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Since the announcement this past March, Chilean architect Smiljan Radic has unveiled the 14th Serpentine Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery's Kensington Gardens in London. For the past 14 years, the Serpentine Gallery has invited famous architects like Sou Fujimoto, Jean Nouvel, SANAA, and Frank... View full entry
Take one voguish designer, one national treasure and one icon-hungry mayor and what do you get? A floating forest across the Thames. But can anyone actually say what the £175m garden bridge is for? — theguardian.com
After being chosen to have the winning design in the competition, KSR Architects got to realize their proposal for the Camden Town Pavilion at the iconic Britannia junction during the town's first Camden Create Festival that recently occurred in Camden, London.
KSR Architects' colorful pop-up pavilion must've been quite the statement piece to celebrate the town's unique creative culture.
— bustler.net
Check out some photos of the pavilion:More details on Bustler. View full entry
The Walkie Talkie – or 20 Fenchurch Street – became known as the Walkie Scorchie because of its apparent ability to bounce heat from the sun on to buildings in the next street in the City of London.
Yesterday, the developer, Land Securities, said that it had received planning permission for a “brise soleil” sunshade to be attached to the building to replace a temporary system erected last summer. Work is due to start this month.
— telegraph.co.uk
Summer DLAB from London's AA School of Architecture is back again for its 2014 cycle. The summer-long workshop emphasizes the integration of algorithmic / generative design methodologies and large scale digital fabrication tools.Continuing its color-based agenda with White, this year's Summer DLAB... View full entry
At the Barbican Center in London, the Curve gallery is an example of an unusually shaped art space in the middle of a traditional, rectiform center. Its 90-degree curved design, wrapping around the back of the performing arts center's main hall, has been by turns a challenge and a blessing, and its function continues to evolve even after 30 years' experience. — nytimes.com
In 2010, Nick Williams oversaw construction of luxury apartments at London’s One Hyde Park, where a penthouse valued at 175 million pounds ($297 million) sold last month.
Now he works at the other end of the property ladder, building discounted homes for those shut out of the boom.
Local officials have “realized the housing crisis for people who are neither rich nor poor is massive [...]”
— bloomberg.com
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.
— ft.com
"Buildings in paintings have always been treated as a background, as something subordinate to the figures themselves," says co-curator of Building the Picture, a new exhibition at the National Gallery that aims to put the architecture of Renaissance paintings on centre stage. "We're arguing that the buildings are active protagonists. They're not just propping up the characters, but are also capable of carrying key messages and performing a series of crucial roles themselves." — theguardian.com
This year's Designs of the Year jury have chosen their crème de la crème of the world's most cutting-edge design. Since London's Design Museum announced the 76 nominees in February, the competition has narrowed down to seven category winners. In the final step of the competition, one of these category winners will be announced as the overall winner by June 30 at an event hosted by St. Martins Lane London. — bustler.net
The category winners are:(Pictured above) Architecture: HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN - Designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrik SchumacherDigital: PEEK (PORTABLE EYE EXAMINATION KIT) - Designed by Dr. Andrew Bastawrous, Stewart Jordan, Dr. Mario Giardini, Dr. Iain LivingstoneFashion: PRADA... View full entry
Whenever a campaign wants to stop some new development it will use the phrase "tower block". This isn't what the developers would call them – they prefer "stunning developments" or "luxury apartments".
There is a national campaign afoot against new towers, specifically against the astonishing 230 mostly residential ones planned for the capital. Inevitably, the campaign has referred to tower blocks and "the mistakes of the 1960s" knowing this is emotive language [...].
— theguardian.com
In so-called hot cities [...] battles are raging over height limits and urban density, all on the basis of two premises: 1) that building all these towers will increase the supply of housing and therefore reduce its costs; 2) that increasing density is the green, sustainable thing to do and that towers are the best way to do it.
I am not sure that either is true.
— theguardian.com
Dear Boris,
Let's agree that towers can be beautiful. Let's also agree that London needs new homes and plenty of them. It may well be that many of the 200-plus tall buildings now proposed can play a useful role if, as you say, they are "sensitively managed, well designed and in the right place".
London is not Amsterdam nor Vienna, cities whose inherited profile is retained at all costs. But neither, as you once put it, should it be Dubai-on-Thames.
— theguardian.com
With titanium facades swinging like jiving skirts and windows staggered like towers of toppling coins, the chaotic energy of the latest apartment designs for Battersea power station can only mean one thing: Frank Gehry is in town.
As the 85-year-old visionary architect behind the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao outlined plans for 700 apartments in London – his first English buildings – he walked straight into a raging debate about the capital's affordable housing crisis.
— theguardian.com
Previously: Gehry and Foster selected to design Phase 3 at Battersea Power Station View full entry
Almost 10 years and £12bn in the making, the full extent of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will finally open to the public on Saturday, revealing "the biggest new park in Europe for 150 years", magicked from the mud at the bottom of the Lea Valley.
Stretching for 230 hectares (568 acres) around a knotted tangle of waterways and rail lines, it is, says its maker, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), the size of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens combined [...].
— theguardian.com