London: The Latest Architecture and News

The Southbank Centre and Feilden Clegg Bradley have taken their designs back to the drawing board, deciding to delay their planning application in order to resolve the mounting issues surrounding the proposal.

The designs to update the brutalist cultural centre have divided people from the start; however, the tide of opinion seems to have definitively shifted away from the design due to a sustained campaign by skateboarders (who make use of the undercroft) and now criticism from the neighboring National Theatre and the UK design council CABE.

Read more about the controversy surrounding the Southbank Centre after the break...

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The Design Museum in London has confirmed that Zaha Hadid has purchased their original building, which they've called home since 1989, just over a year after placing a bid with a private backer. According to the Architects' Journal, Hadid will use the building to house her practice's archive as well as serve as an occasional exhibition space. "The building will give an opportunity to consolidate our archive in a single location,” she said, “and also engage in a collective dialogue by exhibiting the research and innovation of global collaborations in art, architecture and design.”

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The Crystal Palace was a glass and cast iron structure built in London, England, for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The building was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, an architect and gardener, and revealed breakthroughs in architecture, construction and design. More on the Crystal Palace after the break...

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The All England Lawn Tennis Club has just unveiled this design proposal for the Wimbledon Master Plan developed by Grimshaw Architects, with top UK landscape architecture firm, Grant Associates. Marking the first step in a consultation process, the vision reflects and reinforces the long history of The Championships while further enhancing Wimbledon’s position as the premier Grand Slam tennis event. More images and architects' description after the break.

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• Architects

  Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

• Location

  London, United Kingdom

• Structural Engineer

  Arup

• Landscape Architect

  Edco Design London

• Client

  The British Land Company plc

• Area

  84424.0 sqm

• Project Year

  2013

• Photographs

  Courtesy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Courtesy of The Leadenhall Building Development Company

• Location

  London, UK

• Project Year

  2013

• Photographs

  Courtesy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Courtesy of The Leadenhall Building Development Company

• Area

  84424.0 m2

Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners’ Leadenhall Building became the tallest building in the City of London when it topped out on June 18th. The 50 story tower opposite Lloyd’s of London rises to a height of 224.5 meters 802 feet), its slender form creating its own distinctive profile within an emerging cluster London. The building’s tapering profile is prompted by a requirement to respect views of St Paul’s Cathedral, in particular from Fleet Street. The building comprises a number of distinct architectural elements that provide clarity to the composition both as a whole and as a legible expression of its constituent parts. These elements include the primary stability structure, the ladder frame, the office floor plates, the northern support core, the external envelope and the public realm.

More images and video of The Leadenhall Building after the break...

Focusing on key projects and using previously unseen archival material, drawings and personal items, the 'Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out' exhibition will explore Roger's career, from the influence of his Italian family to his impact on how we experience cities today. From July 18-October 13 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, visitors will gain an unprecedented insight into this leader of modern design. This blend of political, social and ethical concerns, as well as popular culture, technology, art and urbanism is manifest not only in his architecture, but also in his roles as a speaker, writer, politician and activist. For more information, please visit here.

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Featured here are photos of Sou Fujimoto's 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion taken by Danica Kus. Capturing the semi-transparent, multi-purpose social space situated in London, this delicate, three-dimensional structure is enjoyed by its visitors, creating an inviting social setting.

Fujimoto, the youngest architect to accept the Serpentine Gallery’s invitation at 41, describes his work as, "...a transparent terrain that encourages people to interact with and explore the site in diverse ways. Within the pastoral context of Kensington Gardens, I envisage the vivid greenery of the surrounding plant life woven together with a constructed geometry. A new form of environment will be created, where the natural and the man-made merge; not solely architectural nor solely natural, but a unique meeting of the two." More images by Danica Kus after the break.

Dazzling viewers with its “tron-like landscape of infinite white,” as described by Guardian critic Oliver Wainwright, Sou Fujimoto’s Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park is arguably “one of the most radical pavilions to date.” The 350 square-meter latticed structure melts into its surrounding by fusing together the man-made and natural world, creating a lush, semi-transparent terrain that hosts terraces of seating, steps and side tables that complement its interior coffee bar (view more images here).

This video was provided by film maker James Aiken.

With the opening of his cloud-like gridded structure in Hyde Park last week, Sou Fujimoto became the youngest architect in the pantheon of Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designers. The pavilion is an annual commission for a temporary structure, always given to a well known architect who is yet to build in the UK. In previous years the commission has been awarded to Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Weiwei (2012), Peter Zumthor (2011), Jean Nouvel (2010), SANAA (2009), stretching back to the original pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid in 2000.

With such a prolific history of star designers over the past 13 years, Fujimoto's ethereal design has a lot to live up to. But despite these high expectations, architecture critics have been gushing over the new design. See a full round-up of opinions after the break...

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This Thursday, the official opening of the Serpentine Pavilion, by Sou Fujimoto, took place in Hyde Park, London. It was the first time the public could interact with the structure.

The pavilion, which has already gotten its "cloud" nickname because of its shape and lightness, is generated through a three-dimensional steel grid of about 40 centimetre modules which morphs on each side. The structure is broken to allow people access as well as to generate different uses around, below and upon it. 

More pictures and the architect's statement after the break.

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The saga of the Southbank Centre redevelopment in London heated up recently, after the scheme for the new 'Festival Wing' was formally submitted to Lambeth's planning department. The scheme, which has been well received by some of the architecture community, including the centre's original architects Norman Engleback and Dennis Crompton, has run afoul of the skateboarding community, which opposes the plan to infill the undercroft that has been their home for almost 40 years.

After a petition to save the skatepark garnered over 40,000 signatures, the skating community has mobilized once again to object to the planning application en masse. The campaign to save the skatepark has even garnered the attention of skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, who wrote to the Southbank Centre's director of partnership and policy Mike McCart to explain that:

“It’s truly an historic feature of London street culture, and is as well known to skateboarders around the world as Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. Honestly.”