MVRDV   United Kingdom   The Rotterdam firm MVRDV has unveiled images of the hill it will be raising beside Marble Arch in London, to serve as a vantage point overlooking Oxford Street and Hyde Park. A 25-meter-tall metal scaffold will be covered with plywood, soil, and plan

Jonathan Tuckey Design   United Kingdom   This theatre for Horris Hill School in Newbury, a town in the county of Berkshire, England, is built with cross laminated timber (CLT) and Viroc composite panels – with a mix of wood fibers and cement particles – whose reddish tones resemble those of

Sou Fujimoto   United Kingdom   Every year the Serpentine Gallery in London chooses an international architect to build a temporary installation. The pavilion of 2013, designed by Sou Fujimoto, is inspired by the evanescence of clouds, inviting people to explore the place in a new

Foster + Partners   United Kingdom   The refurbishment of original structure, designed by Cedric Price with Frank Newby and Lord Snowdon in 1962, provides a new walk-through home for the zoo’s troop of Colobus monkeys and includes a new education and community center...

AMPS   United Kingdom   The firm AMPS, based in Madrid and London, designed this house beside the prime residence of the owners of a farm in Hampshire County, for use by friends and relatives visiting for long periods of time. Inserted into the English countryside, it reint

Heatherwick Studio   United Kingdom   Maggie’s Centres are places where people with cancer, and their friends and families, can go to find free practical and emotional support. Heatherwick Studio was commissioned to design a new center at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds. The site

Heatherwick Studio   China   Under the motto ‘Better City, Better Life,’ the Universal Expo of Shanghai 2010 gathered over 200 countries, inviting them to reflect on issues like urban development, well-being, and sustainable growth. Aside from the usual requisites, one of the br

Heatherwick Studio   United Kingdom   Through a careful restoration, the project transforms the old mill complex into the new headquarters of Bombay Sapphire distillers. Located by the River Test, in Laverstoke, the site had become a cluttered and confused mess, with Grade II listed stru

Heatherwick Studio   United Kingdom   With the purpose of offering an incentive for creative people and keeping students from moving to cities like London or Birmingham, the Royal Institute of British Architects, on behalf of the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, called a competition to build eig

Heatherwick Studio   United Kingdom   Located in Paddington Basin, just south of London’s Little Venice, the Rolling Bridge provides an extraordinary spectacle for those visiting, living, and working in the area, the 12-meter long footbridge opens by changing from a single solid platform

Heatherwick Studio   United Kingdom   Following their collaboration to design Google’s new campus in California, Heatherwick Studio and BIG were commissioned to create the company’s new headquarters in London. The team’s focus was not just to make special large workspaces but to find an

The Guardian   Lanre Bakare   Some of the finest examples of brutalist architecture in the north of England are at risk of being torn down, according to a photographer who believes a crucial part of the country’s architectural history could be lost in the process. Simon Phipps, t

Stephen Bayley   Terence Conran, who has died aged 88, did more than anyone to enhance material life in Britain during the second half of the 20th century. Like John Lennon and David Bowie in their rather different ways, escape from suburban norms was his continuing

David Chipperfield   Finn Williams   Among the recently announced big government plans in the United Kingdom, the pronouncement that may well leave a more permanent mark on the post-Covid-19 landscape was Boris Johnson’s promise to “build build build”. The prime minister’s supposed ‘new

The Guardian   Oliver Wainwright   The area around London’s Olympic Park is a regeneration hothouse with micro-breweries, tech startups, speakeasys and spas. Now their spiritual needs are being met – with a beautiful chapel on a barge. A narrowboat moored to the towpath is offering pa

Inspired and financed by the recently deceased Charles Jencks (see Arquitectura Viva 219) as a posthumous tribute to his wife, the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres are a network of places devoted to giving emotional support and practical information and

Opening day is several months away and the London Design District is progressively taking shape. This is a conglomerate of sixteen emblem-buildings commissioned to a miscellaneous crew of architects among which British firms abound – including 6a Arc

At the age of 84, on 27 March, Michael McKinnell died of pneumonia after testing positive for Covid-19. Born in Manchester, McKinnell attended the university of his native city before leaving for the United States. He finished his architecture studie

Grafton Architects  The Gold Medal of the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) is the maximum distinction that can be given to a professional in the field in the United Kingdom, and it went to Grafton Architects, the office led by Yvonne

Norwich Council Houses Given each year by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Stirling Prize distinguishes the best works built by British architects or studios in the European Union. In 2019 the award went to the council houses on

Brutalism with a friendly countenance: this is how one might venture to describe the architecture that Grafton Architects – Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara – have been carrying out for the past twenty years in Ireland, Europe, and America, from t

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Just what is it that makes Heatherwick’s works so different, so appealing? I borrow the title from Richard Hamilton’s mythical collage to suggest answers. His work is so different and appealing because it understands architecture as experience, becau

Alan Powers   Una historia en siete episodios

Christine L. Corton   Cambridge  2015  
Harvard University Press   - 392 Pages 

Dean Hawkes   An Environmental History of British Architecture. 1600-2000

Lucy Bullivant   UK Architecture´s rising generation