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the facade of the recently opened Blue Mountain School is impossible to miss. The six-level brick townhouse, on the corner of Redchurch and Chance Streets, has been painted in a sleek and surprising silver. Inside, the multipurpose space defies easy categorization. — T Magazine
Natalia Rachlin highlights the Blue Mountain School. The latest project by James Brown and his partner, Christie Fels, with architecting from 6a Architects, this corner of Shoreditch is a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk! h/t AD, The Telegraph and Wallpaper View full entry
What if buying a house were more like buying a car? Could the process of choosing between a Ford, Volkswagen or Nissan ever translate into picking between an Adjaye, Rogers or Assemble? Beyond the dream of ever being able to buy a house, the prospect of commissioning an architect-designed home is an impossibly remote prospect for most of us, a luxury confined to the glossy pages of Sunday supplements and Grand Designs. — The Guardian
The founders of Cube Haus have commissioned well known architects such as Adjaye Associates, Skene Catling de la Peña, and Carl Turner Architects to design modular homes at affordable prices. Targeting infill and backland sites in the London area, Cube Haus is looking to fill a small housing... View full entry
A Romanian man who used threats of violence and indebtedness to keep a group of his countrymen as slaves while he pocketed their wages from a London construction site has been sentenced to seven years in jail. — Global Construction Review
David Lupu, a 29-year-old Romanian, was found guilty of holding 15 of his countrymen in slavery or servitude in two small one-bedroom apartments in East London and sentenced to seven years in jail. Lupu had lured the men to work as demolition workers in the UK, falsely promising a wage of £... View full entry
Construction is now underway for the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, which is scheduled to open in June in time for summer outdoor festivities at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Mexican architect Frida Escobedo — who was commissioned to design the 2018 pavilion in February — is... View full entry
A homeowner in a housing complex in London with Grenfell-type cladding has been told the value of her £475,000 home has collapsed and is now just £50,000.
Galliard Homes, the developer of the 11-block complex in New Capital Quay in south-east London, is facing a £30m-£40m bill to replace the cladding and is locked in a legal dispute over who should pay.
— The Guardian
The New Capital Quay development—home to about 2,000 residents—is believed to be the largest private development to have flammable cladding after the 2017 Grenfell fire tragedy that killed 71 people, The Guardian reports. The apartments are now considered unsellable. View full entry
And now he’s going to float a 150-tonne sculpture on a lake on London.
Is it an allegory of the west’s oil dependency, an indictment of how we’re polluting the planet, or both? Christo shakes his locks and smiles. “I have no reason to justify myself as an artist. I cannot explain my art. Everything I do professionally is irrational and useless.” This, he thinks, is exactly as it should be. “I make things that have no function – except maybe to make pleasure.”
— The Guardian
Artist Christo chats about his new Mastaba sculpture coming to London this summer: a giant trapezoidal prism of 7,506 stacked steel barrels to float on the Serpentine Lake. It will be his first large artwork in Britain. Christo, The Mastaba (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake), Collage... View full entry
The Smithsonian Institution has confirmed that it will work with the Victoria and Albert Museum to set up a joint gallery and exhibition programme in East London, on the former Olympic site. Yesterday (9 April) the Smithsonian’s regents (trustees) gave formal approval for their first base outside the US. — The Art Newspaper
We first reported about the Smithsonian Institution's interest in setting up its first-ever satellite gallery outside of the U.S. back in 2015. A lot has changed since then, and evolved, scaled-back plans now foresee a collaboration with the V&A. View full entry
Over the last few months, the team at Forensic Architecture, housed at London’s Goldsmiths University in Lewisham, has been working to piece together data and footage from the event using a mixture of video and imagery from Youtube, Periscope and other forms of social media, as well as footage from Sky News, which is a partner on the project. — Wired
In June of 2017 the Grenfell Tower fire killed 71 in the London public housing block. Criminal investigations are still ongoing with no one yet held accountable. Forensic Architecture has taken on the case in order to piece together how the fire spread within minutes throughout the... View full entry
Gwynne demanded Johnson provide evidence for his allegation against Will Hurst, the managing editor of Architects’ Journal who has won several awards for his coverage of the garden bridge, or withdraw them and apologise.
The letter adds to the pressure on Johnson over his role in the troubled story of the planned pedestrian link across the river Thames, which he commissioned and championed as mayor of London, a job he held until May 2016.
— The Guardian
During his term in the London mayoral chair, British foreign secretary Boris Johnson advocated passionately for the £46m Heatherwick-designed London garden bridge proposal, which ultimately lost public support and was scrapped by incoming mayor Sadiq Khan—while the financial burden for the... View full entry
The V&A will transport a recently demolished concrete section from Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar, east London, to the Venice Architecture Biennale.
It will be delivered by barge to the biennale’s Arsenale site, where it will be reassembled on an outdoors scaffold, allowing visitors to stand on an original “street in the sky” – the elevated deck that was optimistically meant to foster healthy interaction between neighbours.
— The Guardian
The demolition of east London's Robin Hood Gardens has been ongoing since last year, which is why the V&A moved to acquire a three-story section of the brutalist icon. The museum's section will now be displayed in this year's Venice Architecture Biennale in order to revisit its original... View full entry
[...] according to a U.K. government press release published Thursday, the site will become a formal memorial to the fire’s victims.
The announcement of the plan—which could also see the nearby Latimer Road Tube station renamed to Grenfell—strikes the right note so far, making it clear that residents of the West London housing project will get the deciding say on any kind of memorial that happens on the tower’s site.
— citylab.com
While the memorial signals a commitment to remembrance and honoring the victims, the article points out the shortcomings in the official response, the display of incompetence, the ongoing hardship for Grenfell Tower's former residents, and the still looming fire hazard of countless other... View full entry
London gets a major new contemporary art gallery this autumn with the launch of the long-awaited Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art on 8 September. [...]
Assemble, the London-based architects who won the Turner Prize in 2015, were selected in 2014 to convert former public baths and Victorian water tanks on the south London campus into the new 1,000 sq. m centre housing eight gallery spaces.
— The Art Newspaper
Goldsmiths CCA under construction. Photo via the school's website.Previously: Goldsmiths to Build Public Art Gallery View full entry
Facebook is close to signing a deal for a new British headquarters at the King’s Cross redevelopment in London.
The social media giant is understood to be finalising outline terms with King’s Cross Central, which is majority-owned by the AustralianSuper pension fund. Facebook is expected to take four buildings covering more than 700,000 sq ft, tripling the size of its footprint in the capital.
— The Times
King's Cross is further strengthening its position as London's emerging tech hub, following previous proposed developments like Google's mega "landscraper" HQ, designed jointly by Heatherwick Studio and BIG. According to The Times and Architect's Journal, Gehry Partners is considered as... View full entry
The Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) confirmed on Friday that it wants to build the Sphere, a glazed orb with up to 18,000 seats and room for 5,000 standing, beside the Olympic Park in east London.
Designs of a similar “sphere” planned for Las Vegas suggest that the vault of the roof will become a giant screen for vast projections, which could evoke the sensation of being underwater or in a forest.
— The Guardian
Rumors about a monumental sphere-shaped music venue proposal for London seem to be gaining substance: The Guardian reports that the New York-based Madison Square Garden Company confirmed its plans to build a glazed orb — designed by Populous — for over 20,000 concert goers near the... View full entry
Canopy London is the latest venture from the Hilton group's new "lifestyle brand," Canopy by Hilton, that caters to a younger, more tech-savvy traveler with a strong emphasis on local design. Guests are gifted local goodies—like Garrett's Popcorn if you're spending the evening in Chicago, or... View full entry