All Buildings, design and specification articles – Page 91
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Building StudyMusee D’Arts, Nantes by Stanton Williams
Stanton Williams set out to reinvent the Breton city’s beaux-art palais as an open, welcoming institution while complementing the spectacular (not to say elitist) architecture. It’s a neat trick to pull off. Ike Ijeh finds out if it succeeded
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Building StudyThe verdict: Diébédo Francis Kéré's Serpentine Pavilion
This simple structure is laced with countless stories of inclusivity which speak to a London in grief, finds Ike Ijeh
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OpinionWill England’s new metro mayors make a difference?
Their powers are limited and the government’s motive might have been to off-load responsibility, but this exercise in devolution could still be a good thing. Julia Park takes a look
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Building StudyLa Seine Musicale, Paris, by Shigeru Ban
The second concert hall to be completed in the French capital within three years is a showcase to innovation and style. Ike Ijeh admires the distinctive features of this venue, which was designed by award-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban
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Building StudyThe Storyhouse, Chester by Bennetts Associates
The Storyhouse in Chester is a daring construction of opposites, with a theatre, cinema and library brought together in a space that combines new-build and the spirit of the orginal 1930s picture house. Ike Ijeh reports on how the building energetically opens up storytelling to the local community
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Building StudyPierre Boulez Saal, Berlin by Gehry Partners
Frank Gehry’s £28.5m Berlin concert hall is an unusual building for this celebrated creator of the unusual. Ike Ijeh finds that through its sharp contradictions of age, shape and material, it achieves a kind of peace
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OpinionWhen is overcrowding not overcrowding?
When you could sleep in the kitchen. Julia Park provides an illuminating history of the many ways landlords and the authorities have dodged their responsibility to provide decent housing rights up to the present day
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Building StudyWarwick Hall, Burford by Acanthus Clews Architects
Building anything new in a Cotswold village is hard enough, but when it’s next door to one of the nation’s best-loved churches, you know you’ve got your work cut out. Ike Ijeh admires a deft piece of architectural reinterpretation by Acanthus Clews Architects
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OpinionIs it time to tax land value uplift for community benefit?
The uplift in land value has been taxed at rates from 100% in 1947 to zero today. A sensible level of taxation could help fund social infrastructure and affordable housing says Julia Park
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Building StudyBush Theatre, London by Haworth Tompkins
In its renovation of west London’s Bush Theatre, Haworth Tompkins was asked to make the building and the theatre it contains accessible and approachable to all the local community. The result, says Ike Ijeh, is full of twists and turns
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Building StudyCity Campus, Glasgow by Reiach and Hall and Michael Laird Architects
Reiach and Hall and Michael Laird Architects’ last project for City of Glasgow College nearly ran off with the Stirling Prize. Would the same team be able to repeat the trick at the college’s massive new campus? Ike Ijeh finds out
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OpinionWith homelessness rising we need action to reverse the trend
50 years after Cathy Come Home homelessness is still rising despite official claims it is decreasing.. Good quality, spacious homes could help tackle the problem says Julia Park
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Building StudyThe Loom, London by Duggan Morris
Duggan Morris has respun a former east London wool warehouse as a 21st-century office through an elegant balance of intervention and restoration. Ike Ijeh reports
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Building StudyLive Works, Newcastle by Flanagan Lawrence
Live Theatre has ventured into the high-stakes world of property development to enable it to plough the profits back into making plays. Ike Ijeh takes a look around Live Works, the theatre’s £10m office project, to see how the building fits into Newcastle’s historic Quayside
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OpinionThe white paper that wasn’t worth the wait
The housing white paper promises much but does little to tackle the real issues we’re facing, finds Julia Park
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Building StudyBibliothèque Alexis de Tocqueville, Caen by OMA
With its regular glazed facades and cruciform shape, the northern French city’s new library is surprisingly understated for an OMA project. But as you would expect from the Dutch practice, there are some clever architectural manoeuvres at play – as Ike Ijeh finds out
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OpinionThe Green Belt: We need to be convinced that the end will justify the means
With the housing white paper due out imminently and talk of building in the Green Belt Julia Park sets out what new developments need to win over the Nimby’s.
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Building StudyElbphilharmonie, Hamburg by Herzog & de Meuron
Hamburg wanted the Elbphilharmonie to be an instantly discernible architectural symbol to lift the city’s prestige but got a faceless glass block sitting on top of a brick one. Yet in its theatrically wavy rooftop, Herzog de Meuron has brilliantly conjured up an emblematic national icon - just ...
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Building StudyThe Bartlett School of Architecture, by Hawkins Brown
Loved and loathed by its users, renewing the Bartlett School of Architecture’s home was always going to be a sensitive project. Joe Morris returns to his alma mater to assess the transformation of Wates House into 22 Gordon Street
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OpinionAffordable housing is back on the agenda
Julia Park runs a ruler over recent announcements to increase the provision of affordable homes and concludes this is mostly good news