Every year since 1996, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has hosted the RIBA London Awards to celebrate outstanding works of architecture from across the United Kingdom. This year, the list of winners includes 52 buildings ranging from a senior day-care center in Blackheath to a cultural hub in Greenwich and a subtle intervention in Hackney’s de Beauvoir conservation area. All RIBA London Awards winners will be considered for the RIBA National Award, scheduled to be announced on June 22nd.
Haworth Tompkins: The Latest Architecture and News
RIBA Announces 2023 London Awards Winners
Heatherwick and Haworth Tompkins Reveal New Olympia Theatre
Haworth Tompkins, Heatherwick Studio and Spparc have shared new details of the first major new London theatre in over 45 years. The Olympia Theatre is part of the £1.3bn redevelopment of the Olympia exhibition center designed by Heatherwick Studio and Spparc. The 1,575-seat venue in west London will be operated by Trafalgar Entertainment, and the design includes a five-story building with a stacked auditorium.
Krft Chosen to Create a New Building for the Performing Arts in Brighton, UK
Krft, a young architecture studio based in Amsterdam, was selected as the winner of the Brighton College competition, for the new performance arts building. Finalists included international firms Haworth Tompkins, Sauerbruch Hutton, Mecanoo, and Morphosis.
14 Buildings Shortlisted for RIBA South West Awards
The Royal Institute of British Architects have announced fourteen buildings shortlisted from 48 entries for this year's RIBA South West Awards. The work includes six projects are by new and established practices based in the South West, as well as a series of new and reconfigured houses. All shortlisted buildings will be assessed by a regional jury with the winning buildings announced at an awards ceremony this May.
10 Must-See Buildings to Discover at Open House London 2018
Open House London 2018 has officially released the list of over 800 buildings open to the public this September. Now in its 27th edition, the weekend-long festival offers free guided tours and open doors to buildings and architecture across the city. This year, a range of exciting architecture will be featured, including the new US Embassy by KieranTimberlake, Maggie's Barts by Steven Holl Architects, and Bloomberg European Headquarters by Foster + Partners, the world's most sustainable office building. Find out our list of the top 10 must-see buildings to discover at this year's Open House.
Seeing Red: 4 Times the Color Has Enhanced Architecture and Why
Red is everywhere. From stop signs to bricks and lipstick to wine, our constant use of the color in everyday objects has slowly taken over our subconscious. Red is a color that always blends with the context, telling us how to feel or what to think, but why are we attracted to it? Why did cavemen choose ochre-based paint to draw on their walls? Why do revolutions always seem to use red to stir support? Why do we parade celebrities down red carpets, when green or blue would surely do the same job? While the answers to these questions may be vague and indefinite, red’s use in architecture is almost always meticulously calculated.
The UK’s Best Contemporary Architecture Celebrated in New Stamp Series
The UK’s postals service company, the Royal Mail, has launched a new special stamp series celebrating 10 buildings “that represent the renaissance of contemporary architecture in the UK of recent years,” including Zaha Hadid Architects’ London Aquatics Center, Herzog & de Meuron’s Switch House addition to the Tate Modern and Mecanoo’s Birmingham Library.
RIBA Announces 2017 National Award Winners
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced 49 exemplary projects as winners of the 2017 RIBA National Awards. This year’s list features projects from a wide range of typologies and leading architecture firms including Herzog & de Meuron, Foster + Partners, WilkinsonEyre, and Caruso St John Architects.
Hadid and O’Donnell + Tuomey Among City of Westminster's Shortlist for People's Choice Awards
The City of Westminster, England has announced the shortlist for its first People’s Choice Award for the city’s best building from the past decade.
In an effort to engage the public in a debate about what makes a great building, the Westminster City Council asked a panel of architects, developers, councilors, and planners to shortlist 12 designs to be voted on by people who live and work in the city, as well as by visitors. Buildings for the shortlist were chosen based on its use of materials, purpose, and impact on the surrounding space.
"Brilliant architectural design should be recognized for all the fantastic benefits it can have in terms of health and wellbeing, sustainability, and the simple pleasure we all take from having such striking buildings lining our routes home, to shop and to work," said Cllr Robert Davis MBE DL, Deputy Leader of Westminster City Council. "The best people to ask about the impact these buildings have are those who see them day in, day out, and so I am delighted that we have been able to engage the public in a debate about what makes a great building and to promote design excellence."
The 12 shortlisted projects for the Westminster People’s Choice Awards are:
Shortlist Announced for 2016 RIBA London Awards
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.
Haworth Tompkins Selected for Robin Hood Gardens Regeneration
Following the news in 2015 that Alison and Peter Smithson's Robin Hood Gardens was committed to demolition, Stirling-Prize winning practice Haworth Tompkins have been selected to work on the buildings' replacement. Alongside Metropolitan Workshop Architects existing master plan—entitled the Blackwall Reach Regeneration Project—the second phase of the regeneration will see the west block razed to make way for approximately 200 homes. The east wing will not be demolished until the third phase of the regeneration begins.
AD Round-Up: 9 Projects That Make Creative Use Of Cor-Ten Steel
One of the most interesting trends in architectural materials of recent years is the increase in use of weathering steel - more commonly referred to by its trademark name, Cor-Ten. Thought the material has been around for decades, first being used for architectural purposes in the Eero Saarinen-designed John Deere Headquarters in 1964, the material has seen a surge in popularity in the last decade or so, being used in everything from individual houses and tiny kiosks, to SHoP's design for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which used a staggering 12,000 weathering steel panels.
To celebrate this material we've rounded up nine of the most innovative and striking uses of weathering steel from recent years: Haworth Tompkins' tiny Dovecote Studio; Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' offices and student housing at Broadcasting Place; the perforated facade of IGC Tremp by Oikosvia Arquitectura; the rusted ribbons of Ron Arad's Design Museum Holon; vertical striations on The Corten House by DMOA Architecten; Tony Hobba Architects' Third Wave Kiosk and its corrugated Cor-Ten walls; striking patterned facades in Santiago's Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center by Cristian Fernandez Arquitectos, Lateral Arquitectura & Diseño; weathered facades and louvers in Guillermo Hevia's Ferreteria O´Higgins; and finally the folding garage-style doors of Origin Architect's Refurbishment of the Offset Printing Factory.
In Conversation With Will Hunter, Director Of The New London School Of Architecture
The great schools of architecture have been around since time immemorial, or at least that's how it can often feel. In London, a city particularly dense with institutions of this calibre, this is perhaps felt more acutely. How, then, do you develop an entirely new school in this tightly packed environment which has the potency and capacity to compete? Will Hunter, former executive editor of the London-based Architectural Review, began a process to do just this with an article in 2012. Following this, he set up the ARFA—Alternative Routes For Architecture—in order to explore different models for architectural education, calling upon professionals and academics to contribute to a series of informal discussions.
“When the tuition fees in the UK escalated to around £9000 per year in 2013, it got me thinking about different models for architectural education,” Hunter recalls. The casual meetings held around this time gradually become more serious until, “at a certain point, we decided to test them: to make a school.” The project gathered momentum from that point on and now, two years later, the London School of Architecture (LSA) are preparing to take in their first ‘trailblazing cohort’ of postgraduate students.
London's Battersea Arts Centre Goes Up in Flames
UPDATE: Within 24-hours after the Battersea Arts Centre's March 13th fire, the building re-opened and reconstruction efforts began. A fundraising campaign has been launched, aiming to help the rebuild the center's Grand Hall and Lower Hall - both destroyed by the fire. Learn how you can donate, here.
A major fire has broken out at the Battersea Arts Centre. The tower of the Grade-II listed building, known as a leading independent theater and arts venue in South London, has reportedly collapsed. Thankfully no one has been injured.
Firefighters are working tirelessly to save the building. A cause is unknown, though it seems the blaze started in the building’s roof above its main hall in an area that is currently undergoing a 10-year-long, £13 million refurbishment led by Stirling Prize laureate Haworth Tompkins.
Shortlist Announced For 2015 RIBA London Awards
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.
Haworth Tompkins: Who Are The 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize Winners?
This year's RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist was seen by many as the strongest in years. The practice who emerged victorious, beating off competition from internationally recognised practices including Zaha Hadid Architects, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Mecanoo, O’Donnell + Tuomey and Feilden Clegg Bradley, was Haworth Tompkins: but who exactly are they? Ellis Woodman pinned his hopes on the successful Everyman Theatre before the award was announced, uncovering the practice's rich history in designing performance spaces through a discussion with founding partner, Steve Tompkins. For Woodman, their theatre work "has left a legacy of spaces that count among the most beautiful and provocative created in Britain over the past twenty years."
Critical Round-Up: Haworth Tompkins' 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize Win
In the great tradition of the RIBA Stirling Prize, the announcement of Haworth Tompkins' Everyman Theatre as the winner of the 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize took many by surprise. The Everyman surpassed the public's favourite, Mecanoo's Library of Birmingham, and the bookies' (and many critics') favourite, O'Donnell + Tuomey's LSE Saw Swee Hock Student Centre - as well as two household names in Zaha Hadid's Aquatics Centre and Renzo Piano's Shard.
In what was seen by many as the strongest shortlist in years, the underdog Everyman has emerged victorious. But was it a worthy winner? Read on after the break to find out what the critics made of this unexpected result.
Haworth Tompkins' Everyman Theatre Wins the 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize
Haworth Tompkins' Everyman Theatre has won the RIBA Stirling Prize for 2014, beating competition from Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Mecanoo, O'Donnell + Tuomey and Feilden Clegg Bradley. The result was announced last night by RIBA President Stephen Hodder at an event held at the RIBA's Headquarter's in London, with Hodder saying that "Haworth Tompkins have struck the perfect balance between continuity and change" and calling the scheme "a ground-breaking example of how to build a daring, bold and highly sustainable large public building in a historic city centre."