Once again, the architectural students at Central St Martins show their talent and imaginative ideas in the Degree Show which opened today. Attention is focussed on real life issues – how to provide affordable housing and strengthen the environment and social cohesion in Camden, Thamesmead, Croydon, Hackney Wick and the seaside town of Margate in […]
The achievement of high quality design in the higher education sector has been recognised in the Regional Finals of the 2016 RIBA Awards with around 20 projects across the country demonstrating the high quality of architecture being achieved in a wide range of facilities from student centres and libraries to high-tech biomedical research buildings. Breathing new life […]
London has re-discovered its rooftops. It started with the “Post Office Tower” and disappeared when the revolving restaurant was closed, then re-emerged when “Tower 42″ (formerly the NatWest Tower) opened up the area around its lift shafts as a bar linked to a restaurant several floors below. Then came the “Gherkin” with its rooftop space […]
Affordable housing is a major political issue, flamed by immigration in the Brexit debate, especially in London. The RIBA has taken the opportunity to contribute to the debate with its new exhibition “Designing the House of Tomorrow. Sadly, the exhibition falls flat; the recent exhibition on Seoul’s planning framework shows that more imagination is needed. The […]
A railway terminus becomes a tropical garden; a tropical greenhouse and an exhibition hall in a royal park become art galleries. Three buildings in Madrid demonstrate the dexterity and flexibility of nineteenth century cast iron structures. Madrid’s first railway station, inaugurated in 1851 in the Atocha area, was largely destroyed by fire and a new […]
The noble title “Duke of Berwick”, (linked to the Berwick-in-Tweed in England), is recognised in Europe but not in England. Created in 1687 for James Fitz-James Stuart, the illegitimate son of King James II and Arabella Churchill, the title was considered to have been forfeited in 1695 by the English Parliament after the forced exile […]
At the start, in the entrance courtyard, a 18m high steel arm turns and twists, with an all-seeing eye at its tip from which a camera continually sends images onto the wall above the main entrance. At the end, high on the wall in the last gallery, another all-seeing eye watches visitors as they leave. […]
While politicians are making emotive statements about immigration in the Brexit debate, artists are reminding us that immigration is not just about numbers, it is about people, human beings, who may have sacrificed everything to seek a better life and who often have made – and continue to make – an immense contribution to British culture, […]
Outside is a sandy beach on which, when the tide is out, children will create patterns in the sand and build sandcastles and other structures, until washed away by the sea. Inside, a rake rotates continually across a circular bed of sand creating lines and then smoothing them out, over and over again, a smaller […]
How much land in London sits wasted under major roads and motorways, dark, damp and unloved, perhaps used for car-parking or a sports centre, but otherwise sitting empty and neglected. If London’s Mayor stands any change of achieving his declared major increase in housing provision and also his support for the ongoing cultural success of London, […]
"The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul."
(Thomas Moore)
To be an architect means having a wide range of interests - architecture, art and creativity in all its variety of forms, sustainability, science and innovation. The greatest interest is often where these different worlds overlap and collide - that is when something imaginative often occurs that pushes us all forward to another place
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