Todays walk for exercise during the pandemic was through the first phase of the Ram Quarter development on the site of the old Young’s Brewery where beer has been brewed since at least 1533, continuing after the closure of the brewery in 2006 with a micro-brewery on site. The brewery and pub was located on […]
Ravensbourne University made a bold but forward-thinking decision to move to the then barren, but developing, landscape of Greenwich Peninsula in 2010 with its unique building designed by Foreign Office Architects which now, a decade later, looks very much part of the urban landscape of this new quarter for London. Nearby, Antony Gormley’s ‘Quantum Cloud’ […]
If you drive down from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, as I frequently do when staying in the area, you will come to know the I-95 well, with its views out to different districts of Miami, against the backcloth of skyscrapers around the Harbour. As you drive on the I-95 above North Miami Avenue, the buildings […]
I have a confession to make. My first job after graduating was based in Croydon, in Apollo House which still stands today and was one of several post-war concrete office blocks built as Croydon sought to develop itself as the “Manhattan of the South”. Since then, things have gone downhill; many of those post-war buildings […]
Frustrating for my teachers, but those of us sitting at the window of the classroom had the great distraction of watching the huge metal ball swing up high and then come crashing down into the sandstone masonry of the old building outside the window. Over and over again, the ball swung into the building, forcing […]
Since the days when Glasgow was a bustling port with the river full of ships from all round the world loading and unloading their cargo into warehouses and dock buildings running along the riverside, the city has lost its connection with the river, with some exceptions such as the former City Inn near the Scottish Conference […]
Standing like a symbol of the revitalisation of Amsterdam’s harbour on the IJ River, René van Zuuk’s sculptural Architecture Centre for Amsterdam (ARCAM), completed over a decade ago, represents the design-led regeneration which has brought buildings such as the historic Armoury, now the National Maritime Museum, into the 21st century and provided new high-quality contemporary […]
In January, the construction of the new Orchid House in Estepona was well under way. Such was the speed of completion that the new building opened in March this year and both the Orchid House and the new landscaped park around it are now firmly part of the urban fabric of Estepona. The park is a […]
It’s an expedition; it would be easy to catch a taxi, but that doesn’t feel like the right thing to do; it is more adventurous to travel on the metro from the city centre and then, with the necessary technological assistance of google maps, walk as the only pedestrians along a busy major road and […]
Once Boston’s main shopping area, with elegant buildings designed by top architects, Downtown Crossing in Boston had its heart torn out of it with the closure of Filenes Department store, with the original buildings gutted and left as an empty shell and the remainder demolished to leave a huge gaping hole, plus the loss of […]
"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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