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Stirling ideas

This year’s Stirling shortlist is of buildings most modest. The Guardian calls it “austerity architecture”. I have read here and there that the GFC has apparently made exclamatory buildings a little bitter on the palate up on the topside, though Zaha did get a listing for the speedlining Evelyn Grace academy in Lambeth, which the Guardian calls, “one of the most expensive city academy schools ever built”. Two of the shortlisted buildings are extensive renovations to existing buildings, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the Angel Centre in Islington, London. The Angel Centre was not even 30 years old when it was considered outmoded. Rather than a bowl’n‘build, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris stripped the building, threw out the mirror glass, and gave it a jolly good £72m white-washing. That’s 15% less than a complete rebuild, with 30% less carbon dioxide emitted.

21.07.11 in sustainability 

Grand Huf

As a preface to an upcoming article on prefab housing, which may not be ready for a while… here is a Grand Designs repeat about the construction of a german Huf Haus , demonstrating how ridiculously quickly they can be erected, and also how weirdly it sits in its English suburban context. It expires VERY soon though – May 23. iView here .

21.05.11 in buildings 

Sharing it around

Richard Rogers on Rogers Stirk Harbour:

29.05.10 in practice 

Architect / protaganist:

Tall in timber

stadthaus
PHOTO BY WAUGH THISTLETON

21.10.09 in sustainability timber

Architect / protaganist:

Comment [1]

The unmemorable Stonehenge centre

stonehenge visitors centre

17.10.09 in buildings 

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Comment [9]

Will lies

He didn’t leave his own firm to become a painter, because the planners were horrible to him. He was secretly going corporate. Comments at AJ are not on his side. This one is very British:
“What a trumped up little fart.”

02.10.09 in architects 

Comment [3]

Architecture terribly exclusive, except for the pay

Flying around twitter… “Architecture is the most socially exclusive profession in the UK, ahead of law, medicine and accountancy, according to research by the Cabinet Office… Documents released by the Cabinet Office’s panel for Fair Access to the Professions show it costs more to qualify as an architect — over £60,000 — than any other profession. The panel also found newly qualified architects earned just over £20,000 a year, one of the lowest starting salaries in the professions.” BD Online

30.06.09 in practice education

Comment [1]

Fee fall

A warning from the RIBA president, Sunand Prasad, in AJ , don’t drop fees for cashflow, or it’ll come back and bite you, or in his words, “let the recession not be a downward ratchet that leaves a legacy of even poorer remuneration.”

17.06.09 in practice 

Wallpapertube

Wallpaper* Magazine opened its video channel last month. After a few weeks it has a number of vids for your viewing pleasure, including one of a house on wheels in Suffolk (by DRMM). So much easier than walking inside, instead you command the inside to come to you.

09.03.09 in video-portals 

planning a shed

I was just sent the link to this hilarious but rather old article from last May – about an architect who seems to have snapped while writing a planning report for a farm shed somewhere in the UK.

22.02.09 in weird-wonderful planning

Comment [1]

DCM back at stonehenge

After a false start or two, DCM has been reappointed as architects for the Stonehenge Visitor’s Centre in the U.K.
Building Design 13.01.09

17.02.09 in architects 

Demall, remall

Poor old Jonathan Glancey at the Guardian UK isn’t terribly happy about “Australia-owned” Westfield’s new megacentre at London’s White City. Comparing it to an ’80s airline terminal, he thinks it, “is just a tiny step towards our collective desire to undermine the life and culture of the traditional city”. Westfield, no doubt delighted by the opening day surge of consumers into its new palace, suggest that, “once you’re here, you’ll never want to leave…”

05.11.08 in urban-design 

Unlovely memories

The New Zealand and Australian war memorials in Westminster, London, have been criticised as ugly, bristlingly unlovely, and in the case of the Australian one by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer and Janet Laurence, ‘a urinal’. It seems conservative Londoners have had quite enough of looking at depressing antipodean memorials. The New Zealand memorial was the work of Athfield Architects and sculptor Paul Dibble.

14.02.08 in architects 

Robert Hughes on Modernism

The UK Guardian had a large feature section on Modernism in 2006, on the occasion of a major exhibition opeing at the V&A. It included this article by Robert Hughes.

13.09.06 in theory 

micro compact home

Horden Cherry Lee has developed the “Micro Compact Home” which come in small pods that can be clipped together. Elements of the design are based on the Japanese tea house.

07.08.05 in architects 

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The Shape Of Things To Come

A Business Week interview with Jan Kaplicky of Future Systems in 2005.

02.08.05 in profiles 

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