Allies and Morrison: The Latest Architecture and News

This edition of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, explores London's new Design Museum – a significant expansion for the institution at an entirely new location in West London. The interior spaces of the former Commonwealth Institute Building in Kensington, which is Grade II-listed, have been renovated by John Pawson. Alongside the museum’s Deputy Director, Alice Black, the Monocle team investigate the thinking behind the relaunch and how the spaces are designed to accommodate a shifting audience.

Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge project has been under fire since plans were announced in 2013, drawing skepticism of the fairness of the competition process, and even being called “nothing but a wasteful blight.” Last month, London's new mayor Sadiq Khan gave a lukewarm endorsement of the project, noting that since £37.7m of the £60m allocated by the government has already been spent, scrapping the project now would end up costing taxpayers more than going forward with it.

The current predicament has inspired architects Allies and Morrison to design an alternative option – one that could both save the taxpayers money and create a new greenway spanning the Thames. Many of the complaints directed toward the original design have been associated with the cost of building a new bridge that would serve limited transportation needs; Allies and Morrison eliminate this issue by simply placing a garden pathway onto an existing piece of infrastructure, the nearby Blackfriars Bridge.

A total of 68 buildings have been shortlisted for the 2016 RIBA London Awards, including projects from John McAslan + Partners, dRMM Architects, Níall McLaughlin Architects, Eric Parry Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour. All shortlisted buildings will now be visited and carefully assessed by one of four regional juries, and regional winners will be considered for a RIBA National Award. The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize - given to the UK's best building of this year - will be composed of the winners of the RIBA National Award.

See a complete list of shortlisted buildings after the break.

British football club Tottenham Hotspur has released plans for a new stadium designed by Populous. Planned to be built in the London borough of Haringey, the "visually dramatic" 61,000-seat proposal is designed to host both English and American football. If approved, it will feature a state-of-the-art retractable pitch and a 17,000 capacity single tier end stand that will be the UK's largest.

Beyond the field, the new stadium will feature a permanent visitors center and arrivals hub with an interactive museum to celebrate club history and local heritage, a cinema, the club megastore, ticket office and café. At the top of the stadium will be a "Sky Walk" showcasing vistas of London. 

Allies and Morrison, together with O’Donnell + Tuomey and Josep Camps/Olga Felip Arquitecturia, has been chosen ahead of David Chipperfield, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and three other teams to design London's Olympicopolis culture and education quarter. The major commission, which will be sited at the gateway to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park along the Stratford waterfront, will include new buildings for the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sadler’s Wells, the London College of Fashion, and potentially the Smithsonian Institute's first permanent museum outside the US.

A total of sixteen projects have been shortlisted for RIBA East 2015 Awards, featuring buildings by Hawkins\Brown, Proctor & Matthews, Allies & Morrison, and AHMM. All shortlisted buildings will now be assessed by a regional jury. Regional winners will then be considered for a RIBA National Award in recognition of their architectural excellence, the results of which will place some projects in the running for the 2015 RIBA Stirling Prize.

See the complete list of shortlisted projects after the break.

A total of 68 buildings have been shortlisted for RIBA London 2015 Awards, featuring buildings by AHMM, dRMM, John McAslan + Partners and Grimshaw, to Níall McLaughlin Architects, Eric Parry Architects, and Rogers Stirk Harbour. Winning projects from last year included three Stirling Prize shortlisted projects, as well as another by Haworth Tompkins who ultimately took the prize in 2014 for the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. All shortlisted buildings will now be assessed by a regional jury. Regional winners will then be considered for a RIBA National Award in recognition of their architectural excellence, the results of which will place some projects in the running for the 2015 RIBA Stirling Prize.

See the complete list of shortlisted projects after the break.

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Architects’ Journal has released the shortlist of their annual Women in Architecture awards, naming 17 established and emerging practitioners who have raised the profile of women architects “in a sector where women still face an alarming degree of discrimination.” In honor of their selection, the nominees have shared their advice for aspiring female architects.

See who was shortlisted and find out what they believe takes for women to succeed in the profession of architecture, after the break. 

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London Mayor Boris Johnson has ruled in favour of the controversial Mount Pleasant scheme in North London at a public hearing held earlier today. The scheme was called in for a hearing at the request of the site's owner Royal Mail who claimed that Islington and Camden councils (who are both responsible for parts of the huge site) were taking too long over the planning application, but has been criticized heavily by locals who feel that the scheme is not appropriate for the site, and by the councils who feel that the scheme's 24% affordable housing is unacceptably low. However, Johnson drew criticism in June for apparently “compromising his neutrality” in advance of the hearing when he stated that the redeveloped Mount Pleasant “will be a wonderful place to live.”

Johnson approved the scheme after a heated hearing attended by over 100 members of the public and press, with many in attendance booing and heckling the mayor and representatives of the Royal Mail.

More on the hearing after the break

A significant development at Canary Wharf has been approved by planners in London. The scheme, dubbed 'Wood Wharf' and consisting of 30 new buildings, was masterplanned by Allies and Morrison and includes a cylindrical residential tower by Herzog & de Meuron, and will provide 3,100 homes, 240,000 square metres of office space, a primary school, a medical centre, a community centre, a hotel, and around 100 retail outlets. Connecting the space will be a 3.6 hectare network of public spaces.

Read on for more on the development

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Foster + Partners has been named the UK's biggest architecture practice for the third year running in the annual AJ100 run by the Architects' Journal. The list of the top 100 architecture practices in the UK, based on the number of fully qualified architects employed, was announced at an awards ceremony last night in London.

In the past year Foster + Partners has almost doubled its lead at the top of the list, with its 290 architects putting it 87 ahead of second-place rival BDP, showing how the practice dominates the architecture world not just culturally, but also in terms of business size.

See the top 10 UK practices, as well as the results of the accompanying AJ100 Awards, after the break

The RIBA and the Mayor of London's Office has revealed the five shortlisted designs for the new Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) headquarters, set for completion in 2015. The proposed designs, attracting submissions from Foster + Partners, Allies & Morrison, Keith Williams Architects, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, will be located in the Whitehall Conservation Area and be renamed back to 'Scotland Yard'.

Read more after the break...