Architecture & Design Community
December 1, 2022
The co-founder of Allies & Morrison on how Rome accommodates change. The new need not be the enemy of the old; the present can co-exist with the past. In 1982 – exactly forty years ago – I was on my way back to London having spent a year, or more accurately, nine months, at the […]
November 23, 2022
Visuals have been revealed for the 22nd edition of the annual Serpentine Pavilion, a refined, circular timber structure designed by Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh. Serpentine Pavilion 2023 designed by Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture, design render exterior view, photo © Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture, courtesy: Serpentine The title of the pavilion, À table, comes from the […]
November 14, 2022
Perhaps best described as a concrete wall with a split personality disorder, an on-site fire house for Swiss mega-brand Vitra exploded the myth that Zaha Hadid’s experimental image-making was unsuited to translation into built work. A sharp, trapezoidal marquee hoisted on spindly pilot is points the way towards the primary pedestrian entrance on the long […]
November 9, 2022
Sarah Featherstone explains how a modest community building in Grangetown, Cardiff, challenges the way we define and measure value and shows how universities can partner with local residents to facilitate community-led projects. Familiar forms, such as pitched roofs and a perforated steel screen whose pattern was designed by local young people, capture the richness of […]
November 4, 2022
Jonathan Spratt from Bennetts Associates argues that, for ‘young’ buildings from the 1990s and early 2000s architects should steer clients away from a comprehensive retrofit approach towards a strategy of ‘keyhole surgery’ – minimal interventions that have a transformative effect. Commercial office space is subject to several contradictions right now. There is an abundance of […]
October 28, 2022
Eddie Blake of Studio Weave looks at the Lea Bridge Library, recently extended by Studio Weave, and what it means to genuinely serve a community today. The communities of Leyton are experiencing dramatic change. Along with other areas around the Olympic Park fringe, this Victorian residential suburb and its light industrial edges, is enjoying quiet […]
October 26, 2022
Designers and investors are driving a step change in the provision of innovative high-quality projects in the third-age housing sector. Local authorities need to catch up, says Ballymore creative director Roger Black. The renewed interest in architectural housing solutions for senior people is great to see, and the wonderful John Morden Centre by Mae Architects is […]
September 27, 2022
A new era. Time for the-architecture enthusiast-formerly-known-as-Prince-Charles to stop voicing opinions; to adopt the enigmatic silence befitting a crowned head of state. So does architecture stand to lose its most divisive voice? Some might say it would be a relief. This, after all, is the man who fuelled the public’s distrust of modern architecture. Who […]
September 27, 2022
When Lord Snowdon, Cedric Price and Frank Newby designed the aviary at London Zoo, they captured the spirit of the times. Samantha Hardingham charts its transformation from 1960s icon to modern-day monkey hangout. Looking south from the top of Primrose Hill, the Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo has been a distinct and delightful feature of […]
September 14, 2022
Once the epicentre of Hollywood’s nascent artistic and architectural scene, Rudolph Schindler’s extraordinary home was a stepping stone to Los Angeles’ great leap into modernity. Garden courtyards with outdoor fireplaces penetrate inwards towards the central node of the pinwheel plan. A snapshot scene of 835 Kings Road in Hollywood, California, in the late 1920s, shortly […]
September 13, 2022
For Martine Hamilton Knight, contributing to a revision of Pevsner’s ‘Buildings of England’ prompted a re-evaluation of the notion of ‘timelessness’ in architectural photography. Clipston Colliery Headstocks and Powerhouse (1953) To an architect, and by proxy, an architectural photographer, ‘Pevsner’ represents a very particular style of documenting buildings: rigid, precise and devoid of physical or […]
September 8, 2022
Market forces and conservatism are driving queer spaces from urban centres. Tom Wilkinson welcomes a new compendium of LGBTQIA+ places around the world as a timely celebration of the spaces that survive. Comparsa Drag’s performative parties in Buenos Aires, an example of the temporary transformation of spaces through performances, parties and parades. Photograph by Julian […]
13 November 2026
