Architecture from United Kingdom

Housing developer Student Castle has partnered with Glenn Howells Architects to create a 55-story red brick tower in Manchester city center. Built to include 850 rooms and co-working space for students and start-up businesses, the new skyscraper would overlook Oxford Road station next to Great Marlborough Street tower. Glenn Howells says the scheme pays homage to the red brick chimneys that once dominated the city’s skyline.

The 2018 London Design Festival is now underway, having returned for its 16th year. Running from 15th to 23rd September, and spread across the city, the Festival features works such as Snøhetta’s rotating book pavilion and a series of installations at the V&A celebrating the venue’s 10th year as the Festival’s official hub.

Grimshaw can claim their horticultural Eden Project in Devon, South West England as being among their most iconic works. Nestled in a disused quarry, simultaneously acting as an embedded landscape feature and an alien spacecraft holding precious specimens and plants, the scheme has been celebrated as a successful modern interpretation of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome concept.

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.

In 776 BC, the Olympic Games of antiquity were hosted at the Olympia stadium in Peloponnese, Greece, an arena widely believed to be the world’s oldest stadium. The elongated U-shaped track and stand had a capacity of up to 45,000 people.

The 2018 Antepavilion has opened in London, the second in an annual series. Designed and built by Thomas Randall-Page and Benedetta Rogers, the 2018 edition titled “AirDraft” sees an inflatable theater sitting atop a 19th-century barge, creating a floating venue for music and performance in trendy East London.

Members of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have elected Alan Jones to be their next president, following a turbulent campaign marked by allegations of institutional racism, financial disparity, and fraud. Jones saw off competition from fellow candidates Elsie Owusu and Philip David Allsopp.

UK-based artist Alex Chinneck has unveiled his latest architectural installation, transforming the walls of a soon-to-be-demolished 1960s office building on the former Kent Wool Growers site in Ashford, England. “Open to the Public” features an eight-meter-high double zip running down the side of the building, revealing the forlorn interior.

The Architects' Journal’s 2018 student survey has revealed troublesome, though perhaps not surprising, trends within the profession. The results of the survey, drawn from nearly 500 students in the UK, suggest that the economically fortunate are more likely to succeed within a culture that promotes unsociable and unhealthy working hours.

Facebook is moving into new offices in London’s King’s Cross. The announcement from King’s Cross details the social media giant’s commitment to take over 600,000 square feet (55,000 square meters) of office space across three buildings, namely 11 and 21 Canal Reach by Bennetts Associates, and P2 by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris.