Emerging practice NEUBAU has received planning permission to begin construction on Tower Station, a mixed-use residential building located on Fincheley Road in London. Commissioned by County Tower Properties, the ‘pixelated’ building will be located on the site of a former gas station and clock tower, replacing the previous use with a new mechanical clock at the building’s peak, creating a new local landmark that echos the site’s history.
This is the largest commission to date for NEUBAU, founded in 2014 by former OMA architects Brigitta Lenz and Alexander Giarlis.
Cities have a wealth of experiences, landmarks and sights to offer the eager traveller, who despite their ambitions, may begin to feel overwhelmed under the weight of culture and geography that saturates their travels. It is easy to get lost not only during pilgrimages to iconic locations, but also in the number of places to go and things to see, guided on overpriced tours and by consumerist maps. But worry not, for a new Kickstarter campaign has been launched for the Architectour Guide – a hardcover curated compendium of key spots that’s got you covered during your next urban crawl.
“The guide is made for the urban explorer, an individual who loves discovering cities in a different way,” explains Virginia Duran, the London-based architect and urban planner responsible for the campaign. “Architectour Guide collects the best spaces of a city inspiring travelers to craft their trips in a unique way, making it easier for us to visit, understand and photograph each of these places. As a consequence, we travelers will be helping to keep buildings alive.”
Architectural landmarks can define a city. A mention of Paris conjures images of the Eiffel Tower, whilst no description of Sydney is complete without mentioning its inspiring Opera House. How disorientating it must be, therefore, to encounter a familiar architectural wonder far removed from the city, or country to which it belongs. As it happens, many of our most famous structures have their own "twins," heavily-inspired by their originals, that you may not have been aware of.
Imagine that London becomes the world’s first National Park City. This large-scale and long-term vision has the potential to transform how Londoners live and how the city works. But what would London look like?
Planning approval has been granted for the design of the first new building at Lambeth Palace in London for approximately 200 years – a new library and archive designed by Wright & Wright Architects. The building is intended to protect the priceless Lambeth Palace Library collection, second only to that of the Vatican and established in 1610 by Archbishop Bancroft, from any potential flooding and consolidate the wealth of rare artifacts and knowledge into a cohesive “portal of knowledge.”
“Wright & Wright and the whole team have responded to the exacting and challenging brief to achieve an outcome which will protect and preserve the collection; allow us to make them more accessible than ever before; be as environmentally friendly as possible; while creating a beautiful building which will be wonderful to work in and visit," said Declan Kelley, Director of Libraries and Archives of the Church of England.
The average cost of a home in London has now reached over £500,000 ($640,000), a figure far beyond the reach of the large majority of individuals or families on or below the average UK income (£34,473, or just under $45,000, per year). It’s a story which has been told time and again in recent years; the “housing crisis” of affordability continues to exacerbate the lives of a generation.
For Naked House, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to “stripping affordable housing back to the bare essentials,” crisis necessitates a creative response. With support and funding from the GLA (Greater London Authority) and the incumbent Mayor of London, who has awarded a £500,000 grant to the development, they—in collaboration with OMMX—have now made an important step closer to realizing their vision.
Steven Holl Architects has released updates on four of its latest projects slated for completion this year. The projects, located in the United States and the United Kingdom, include two university arts buildings, a community library, and a cancer support center.
We are very excited about the intensity of the architecture for an unprecedented four Steven Holl Architects’ projects opening in 2017, said Steven Holl. Each ones serves as an inspiring ‘social condenser’ for their community.
Residents of London's Neo Bankside residential building—a luxury complex of apartments designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners—have launched a legal bid against the Tate Modern to close one side of a public viewing platform, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and completed in 2016, which overlooks their properties. As reported by the Architects' Journal, "the applicants say that their human rights are being breached due to ‘near constant surveillance’ from visitors to the neighbouring attraction." The claim goes as far to argue that visitors to the Southbank gallery "constantly view their flats through binoculars, and post photographs and film of their homes on social media sites."
A total of 85 buildings from the British capital have been shortlisted for the 2017 RIBA London Awards, including projects from Wilkinson Eyre, AHMM, Allies and Morrison, Herzog & de Meuron, and Rogers Stirk Harbour. All 85 buildings will now be visited and carefully assessed by one of four regional juries, before the regional winners are selected in June of this year. Winning projects will continue on to compete for the RIBA Stirling Prize - the UK's highest honor for architecture.
See a complete list of shortlisted buildings after the break.
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Go on a virtual stroll through century-old London, with this new interactive map produced by Expedia. Named “Historic London,” the app takes you through 14 notable sites throughout the British capital, from Buckingham Palace to a view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from Fleet Street. Archival images of the sites from the late 1800s and early 1900s are overlayed onto the streetview of today, so you can easily compare what has and hasn’t changed over the last 100 years.
Check out the interactive map for yourself below:
Florian W. Mueller's Singularity series is, in the photographer's own words, "just the building – reduced to the max." These deceptively simple shots of the summits of skyscrapers from around Europe and North America, each set against in infinite gradient of sky, are symbols of architecture's effort to reach ever higher in evermore unique ways. For Mueller, who is based in Cologne, they are an attempt at abstraction. In isolation—and especially when viewed together—they are remarkably revealing as studies of form and façade.
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