As part of the 2014 London Festival of Architecture, teams of architects from the four of the most recent Stirling Prize winning British practices were challenged with creating the most imaginative piece of a city - out of LEGO. Each team began with a carefully laid out square on the floor of the largest gallery of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, at which point they were given just one hour and 45 minutes to create an urban masterpiece out of blocks. Each group of architects worked alongside students from the Royal Academy’s attRAct programme, which offers A-level art students the chance to engage with art and architecture. An esteemed panel of judges ultimately selected the team from Zaha Hadid Architects as victorious, who "considered London on a huge scale and used curving buildings of different typologies which echoed the shape of the Thames."
Read more about the brief and the other participating entries after the break.
In an article for The Guardian Richard Rogers questions why, with space still left in urban areas, we should build in the countryside? Lord Rogers, no stranger to political activism, chaired the UK's Urban Task Force in the 1990s, culminating in his reportTowards an Urban Renaissance. Now, over fifteen years later, his plea for denser, better designed urban environments has been rekindled as he argues that: "We can't go on like this. The housing shortage threatens both the economy and our quality of life." Laying out a clear argument reinforced by his forty years of experience as an architect, you can read his article in full here.
"They've got the mall. They've got the food court. Now they've got the multiplex." Rowan Moore's latest piece for the Guardian discusses the collaged plight of London's British Museum as Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) complete a large extension of exhibition spaces. Describing it as a "composite Foster-Rogers" building, Moore argues that "a strange distribution of space" coupled with "an inattention to the cultural complexities of the modern museum" have led to "a void, wrapped in a void, with another void to the side." Although he states that "there are many things to like about RSHP's building", the total compilation of spaces, extensions and interventions have led to a museum more like a mall than a house of culture.
A report uncovered by the Architects' Journal has revealed that an experimental housing project by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has developed major problems just seven years after construction. The low cost factory-built Oxley Woods scheme won the RIBA Manser Medal for housing in 2008 but a report commissioned by the scheme's developer has shown faults in the detailing are causing some parts of the construction to rot. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners have distanced themselves from the defects insisting that it was "Taylor Wimpey and Wood Newton responsible for the final detailed design". You can find out more about the controversy at the Architects' Journal and the Financial Times.
Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers are among seven international practices listed to compete for a 5,000 hectare expansion that hopes to “alleviate severe congestion” at the Mexico City airport. With each team led by Mexican firms, the shortlisted architects, which also include SOM, Gensler, Pascall+Watson and Teodoro González de León with Taller de Arquitectura X, have been asked to envision a 70-gate, phased expansion capable of hosting 40-million passengers per year. A schematic masterplan has been provided by Arup. Completion of the first phases is tentatively planned for 2018.
The Y-Cube Deployed. Image Courtesy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
The Y-Cube, a £30,000 factory-built 26 square meter flat which can be easily transported and craned into place, has been prototyped and successfully tested in the UK. The YMCA asked Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to create the Y-Cube, an affordable alternative for residents moving on from the non-profit’s hostels. And now, the YMCA wants more of these one-bedroom dwellings.
“The beauty is that the units can be moved off site as quickly as they are installed,” says Andy Redfearn of the YMCA, “as we operate on short-term leases – we expect people to stay [in the Y-Cube] for between three to five years, giving them time to skill up and save for a deposit.”
Adjaye Associates. Image Courtesy of A Dolls' House
Inspired by the dolls’ house that Edwin Lutyens designed for The British Empire Exhibition in 1922, twenty British practices are each designing a contemporary dolls’ house in aid of the disabled childrens’ charity KIDS. Each version will sit on a 750mm square plinth to be auctioned at Bonham's on the 11th November and contains one feature which would make life easier for a disabled child. Among the participating practices is Zaha Hadid Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. FAT will also be working with Turner Prize recipient Grayson Perry CBE, and Studio Egret West with artist Andrew Logan.
Five proposals for reconnecting Londoners with the River Thames have gone on display at London's Royal Academy of Arts (RA). The competition, organised by the Architecture Foundation, "launched an open call for multidisciplinary design teams to put forward new ideas and visions for self-selected sites along the Tidal Thames" earlier this year. The five selected teams were shortlisted earlier this year and recently discussed their designs at a public design workshop. The schemes are now being exhibited as part of the Richard Rogers RA: Inside Outexhibition.
“Architecture is too complex to be solved by any one person.”
Richard Rogers is an architect who understands the significance of collaboration. As a man with an intense social mind and a thirst for fairness in architectural and urban design, Rogers’ substantial portfolio of completed and proposed buildings is driven by the Athenian citizen’s oath of “I shall leave this city not less but more beautiful than I found it.”
In honor of his success, London’s Royal Academy (RA) is currently playing host to a vast retrospective of Richard Rogers’ work, from his collaborations with Norman Foster and Renzo Piano, to the large-scale projects that define Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) today. The RA’s extensive exhibition has been condensed into a series of motifs that have defined his architectural work, punctuated by memorabilia which offer personal insights into how Rogers’ career has been shaped by the people he’s worked with and the projects that he has worked on.
Continue after the break for a selection of highlights from the exhibition.
Inspired by the dolls' house that Edwin Lutyens designed for The British Empire Exhibition in 1922, twenty British practices are each designing a contemporary dolls' house in aid of the disabled childrens' charity KIDS. Each version will sit on a 750mm square plinth to be exhibited during this year's London Design Festival (14th - 21st September, 2013) before being auctioned. Each design must contain "a unique feature to make life easier for a child who is disabled."
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have unveiled a three story flat-pack house in the courtyard of London’s Royal Academy of Arts (RA). Designed as an answer to the UK’s urgent need for cost-effective housing, the prototype demonstrates a method of building "high-quality, well-designed houses significantly cheaper than other traditional methods of construction."
RSHP, known for their large-scale projects, envisage Homeshell as part of a wider platform which could encompass apartments, schools, factories and healthcare centers.
Having made his name with the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Lloyd's building, Richard Rogers - who turns 80 today - was commissioned in 1980 to design the Inmos microprocessor factory in Newport, Wales. The factory's design was targeted for the delicate process of microchip assembly, which requires a clean and controlled space. Built at the time of the computer-chip boom, construction had to be completed within one year, a factor which would greatly influence the design.
Rogers's response, based on his previous high-tech designs, was to move the services to the outside of the building and split the interior into 'clean' spaces for microchip assembly and 'dirty' spaces for other tasks. Moreover, Rogers opted for an off-site prefabrication of parts, which not only increased the speed of construction, but would also allow for the factory to be easily replicated as a model.
Tomorrow (July 19th) at 1pm GMT, The Guardian will be hosting a live webchat with renowned English architect Richard Rogers. The soon to be 80-year old has already begun celebrating with a retrospective exhibition on his work at the Royal Academy. You can keep the Rogers-fest going by heading to The Guardian's site and posting your questions in the comments section. The next day, you'll be able to see responses from the architect himself. So, what would you ask Rogers?
With last year’s opening of the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero and the near-completion of the World Trade Center One, Daniel Libeskind’s vision for the World Trade Center site is close to presenting the future of NYC’s downtown financial center, 11 years after the attacks. Studio Daniel Libeskind was selected to develop the master plan for the site in 2003, and since has been coordinating with NYC’s numerous agencies and individual architects to rebuild the site. The project, in Libeskind’s words, is a “healing of New York”, a “site of memory” and “a space to witness the resilience of America”.
Follow us after the break for more on the elements and progress of the master plan.
