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Architects: Shepheard Epstein Hunter
- Area: 10700 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: KEIM, Kingspan Insulated Panels, Air Tightness Solutions, Airedale Group, Architectural Profiles, +22
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Professionals: Bidwells, Pulse Consult, Concept PM, Ares Landscape Architects, Socotech, Sweco
England: The Latest Architecture and News
Space Park Leicester Center / Shepheard Epstein Hunter
Plans to Renovate the Sainsbury Wing and National Gallery in London Receive Approval by the City Council
The Westminister City Council adopted a resolution to grant planning permission to the National Gallery for a series of adaptations, including Selldorf Architects’ restoration proposal for the Sainsbury Wing, originally designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. The plans to remodel were revealed earlier this year as part of the NG200 Project to celebrate the National Gallery’s bicentennial in 2024. The first intervention proposal for the Sainsbury Wing was met with widespread criticism, which led to a revision of the plans, released in October this year.
Herzog & de Meuron Reveals Plans to Upgrade London's Liverpool Street Station
Architecture office Herzog & de Meuron has unveiled plans to revamp the Liverpool Street station in London. The scheme includes “vital upgrades” aimed at transforming the Victorian-era station into a fully accessible transportation hub fit to accommodate the 135 million people using the station annually. It also includes the addition of 840,000 square feet of offices and a 190,000 square feet hotel in two new structures, 10 and 6 stories high, respectively. These new interventions have attracted criticism from conservation groups. The proposal is currently undergoing its first round of public consultation. The development is overseen by Stellar, working with MTR, the operator of rail transport services and Network Rail.
The Mercian Apartments / Glenn Howells Architects
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Architects: Glenn Howells Architects
- Area: 48225 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Aspex, British Gypsum, Dean Wilson, Elements Europe, Flood Precast, +5
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Professionals: WSP Norge, OOBE, Hann Tucker Associates, RPS Group, CDM Services, +3
HWKN and BIG Design Commercial District at Canada Water Dockside, London
New York-based firm HWKN will create 18,200 square meters of urban development in the commercial quarter of the new Canada Water regeneration plan. In collaboration with the scheme's master planner, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, the developer Art-Invest Real Estate UK, and the local community, HWKN makes its UK architectural debut by designing one of the three buildings at the Dockside, London. The building will blend innovative workspaces, commerce, and communal amenities.
The Canada Water Masterplan will transform a total of 215,000 square meters and is expected to deliver up to 3,000 new homes, 280,000 square meters of workspace, and community space in central-south London. The first new town center in London in 50 years would become the UK's most sustainable new urban hub after completion, expected in 2035.
Renovation Plans for Venturi Scott Brown’s National Gallery Wing Are Revised After Widespread Criticism
Selldorf Architects have released a revised version of the plans to remodel the National Gallery and the Sainsbury Wing, both classified as Grade-I-listed monuments. Sainsbury Wing is also the recipient of the 2019 AIA Twenty-five Year Award. The plans for the Sainsbury Wing, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown and opened in 1991, have faced intense criticism, with former RIBA Journal editor Hugh Pearman calling the remodeling plans “unnecessarily destructive”. The plans to remodel were first revealed earlier this year as part of the NG200 Project to celebrate the National Gallery’s bicentennial in 2024. The project proposes the remodeling of the Sainsbury Wing’s front gates, ground-floor entrance sequence, lobby, and first-floor spaces.
Grimshaw Develops the New Waterloo Station Masterplan in London
Grimshaw has been commissioned to develop the busiest transport hub in the UK, as well as London's surrounding Southbank area. The master plan will improve the traffic of 5 connections and renovate the terrain, home to world-famous attractions like the London Eye and the Tate Modern. The project is aligned with Lambeth Council's and the Network Rail's commitment to net zero emissions by 2030, through the extension of pedestrian and cycling routes.
Council House Renovation / VATRAA
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Architects: VATRAA
- Area: 80 m²
- Year: 2021
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Manufacturers: Astro Lighting, Boen, Foscarini
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Professionals: Structurehaus
Portlands Place East Village / Hawkins\Brown
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Architects: Hawkins\Brown
- Area: 57090 m²
- Year: 2022
One Bishopsgate Plaza / PLP Architecture
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Architects: PLP Architecture
- Area: 49800 m²
- Year: 2021
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Manufacturers: Abbey Thermal, B&B Italia, BDL, Brown and Carrols, C&C, +9
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Professionals: Yabu Pushelburg, MSMR, EPPAG, Inverse, DP9
Tree House / Fletcher Crane Architects
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Architects: Fletcher Crane Architects
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Manufacturers: GIRA
Paddington Elizabeth Line Station / Weston Williamson + Partners
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Architects: Weston Williamson + Partners
- Area: 2500 m²
- Year: 2022
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Professionals: WSP Norge, Constain Skanska JV
How Are Co-Living Spaces in London Offering Solutions for Rising Urban Density and Real Estate?
Co-living is a residential community living model, referring to a modern form of group housing that has significantly transformed London life and the UK as a whole. The notion of co-living has even more so been popularized by the rise of housing startups, with many offering affordable housing in homes and apartments alike shared by a handful of adult housemates.
Buckle Street Studios / Grzywinski+Pons
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Architects: Grzywinski+Pons
- Area: 3530 m²
- Year: 2022
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Professionals: Manhire Associates, Applied Energy
Garnham Street Apartments / Dowen Farmer Architects + Nicholas Kirk Architects
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Architects: Dowen Farmer Architects, Nicholas Kirk Architects
- Area: 650 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Milk Furniture
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Professionals: Scenesmith, Maddox, London Structures Lab
What Do We Do With the Houses of Empire?
In June 2020, the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was toppled in the southwestern city of Bristol in England. Before this, the statue sat on a plinth in a prominent public park, before being hauled into Bristol Harbour by Black Lives Matter protestors. This act has led to a long-overdue reckoning in the UK and other Western nations, a reckoning that has necessitated a deeper analysis of monuments that line cities, and how deeply imperialism can be interlinked with parts of the built environment. The ever-green question is, what do we do with these buildings?
Tower of Light and Wall of Energy / Tonkin Liu
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Architects: Tonkin Liu
- Area: 373 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Darwen Terracotta, Shawton Engineering Limited, Tryka UK
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Professionals: Arup, SEAM Design, Shawton Engineering Ltd, Axis Envelope Solutions, Turley
In London, a Venturi-Scott Brown Masterpiece Is Threatened
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
Despite its dazzling collection of masterpieces, London’s National Gallery has been cursed with a series of ill-advised architectural schemes over its two-century existence. Only once have its leaders made a truly inspired and visionary choice: in the mid-1980s, the gallery held a competition, won by Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown (VRSB) of Philadelphia, to build a special collections building.
The addition was constructed from 1988 to 1991, using funds donated by the Sainsbury family as a gift to the nation and was immediately hailed as one of the finest buildings of its type erected in the 20th century. It has remained popular with Londoners and has served well as an expansion of William Wilkins’s undistinguished classical building ever since. Experts on the work of Robert Venturi, John Rauch, and Denise Scott Brown consider it one of their masterpieces. Apparently, the National Gallery has a different opinion.