London: The Latest Architecture and News

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The Museum of London and Malcolm Reading Consultants have launched an international search for an outstanding architect or team of architects to create a new building for the museum at West Smithfield in the City of London. The project at the heart of the two-stage design competition has a £130-150m construction budget, and is focused on regenerating a nationally-significant landmark and creating new contemporary galleries within a group of historic buildings on the West Smithfield site. The Museum of London is one of the top ten museums and galleries in the UK capital and responsible for the world’s largest archaeological archive, which currently holds six million artefacts.

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Join ASF-UK for a one day symposium to explore how built environment practitioners can respond to emerging global challenges in cities.

Conscious Cities is a one-day conference organised by MoA and THECUBE that aims to explore the relationship between neuroscience and architecture. By bringing together neuroscientists, architects, engineers, planners and developers, the conference aims to offer necessary tools for understanding how the built environment impacts our cognitive functions, while also showing how professionals can use research in neuroscience to design better spaces and cities for the future.

Witherford Watson Mann Architects, in collaboration with writer Ken Worpole, has unveiled their design for an almshouse for the elderly in Bermondsey, London. Located on the site of a vacant, post-war nursing home, the 6,152 square meter space will serve the United St Saviour’s Charity, as an independent living accommodation for around 90 residents.

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For architects, drawing is a thinking process. Sketching by hand onto paper without having any predetermined built form in mind is often the springboard for new hypotheses. With the rise of digital representation in architecture, has the computer superseded the hand in the exploration of ideas?

Presenting the work of the revolutionary architect Walter Segal, Walter’s Way – The Self-Build Revolution focuses on Segal’s work with the Lewisham self-builders of the 1980s and displays the application of Segal’s method today. Housed in and around a newly constructed section of a Segal house, from which visitors can experience the fundamental elements of the style, are original drawings, documents and furniture designed by Segal alongside archival films and photographs, plus contemporary photographs by Taran Wilkhu and a new interpretation of Segal’s technique by 2015 Turner Prize winner Assemble.

For architects, drawing is a thinking process. Sketching by hand onto paper without having any predetermined built form in mind is often the springboard for new hypotheses. With the rise of digital representation in architecture, has the computer superseded the hand in the exploration of ideas? This RIBA London seminar sees Professor Sir Peter Cook (co-founder of Archigram, director of CRAB Studio) and Professor Marcos Cruz (Bartlett) discuss the boons and limitations of digital representation in architecture, and the hybrid possibilities of using both in tandem.

A new exhibition, opening later this month in London, aims to examine the varying ways that cities and communities have been re-imagined in the aftermath of natural, or man-made, disasters. Including work by Yasmeen Lari, ELEMENTAL, OMA, Shigeru Ban, NLÉ, Toyo Ito, Metabolism (Kenzo Tange and Kurokawa Kisho) and Sir Christopher Wren, who redesigned London in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1666, the exhibition will primarily explore contemporary responses to earthquakes and tsunamis. Posing questions about the fragility of architecture, our relationship to nature, and the power of architects to instigate change, it will ask whether we are facing a paradigm shift in the way that cities and communities recover from destruction.

Increasingly, more architecture professionals are breaking into the world of film, learning digital animation and design skills to engage non-specialists, as well as their peers. Architect-trained Kibwe Tavares, co-founder of creative studio Factory Fifteen, will explore the ways architects and designers can use digital representation to encourage imaginative thinking through a combination of architecture and film.

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Will Alsop’s practice aLL Design has revealed the plans for its new 15-story residential tower in Vauxhall’s new arts district on Newport Street in south London. The project, called The Beacon, was commissioned by Newport Street Projects (NSP), which was formed solely for the development of the up-and-coming area.

The Beacon will be 1,735 square meters, with a narrowed footprint at the ground level, giving back 38% of street-level space to be used as public seating, landscaping, and permanent art installations.

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Architectural charity Article 25 has revealed a selection of the images to be included for auction in their annual 10x10 fundraising auction. One of the highlights of Article 25's calendar, each year the 10x10 event divides an area of the city of London into 100 sections, challenging the participants to produce a drawing or other artwork inspired by the location assigned to them. This year, Article 25 abandoned the usual grid in favor of 100 areas along the Thames, taking in the many landmarks along the river's winding route. Article 25's list of participants includes architects such as Rafael Vinoly, David Adjaye, Sir Terry Farrell, Will Alsop and Chris Wilkinson, alongside artists including Antony Gormley and Wolfgang Buttress.

Last year's 10x10 event raised over £120,000 for Article 25's healthcare projects in the developing world. This year, the 100 drawings will once again be briefly exhibited at the RIBA headquarters in London on December 1st before the work is auctioned, an addition to an online auction which will begin on November 24th at 10x10london.com.

Read on to see a selection of the artworks to be auctioned.

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