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Liverpool: The Latest Architecture and News

Asif Khan and Theaster Gates Release New Vision for Liverpool’s Waterfront Transformation Project

National Museums Liverpool (NML) has revealed a revised version of the redevelopment of the city’s waterfront, led by architect Asif Khan and artist Theaster Gates. The plans include the redesign of the public spaces at Canning Dock, a historical area central to the Liverpool docks. As part of the Waterfront Transformation Project, the interventions aim to create accessible public spaces to better serve the community and to create a link between the surrounding museums. The preliminary proposal is now open for public consultation.

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Striking a Balance: The Dilemma in Heritage Cities

Subject to the forces of capital, migrating populations, and political circumstances, our planet’s cities are constantly evolving. This continuous evolution is evident in the built fabric of settlements, as architects and planners build upon layers of the built environment, with some having the strenuous task of having to integrate the historic urban areas of cities successfully with contemporary architectural interventions and systems. 

The cities of this category are frequently in an internal conflict — oftentimes having to grapple with the sometimes contradictory aims of both sustaining local populations and welcoming outside investment and national development projects.

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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.

UNESCO Removes Liverpool’s World Heritage Status and Spares Venice of In-Danger Designation

This month, UNESCO has announced a series of decisions concerning important heritage sites, giving rise to conversations around preservation and urban development. Last week, the World Heritage Committee decided to strip Liverpool of its heritage status, as the new developments are considered detrimental to the waterfront's integrity. These projects placed the city on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2012, a designation which Venice managed to avoid earlier this week, due in great part to the recent ban on cruise ships.

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Granby Winter Garden / Assemble

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De Vries House / Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects

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Liverpool, Canada

The Electric Automated Cities of the Future, According to Jaguar and Barr Gazetas

Car manufacturer Jaguar has teamed up with architect Tom Barton of Barr Gazetas to imagine the consequences of an electrified automotive future on cities. Taking four case studies across the United Kingdom, the team speculated on existing infrastructural issues, and the opportunities for improvement made possible by the advent of electric cars.

With 180,000 electric vehicles on UK roads in 2018 and 1 million estimated by 2020, the case studies imagine a future where green alternatives to fossil fuels power transport and buildings in zero-emission cities. Below, we have republished the four scenarios, featuring a motorway, inner-city car park, industrial wasteland, and a wider urban landscape.

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What 6 British Cities Could Have Looked Like

A historic hotbed of architectural styles and a current architectural capital of the world, cities in the United Kingdom are awash with iconic buildings from the Georgian, Neoclassical, and contemporary era. Such buildings, from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol to the Southbank in London, have come to define the cities in which they stand, drawing the eyes of tourists and designers alike from around the world.

It is therefore an interesting exercise to examine what these cities would look like if such structures didn’t exist. To this end, Neomam Studios has partnered with QuickQuid to produce a series of images demonstrating what six British cities could have looked like, resurrecting some of Britain’s most surprising unbuilt structures.

Carbuncle Cup 2018: The Shortlist for the UK's Most "Aesthetically Challenged" New Building

They say that bad publicity is good publicity. Nevertheless, late August is a time for baited breath among UK architects, as the readers of Building Design generate the shortlist for Britain’s "ugliest" building. Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder and judgment towards these unpopular designs shouldn't necessarily be generalized. However, this competition opens up important dialogues about architectural aesthetics and public reception of new projects.

Continuing the 12-year tradition of what has been called the RIBA Stirling Prize’s less fortunate sibling, the shortlist for the 2018 Carbuncle Cup showcases the six projects which British architecture followers love to hate. Previous winners of the prize include the Cutty Sark by Grimshaw in 2012, and Rafael Viñoly Architects' 20 Fenchurch Street in 2015.

Schmidt Hammer Lassen Reuse Historic Tower for Maritime Knowledge Hub in Liverpool

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Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen

Schmidt Hammer Lassen has won an invited competition for the design of the Marine Knowledge Hub in Liverpool, United Kingdom. The 70,000-square-foot (6,400-square-meter) scheme, intended for marine engineering research, survival training, workspace, and events, seeks to elevate the status of both Liverpool and the United Kingdom in the maritime research industry.

