of concrete.↑ This rendering shows what the completed 1,079-ft tower will look like.Related... View full entry
The owners of the 222-metre (734ft) “Cheesegrater” building, the second tallest building in the City of London, are to replace dozens of long bolts on its structure after it was revealed that another one had fractured.
The bolts, among 3,000 on the building’s 15,000-tonne frame, are each just under a metre long. Two snapped in November, with some debris falling to the ground from the fifth floor. Nobody was hurt, but an area below the tower is still cordoned off.
— theguardian.com
Previously: Bolt part falls off Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City of LondonRelated: Another big concrete panel falls off Zaha Hadid-designed library View full entry
No-one was injured but an area around the 47-storey Leadenhall Building in the city has been cordoned off.
It fell from the fifth floor to the ground at the side of the building - another bolt also broke off but was contained within the skyscraper.
It is understood the bolts are about the size of an arm and the piece that fell was about the size of a hand.
— bbc.com
Related: Rafael Viñoly-designed "Walkie Talkie" skyscraper melts car with light reflections View full entry
Someone has told the bouncers to be nice. It is now standard for architectural anoraks like myself to find ourselves challenged by smile-less security as we go about our blameless business – no loitering, no photography, no looking, as if al-Qaida scouts would do their dastardly work in this way or as if, years after the invention of the camera phone, photography can be controlled as it could in the age of the tripod. But not at the base of the Cheesegrater. — theguardian.com
This, if it is a harsh way to describe the British Museum's attempts to update itself over the last two decades, with the help of the most famous architects in the land and hundreds of millions in generous donations, nonetheless reflects what's going on. Like large cultural institutions everywhere, the museum finds itself dealing with similar pressures to those of commercial players in the fields of leisure and entertainment [...] and it reaches for similar solutions.. — theguardian.com
London's iconic Crystal Palace just moved one step closer to its magnificent resurrection with the announcement of six shortlisted design teams, all vying to rebuild The Crystal Palace and the surrounding public park as a major landmark. — bustler.net
The list of selected architects to move on to the next competition stage reads like a who's who in British architecture:David Chipperfield ArchitectsGrimshawHaworth Tompkins ArchitectsMarks Barfield ArchitectsRogers Stirk Harbour + PartnersZaha Hadid Architects with Anish Kapoor View full entry
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has just been revealed as the winner of the RIBA and London School of Economics competition to design the LSE's New Global Centre for Social Sciences.
Rogers Stirk Harbour won the £90 million (US$145M) project against finalists OMA (The Netherlands); Grafton Architects (Ireland); Heneghan Peng (Ireland); and Hopkins Architects (UK).
— bustler.net
Previously: Can you guess the 5 finalist teams of the LSE Global Centre for Social Sciences Competition? Images courtesy of RIBA - LSE New Global Centre for Social Sciences competition. View full entry
The series of videos below offers a fascinating insight into how this generation of "starchitects" behaves under pressure, as they each pitch to win one of the most high-profile competitions in recent years: a new tower for L&L Holding Company on Park Avenue in New York. The site has such daunting neighbours as Mies van der Rohe's Seagram building, and it will be the first full-block office tower to be built on the street in almost half a century. — guardian.co.uk
"It might have been easier to completely rebuild it," Rogers tells me. "It was a very weak structure with very thin walls. We had to shore the facade, then almost completely rebuild it inside. But the thing they insisted on, and I think they were proven right, was keeping the circular form, the historic form. It's not just a building – it's a piece of Barcelona." — Guardian
Steve Rose reviews Las Arenas, Barcelona's former bullring and its newest shopping mall completed in March by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. He finds that the people of Barcelona are now flocking back to this once cherished second bullring. View full entry
