England: The Latest Architecture and News

Architects: Slowscape Collective Location: London, England Project team: Stuart Franks, Christopher Kennedy, Simon Moxey, Ceri Williams, Thomas Woods Project area: 90 sqm Project year: 2011 Photographs: Stuart Franks, Ceri Williams, Dominic Tschudin

Scandinavian practice White Arkitekter has won the Salford House 4 life competition, organized by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). White’s proposal was chosen as the winning scheme from 59 entries. For more images of their proposal and a succinct description, follow after the jump.

Pritzker Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor’s design for the 11th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion was revealed today. A design that ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not’, the materials are significant in aiding the design which emphasizes the role the senses and emotions play in our experience of architecture. The Pavilion will be Zumthor’s first completed building in the UK

Zumthor shared that ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’

Stay tuned to ArchDaily for more images and news on Zumthor’s design for the Pavilion. Our previous coverage of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion can be found here, including Jean Nouvel’s Serpentine Gallery of 2010, and SANAA’s 2009 Serpentine Gallery.

New York based design firm, MANIFESTO, shared with Arch Daily the INFORSTRUCTURE which is the Stratford Information kiosk for the 2012 London Olympics is designed with an aim to provide the public with free and instant access to important information.

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Architects: MANIFESTO Architecture P.C. Location: Meridian Square, Stratford London, UK Client: LBN (London Borough of Newham), DfL (Design for London), London Development Agency Structural Engineer: Yoshinori Nito Engineering & Design P.C., Malishev Wilson Engineers Project Area: 240 sqm Renderings: Courtesy of MANIFESTO Architecture P.C. Design Team: Jeeyong An, Sang Hwa lee, Kiseok Oh, JiYoon Oh.

London is the largest urban zone in the European Union with a cosmopolitan population of over 7.7 million residence. The London Games is being eagerly anticipated by millions of sporting fans around the world. The Games, which officially kicks off on the 27th July 2012 will see the arrival of world’s top athletes and their team officials representing various participating nations, international dignitaries, the Games officials and not to mention millions of supporters and fans.

The Bankside Bikeshed proposal is a prototype for a lightweight bicycle storage shelter that can be installed through London’s South Bank. The project is by James Khamsi, whose goal was to design a new “MICRON” for London, a ubiquitous and interwoven aspect of the city.

More on this project after the break.

David Kohn Architects and artist Fiona Banner have been selected to design A Room for London, a temporary installation that will sit on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank Centre, London and be part of the London 2012 Festival. ArchDaily has been showcasing selected entries to the competition for months now and can be seen here. For more information pertaining to David Kohn Architects and Fiona Banner‘s winning entry please follow after the break.

Moderated by Joseph Grima (Domus), all are invited to the free Critical Futures event starting at 6:30pm on January 13th, which will focus on a debate on the future of architecture criticism followed by complimentary drinks and further discussion after the talk. Participants include Charles Holland (author, Fantastic Journal), Peter Kelly (Blueprint), Kieran Long (architecture critic, Evening Standard), Geoff Manaugh (author, BLDGBLOG), and Beatrice Galilee (writer, curator, DomusWeb, The Gopher Hole). The event is located at The Gopher Hole, 350-354 Old Street, London, EC1V 9NQ. More event description after the break.

Bangkok-based architect Nontawat Jittrong (LMTS Design), shared with us his proposal for the competition A Room for London, for the 2012 London Olympics. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Design Initiatives, an innovative, award-winning architecture practice based in Los Angeles, California and Sofia, Bulgaria, shared with us their proposal for A Room for London, a competition for a temporary demountable hotel room for up to two guests on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London during the Olympic year of 2012. Designed as a boundary structure floating in space between ground and sky, their proposal employs the dialectical contrast of active OR passive. More images and architect’s description after the break.

The English design team, Arctic Associates has shared their proposal for 2012 Room for London, situated on the banks of the River Thames in London. A short narrative from the architects and additional images after the break.

Following a resounding success at Aedes Gallery in Berlin, international design practice Austin-Smith:Lord is bringing the Informal City of Century XXI and Measure of Man/Measure of Architecture exhibitions to London, England starting with an invitation only conference on January 19th followed by their public exhibition open from January 20th to the 25th. The event will take place at The German Gymnasium, 26 Pancras Road, London N1C 4TB More images and event description after the break.

Egyptian architect, Ahmed Zayed has shared his design proposal for the 2012 London Olympic Games, a interactive installation along one of the iconic structures of London. Additional images and a brief description after the break.

A few days ago, we shared Visiondivision’s Nature’s Choice – a series of vacation homes that attempt to blend into their unique site placement. The firm just shared their latest competition entry for a hotel room atop a cloud. Presented in a comic strip, the proposal delivers a temporary hotel room to accommodate visitors of the 2012 London Olympic games.

More about the hotel room after the break.

The areas for expansion are either through the current high density processes, which begin to populate flood plains, or to move eastwards denseifying east London breaking through the green belt towards the Thames estuary, where a new second generation London could rise from the waves. The idea is not new, the Thames estuary has been the topic of intense debate through the possibility of building a floating island airport off the coast of Kent, and a nature reserve with a flood gate connecting Essex and Kent in its core via a high speed monorail. These radical approaches cannot be discarded without intense exploration, could the next east London generation be a floating one?

To promote their Power Smart month of October, BC Hydro has launched an interesting public campaign for energy efficiency by converting two shipping containers into live experimental spaces in Vancouver. For fours day, actors will live in the 3×6 meter containers “to showcase how – and how not – to live and work in an energy-efficient manner.” The two containers are meant to depict the extreme opposites of energy consumption and show the simple steps people can take to increase their efficiency. As the containers are fully glazed on one side, passersby can see how the actors go about their daily routines – one completely wasteful with a constantly blasting television and all the lights on, while the other actor uses natural daylight for illumination and adds extra layers of clothing for warmth. Displays are fixed to the exterior of each container to provide simulated consumption readings, allowing the public to see the difference in the energy use when comparing energy-efficient living to inefficient and wasteful behavior.

More about the experiment after the break.

The Victoria and Albert Museum wishes to create a major new gallery with the capacity to deliver its high-profile programme of temporary exhibitions, a new museum entrance and a courtyard to create an informal and inviting relationship with Exhibition Road.