The scheme forms part of the Wirral Waters regeneration project, a £4.5 billion masterplan, which represented the largest planning application ever submitted in the UK in 2009.

As the RIBA's Largest Outpost Launches in Liverpool, A New Exhibition Seeks to Reveal the City's Maverick History

The Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA) new national architecture center, RIBA North, will open this week (June 17th) in Liverpool as part of the Mann Island project – a complex of waterfront buildings designed by Broadway Malyan and completed in 2013. At the core of the launch of the Institute's largest national outpost will sit an exhibition, located in the new City Gallery, exploring Liverpool’s "long, often maverick, history of architectural ambition, its willingness to take risks and consider audacious [architectural] schemes."

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RIBA’s New National Architecture Centre Will Celebrate Liverpool’s Architectural History

Liverpool will soon be home to the Royal Institute of British Architect’s (RIBA) new national centre for architecture, RIBA North, which will be a new focal point for visitors to learn about architecture, as well as the culture and history behind Liverpool’s built environment. Occupying a part of the Mann Island Buildings designed by Broadway Malyan in 2013, RIBA North will offer a host of new opportunities for architectural discovery and education, including exhibitions, lectures, tours, and a digital model of the city.

“At RIBA North, we have a building with museum conditions which will offer a magnificent opportunity to view RIBA’s world-renowned historic collections showing hundreds of years of the UK’s extraordinary architectural history,” explained RIBA President Jane Duncan. “We are particularly proud to strengthen our cultural and creative offering in the north of England, and to enable many more people to explore and understand the enormous impact that architecture and design has on all our lives.”

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RIBA to Open New National Architecture Centre in Liverpool

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) will open a new national architecture centre, RIBA North, in Liverpool this August. The centre will house an exhibition gallery, a conference and event space, a cafe and a shop, and aims to build upon the Waterfront location’s status as a lively cultural destination.

Royal Court Theatre / Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

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Jestico + Whiles Wins Approval for Tower Works Redevelopment in Leeds

Jestico + Whiles, in collaboration with developer Carillion, has won planning consent from the Leeds City Council for the Tower Works redevelopment, a competition they won in March of last year. The site is located in the Holbeck Urban Village, which is situated near the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The design incorporates the styles of surrounding buildings, particularly the three Italianate towers, which date back to the industrial revolution.

Assemble Awarded the 2015 Turner Prize for Granby Four Streets

Assemble, a London-based collective who "work across the fields of art, design and architecture to create projects in tandem with the communities who use and inhabit them," have been announced as the winners of the 2015 Turner Prize – Europe’s most prestigious contemporary visual art award. Their nomination was a surprise to many, not least because an architect (or architecture collective, in this case) has not been shortlisted before. Previous winners—some of whose work has intersected with the world of architecture—include Gilbert & George, Anish Kapoor (known for the Orbit at the 2012 London Olympic Games), Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Gillian Wearing and Grayson Perry (a collaborator on FAT's final built work).

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Granby Workshop: Assemble Launch an Eclectic Range of Socially Conscious Homeware

In the late nineteenth century the rise of the industrial revolution inspired a counter-movement to reignite the production of handmade goods across the world. Led by classically trained artisans from rural England, the Arts and Crafts movement briefly swept Europe and North America on principles of celebrating high calibre and unique goods resulting in an array of furniture, textiles, wallpaper and architecture, among others.

More than a century later, the Arts and Crafts movement is in the midst of a renaissance led by 2015 RIBA Turner Prize nominees Assemble Studio. Founded under the moniker Granby Workshop, the newly formed Liverpool-based artisan collective aims to eliminate widespread dereliction in one of the city's most blighted boroughs through the replacement of objects that have, over time, been stripped away. Sustained through a crowd funding model, Granby Workshop has launched a broad collection of locally sourced, designed and assembled homewares available for purchase online.