University of Surrey 5G Research Center Winning Proposal / Scott Tallon Walker Architects
Scott Tallon Walker Architects just won the competition to design the new £35 million 5G Research Centre for the University of Surrey which will be the world’s first center for research into the next stage of mobile technology at the University. Their concept for the new building creates a flexible space with a circular atrium that acts as a central lung and focus, to ensure maximum interaction amongst researchers. The building will house the UK’s largest academic research center for mobile communications with 130 researchers and around 90 PhD students. The project has been given an urgent status and it is being undertaken immediately/ The project is expected to be completed well before the end of next year. More images and architects’ description after the break.
McLaren Production Centre / Foster + Partners
Architects: Foster + Partners
Location: Woking, Surrey
Project Team: Norman Foster, David Nelson, Nigel Dancey, Iwan Jones, Dominik Hauser, Nina Linde, Chris Johnstone, Kathleen Mark, Nicholas Papas
Client: McLaren Group
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 34,500 sqm
Photographs: McLaren, Nigel Young
Bing Thom and the Surrey City Centre Library: How architects are using Facebook and Twitter for public design
Facing an abbreviated schedule for the information-gathering phase of the Surrey City Centre Libary, Bing Thom Architects (BTA) turned to social media for real-time public input. The result was spectacular!
in November 2009 Bing Thom, winner of the 2011 RAIC gold medal, was commissioned to build a $36M, 80,000 square foot library in the Vancouver suburb. Funds for the library project, from Canada’s Federal Infrastructure program, mandated that the money be used by strict deadline or be lost. But with little time for standard due dilligence , BTA launched a library website, Facebook page, YouTube presence, Twitter account, and RSS feed, inviting public comment. The sites were populated with images of the project and invited users to publish their own images and text regarding their ideas for the future library in an online “ideasbook.”
The respondent group was more diverse than the crowd that usually shows up for public forums. The largest percentage of the library’s 487 Facebook fans, for example, are under 25. The second largest are women, age 35-44.
Check out FASTCO Design’s coverage of Bing Thom’s use of social media in the design of the Surrey City Centre Library.
In Progress: Surrey City Centre Library / Bing Thom Architects
The new Surrey City Centre Library, designed by Vancouver-based Bing Thom Architects (BTA), is set to open on September 24, 2011. This new building marks the next phase of a major civic investment in the area that will continue the transformation of downtown Surrey, from sprawling suburb to the Region’s next great downtown, which began with BTA’s Central City project. Creating dynamic environments that look to the future of Surrey is nothing new to BTA. Nearly a decade ago, the firm designed the incredibly vibrant Central City, which sits down the street from the new Surrey Library. The architectural and social innovation evident at Central City—a fusion of office space, a shopping center and a university—is further exemplified in BTA’s library design.
Architect: Bing Thom Architects Inc.
Location: 10350 University Drive, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Project Team: Bing Thom, Michael Heeney, Venelin Kokalov, Ling Meng, Francis Yan, John Camfield, Shinobu Homma, Robert Sandilands, Marcos Hui, Lisa Potopsingh, Harald Merk, Berit Wooge, Dan Du, Michael Motlagh, Nicole Hu
Landscape Architect: Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 82,000 sqf
Photographs: Courtesy of Bing Thom Architects
Return of Ritual / MCM Partnership
MCM Partnership, shared with us their design for the Surrey Townshift Competition, for which they received the first overall prize. See more images and architect’s description after the break.
Underground Hotel / ReardonSmith Architects
When asked to design a luxury hotel and spa at Hersham Golf Club in Surrey (which is within London’s Green Belt) ReardonSmith Architects responded with plans for a subterranean building. Matthew Guy, ReardonSmith’s project designer, explained “Our concept integrates hotel, spa, and golf facilities into a single architecturally exciting and organic composition below and above ground. The design fulfills the requirements of the brief for a bespoke five star hotel while returning hard standing to the Green Belt and improving the physical layout and visual attraction of the entire site. It represents a commercially viable solution to developing in the Green Belt and is, we believe, a world-first.”
More about the hotel after the break.
