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For all its Brutalist charm and rigid adherence to the now-outmoded ‘streets in the sky’ concept, Robin Hood Gardens was an easy target for those who call architects hypocrites eager to champion crumbling estates they wouldn’t dare live in themselves. Many of the current residents can’t wait to be rid of it: a consultation in 2008 found that over 75% supported its demolition. — londonist.com
The Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei collaboration – the 12th pavilion – breaks the mould of the sequence so far as the criterion for the commission had been for an architect not to have built in England. But Herzog & de Meuron are also deeply engaged in the art world, having built the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. They are currently working on art museums in New York, Miami and Kolkata. — ft.com
Perhaps emboldened by the success of the atheist bus, or his own Living Architecture initiative (in which top architects design desirable holiday homes), or the fact that he's got a new book to promote, Alain de Botton is now proposing a series of temples for atheists to be built around the UK. — guardian.co.uk
The last few years have seen a new generation of alternative publications and editorial talent emerge, and London is very much a part of the scene. This month saw the release of the fourth issue of P.E.A.R.. Printed on newspaper stock, this zine was started by the editorial collective of Rashid Ali, Matthew Butcher, Julian Krueger and Megan O’Shea, with the designer Avni Patel, in 2009. — tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com
Named A Room for London, the accommodation is also an art installation commissioned by Living Architecture and Artangel. Living Architecture is a social enterprise that operates a handful of holiday homes throughout the UK and aims to provide members of the public with the opportunity to experience contemporary architecture at first hand. The Artangel organisation commissions creative projects by contemporary artists. — telegraph.co.uk
Shaped like a boat and moored above the Southbank Centre, this one-off, one-bedroom hotel has room for just two guests and is only open for one year. View full entry
Richard Rogers's 1986 headquarters for the insurers Lloyd's of London has just been listed Grade I. This makes it, along with the Royal Festival Hall, one of the few 20th-century structures to be placed at the same level as, say, St Paul's. But, like the gothic cathedrals it so closely resembles, Lloyd's was not meant to be an entirely finished product. Look up to the top of its facade, and you'll find cranes are still there... — guardian.co.uk
The name of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower is a real mouthful, a hybrid title for a mongrel artwork. The contorted steel “sculpture-cum-tower-cum-engineering feat,” in the inelegant phrase of Tate director Nicholas Serota, is the totem of our Olympic games, rising more than 375 feet out of the central plaza of the park, on former light industrial land equidistant between Stratford and Hackney Wick in east London. — architectmagazine.com
Built on a temporary site and made entirely from recycled shipping containers, London's latest retail park lays claim to be the world's first ever "pop-up" shopping mall. The aptly-named "Boxpark" opened for business today along a vacant strip of east London's fashionable Shoreditch High Street. It is composed of 60 standard-size shipping containers, stacked two stories high and five rows wide. — cnn.com
The winners of the Architect's Eye Awards, which celebrates architects' passion for photograph, were announced on Tuesday, November 22, during a ceremony hosted by the competition organizers, International Art Consultants, at their gallery in London, UK. — bustler.net
The Tower of London and the Palace of Westminster could lose their status as world architectural wonders because of the damage being done by surrounding skyscrapers.
World heritage cultural organisation Unesco has warned that the Tower of London could be downgraded because of the negative impact of the [Renzo Piano-designed] Shard of Glass on its panorama.
— thisislondon.co.uk
In London's case the practicality of the architecture is a reaction to the economic rather than the political excesses of the recent past. The 2012 Games are shaping up, in fact, as one of the clearest signs yet that the architectural boom years of the last decade or so in the West have definitively ended. — latimes.com
A leading architect has launched a scathing attack on Government planning reforms and warned that large parts of the country could resemble Los Angeles.
Lord [Richard] Rogers of Riverside claims that under the plans Britain's biggest cities could merge into one enormous urban sprawl.
— dailymail.co.uk
Saiman Miah, studying for his Masters degree at Birmingham School of Architecture designed the Olympic coin which features architectural elements of London's skyline and pictograms of athletes around the edge to create a clock face inspired by Big Ben. — telegraph.co.uk
The exhibition, curated by Elias Redstone, originated as an online project and showcases 60 architecture magazines, fanzines and journals from over 20 countries. From Australia and Argentina to the UK and USA, these independent publications are reframing how people relate to their built environment – taking comment and criticism out of just an architectural arena and into everyday life. — archizines.com
We're honored to have both our new Archinect News Digest 'zine, as well as Bracket, included in the upcoming ARCHI-ZINES exhibition at the AA in London. View full entry
Builders will use the machine to complete the spire of the Shard skyscraper near London Bridge in south London.
When fully extended the crane will sit at 317 metres or 1,040 ft above ground level, making it seven metres taller than the building's eventual highest point (310 metres).
The Shard will become the tallest building in the European Union and the 45th tallest in the world when it is completed in 2012.
— dailymail.co.uk
