Architecture from United Kingdom

The RIBA and Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) have joined forces to display six pioneering experiments in social housing from their archives. “A Home for All” features designs “from a tower block that up-ended the terraced street, to a DIY kit that encouraged residents to design their own homes.”

Living Architecture has published photographs of the Peter Zumthor-designed “Secular Retreat” as it nears completion in Chivelstone, Devon. The retreat will be the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s first permanent building in the UK.

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris Architects have released plans for a mixed-use shopping and office block to replace 1-2 Broadgate on the City of London campus. The multi-colored block design will include 74,000 square meters of commercial space as part of the revitalization of the iconic 1980s office complex. Linked to Liverpool Street station, the new development would include retail and leisure as part of the new shopping center.

New images have been published of Grimshaw and Arup-designed stations for the UK’s ”High Speed 2” railway system. Connecting London to the British Midlands, the mega-infrastructure project will be the UK’s second high-speed rail system, with HS1 already connecting London and the South East to the Channel Tunnel.

British designer Paul Cocksedge's ‘impossible’ living watercolor design was selected as a finalist for the UK National Pavilion during Expo 2020 in Dubai. Every color in the pavilion comes from the flag of a nation exhibiting at the event, expressing unity, partnership and possibility. The overlapping shades reflect the theme of the Expo – Connecting Minds, Creating The Future. At the heart of the building, a sculptural centerpiece envelops visitors in color and light, giving the sense of an ‘impossible’ structure.

Award-winning artist and designer Es Devlin OBE is set to design the UK Pavilion for Expo 2020 in Dubai. The scheme, titled “Poem Pavilion” will highlight “leading British expertise in Artificial Intelligence and Space,” and will be produced in collaboration with global brand agency Avantgarde.

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.