The Architectural Review articles from April 2002

The Architectural Review archives from April 2002

View.(Renzo Piano plans building)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... LONDON JOINS EUROPEAN CHALLENGE FOR GREATEST ERECTION WITH PIANO STYLE. POSTER TO CONVERT KOWLOON, HONG KONG. COMMONWEALTH ASSOCATION OF ARCHITECTS CHALLENGES STUDENTS WORLD-WIDE WITH A NEW COMPETITION. ARE WIGGLESWORTH AND TILL DECADENT AND...

Browser: Sutherland Lyall perspicaciously trawls the architectural cyberwaves. (View).(Web sites)
April 1, 2002... Ah, research in its time Australian architects have the built environment division of the CSIRO and Britain its BRE, the Building Research Establishment. Once an independent government body, BRE is now owned by the Foundation for the Built...

Letters.
April 1, 2002... LIMITS OF ARCHITECTS SIR: Fabian Faltin (AR Letters, March p33) is being a little sweeping when he talks about your 'wish to reverse the development the leisure industry and contemporary life has taken' and 'your responsibility to think...

Addenda. (View).(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2002... PLASHET SCHOOL FOOTBRIDGE Credits for Plashet School Footbridge (AR Feb, p26) should have included structural engineer Teckniker and cost consultant Gardiner & Theobald. ELECTRONIC IMAGES The AR can accept electronic images only...

Erratum. (View).(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2002... Frank Duffy points out that the 'introduction to the exhibition' he referred to in his article on the exhibition on Ground Zero, held at the Max Protetch Gallery, New York (AR March pp28-29) was in fact an inter-organizational document which...

View from Luxor: Three and a half thousand years ago, the Egyptians invented Western architecture. A pilgrimage is essential for all of us. (View).
April 1, 2002... On a first visit to Luxor, it is impossible to disagree with Herodotus, the earliest tourist to record his journey two and a half millennia ago. He believed that Egypt 'possesses more wonders than any other country, and exhibits works greater...

Winged heroics: A winged bandstand at the De La Warr Pavillion responds to natural forces and the exuberance of its neighbour. (Design Review).
April 1, 2002... The De La Warr Pavilion, by Mendelsohn and Chermayeff, is one of the outstanding Modernist icons, which makes it all the more surprising to find it in the genteel English backwater of Bexhill-on-Sea. Saved from ruin by the efforts of local...

Budding Brits. (Comment).(architects in the United Kingdom)
April 1, 2002... I this issue devoted to recent work by an emerging generation of British architects we examine the wider condition that s ape and affect the practice of architecture in the UK and consider the future prospects for the latest fledgling...

Urban cloister: Through thoughtful spatial organization, these remodelled offices for a television production company are intended to nurture a spirit of creativity.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Television production companies occupy that curious middle ground between research, creativity and business. Writers, producers and researchers develop ideas that are brought into being by technical and production staff. Talkback make a wide...

Westside story: Design of a restaurant and bar in London draws inspiration from the lively theatricality that surrounds it and from old-fashioned glamour.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... West Street, a restaurant with a bar and tiny hotel by Wells Mackereth Architects, for Mirror Image Restaurants, is in a small narrow street of the same name on the edge of Covent Garden. Surrounded by theatres, offices, housing and shops, it...

College remodelling: This transformation of a former Victorian school into a modern apartment block preserves a local landmark and adapts the building's historic fabric to a bold new use.
April 1, 2002... Liverpool has a plentiful stock of robust but now largely redundant Victorian buildings that formed the backbone of the city's prosperity. The conversion of these into shops, bars, restaurants and flats continues to provide opportunities for...

Folding planes: The potential of cardboard as a green and economical building material finds ingenious expression in this after-school activities club.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The notion of using cardboard as a building material might seem ridiculously improbable, but it has been making regular appearances in temporary structures by architects such as Shigeru Ban, who developed a series of refugee shelters in Japan,...

Red letter house: The inventive conversion and extension of a house in north London is one of an inventive trio of structures in a leafy garden.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The VXO house in north London, by Alison Brooks Architects, is the conversion and extension of one built in the 1960s with '70s additions, Inhabited by the clients for 15 years, it was a squarish block stepped around the periphery with a front...

Frames of the forest: A house drawn from early modernist essays stands in woodland in the west country, an integral part of the English landscape.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The site of the house, by Niall McLaughlin Architects, in the west of England is spread across crest and western slope of a high ridge densely covered in beech woods. You approach the house from the east, passing down a long drive bordered by...

Pastoral idyll: A carefully crafted retreat on a river estuary on the west coast of Ireland provides contemplative calm.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The small building, christened the Think Tank by its owner, is a day house for reading and contemplation and was designed by Philip Gumuchdjian for a filmmaker. Isolated from the main house further inland, it stands on a stone plinth set into...

Set dressing: Transformed through a series of dramatic yet demountable new elements, this 1930s film studio is now a lively temporary workplace.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Many young architects set up in practice after a period of apprenticeship working for larger firms. In the UK, a discernible generation of emerging designers have cut their teeth with the English High-Tech establishment. Nick Eldridge and Piers...

