Architecture Foundation: The Latest Architecture and News

Adaptive reuse allows architects to conserve resources, reduce waste, and extend the life of existing structures. By working with what already exists, architects lessen the need for new materials, lower energy consumption, and limit demolition debris. This approach protects natural habitats and green spaces by reducing the demand for new land development. Through reuse, cities become more sustainable and less carbon-intensive while preserving the material and cultural value of the built environment.

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Presenting architects in conversation with creative figures, Architecture Foundation’s headline annual lecture in collaboration with the Barbican will see architect Sam Jacob in conversation with Dutch visual artist Madelon Vriesendorp.

The design media is little more than a sycophantic, vapid and naval gazing extension of the PR industry. Our monographs, magazines and museums feed a cycle of shallow celebratory hysterics with little to no investigative or critical practice. Awards programmes lurch between jacking off the already engorged egos of starchitects or chasing the virginal myth of untainted emerging designers preying simultaneously on the young's insecurity and the old's fear of death in the name of profit for disconnected share holders. Cosy relationships between judges and judged, editors and edited amount to mild corruption - unsubscribe now.

Community consultation is meaningless vacuous tick-box bullshit. It has become a decoy that developers deploy to shove unwanted projects down the throats of an unconsenting public. Its cringeworthy language of community empowerment is just thinly veiled power moves and lazy spin. The profession, the public, and the built environment would be better off without it.

We all assume that to quit architecture is to fail. Yet the vast majority of those who stick it out are sucked into a world of disempowered subservience to big business. Becoming an architect squanders the creativity and energy of those who are attracted to study architecture in the first place, robbing society and the individual of their potential. There is a better way. We should all quit architecture before it's too late.

It has been revealed that the theme for the 2015 London Festival of Architecture (LFA) will centre around 'Work In Progress'. The festival, which is comprised of a series of events in and around the UK capital, seeks to "highlight the key role architecture plays in social, urban and cultural development." The annual celebration, which will run between the 1st and 30th June, will be jointly delivered by the Architecture Foundation, the British Council, New London Architecture, and the RIBA's London branch. Last year's 10th anniversary festival saw over 200 events ranging from walking tours and cycle rides, to exhibitions, talks, debates and films all addressing the theme of 'Capital'.

The Finnish Institute in London and The Architecture Foundation have unveiled Viewpoint, a floating platform on Regent's Canal in the centre of Camley Street Natural Park, London. Designed by Erkko Aarti, Arto Ollila and Mikki Ristola of Finnish practice AOR, the platform will be operated by the London Wildlife Trust. The permanent structure is intended to bring visitors to London's most central nature reserve, connecting them with the wildlife of the park and the Regent’s Canal. In addition, it will also provide the park with an additional workshop space and learning facility, becoming "an architectural focal point of King’s Cross."

Fashion visionaries Tom Ford, Gianfranco Ferre, and Gianni Versace all began their design education in architecture. In the words of Coco Chanel, "fashion is architecture." It was likely with this in mind that the Architecture Foundation hosted it's annual John Edwards Lecture. The event, which was held at the Tate Modern's Starr Auditorium, was a discussion between designer Marc Jacobs and architect Peter Marino, who have frequently collaborated together on retail design.