Fashion victor: Nestling beside London's Westway, a former motorway maintenance building has been stylishly recast as a fashion company headquarters.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Motorists barrelling along London's Westway, the iconic elevated motorway that snakes westward out of the metropolis, are probably familiar with the equally iconic Paddington Maintenance Depot, a Heroic Modernist confection of nautical curves...

Surface tension: Thomas Heatherwick's characteristically inventive, seductive and radical approach to materials finds vibrant expression in this project for a city square.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Known for his energetically experimental treatment of materials (ARs January 1998, July 1999 and November 1999), Thomas Heatherwick's latest project brings a magic carpet to the centre of Newcastle, enlivening and animating a desolate public...

Loft story: Design of a luminous loft under a Victorian roof revolves around a new staircase and skilfully manipulates available sources of light.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Azman Owen's tough industrially inspired architecture is infused by a quirky imagination; and their schemes contain details that challenge social conventions of privacy. In this, the practice has no doubt been encouraged by the clients'...

Pooled resources: A moving and powerful space has been created within the outbuildings of an Irish country house.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The new swimming pool in the outbuildings of a large farm house at Carrigacunna in County Cork, Ireland has been made with great simplicity. The Victorian stables were gutted down to their random rubble walls, an intermediate floor was inserted...

Hothouse flower: This project for an inner-city London site provides space for artists and an arts organization in a cultural catalyst aimed at regenerating and invigorating the urban realm.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Despite its reputation as one of the capital's most deprived boroughs, Hackney in east London remains fertile territory for artists attracted by cheap studio space and a spirit of communal creativity. Most occupy an assortment of cannibalized...

Reinvesting the everyday: This proposal for low-cost housing in London draws on contemporary urban models to create a striking set of buildings that embody passive solar design, flexibility and generous communal spaces.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Since the British state's retreat from the provision of public sector dwellings, the task of building and managing social housing has latterly fallen to independent associations such as the Peabody Trust. Established during the nineteenth...

Carl F. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The 100th birthday of the Danish architect and designer, Arne Jacobsen. will be celebrated in 2002 with the relaunch of one of his less well known products, the A] door handle which was designed in 1955/56 for the Royal Hotel of Copenhagen. ...

GKD. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Expomedia Light Cube is a new six-storey building in Saarbrucken, Germany, clad with a stainless-steel mesh facade. During the day the mesh has a reflecting metallic shine; at night it acts as a projection surface for light shows. A...

Trespa. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Magna Experience is a former steelworks in Rotherham, England, which has been revitalized into a visitor/education centre by Wilkinson Eyre. The walkway leading to the entrance hall has been clad on one side with Virtuon sheet, an aluminium...

Okalux. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A new technology centre has been constructed at the headquarters of Festo, a multi-national manufacturer of pneumatic equipment, in Esslingen, Germany. The building, designed by Architekturburo Jaschek, has three V-shaped atria roofed with...

Otefal. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... MirawallTM is a polyester powder-coated aluminium sheet laminate. It can be used on facades, window and door frames, and for interiors. The use of special polyester powders guarantees maximum resistance to atmospheric agents and to mechanical...

Birdair. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Scientific Centre, designed by Cambridge Seven Associates, is an educational and cultural complex in Kuwait City, Kuwait, which includes a science museum, theatre, aquarium and harbour. It is roofed with a tensile structure of PTFE-coated...

Cricursa. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Kursaal Auditorium and Congress Centre in San Sebastian, northern Spain, designed by Rafael Moneo, won last year's Mies Van der Rohe prize. The building is in the form of two translucent glass cubes -- two 'stranded rocks which perpetuate...

Focchi. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A new office building in Devonshire Square, London. Designed by Bennetts Associates, has a glazed facade with an exposed structural steel frame. The curtain wall glazing, a polyester powder-coated frame with silicone-glazed double-glazed units,...

Fame + Architecture. (Vanity, Vanity).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Edited by Julia Chance & Torsten Schmiedeknecht. London: Wiley Academy. 2002. [pound sterling]19.99- Fame + Architecture purports to investigate the relationships between fame and architecture in a series of articles that include...

The New Eco-Architecture alternatives from the Modern Movement. (Vers Une Architecture Verte).(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2002... By Colin Porteous. London: Spon Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]27.50 New Eco-Architecture is an intriguing book and it prompted me to re-read Reyner Banham's The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment of 1969 to see how times have...

Infinity and Perspective. (Hero to Infinity).(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2002... By Karsten Harries, London: MIT Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]25.95 Freedom has been a defining theme of the modern era and, guided by a new objectivity and rationality stimulated by the scientific enlightenment, humanity has been liberated...

In Detail: Building skins -- concepts, layers, materials. (Thin Skin).(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2002... Edited by Christian Schittich. Basel: Birkhauser. 2001. [euro]58 Although beautifully presented, this book falls somewhat between a text-book on light-weight cladding and a good architectural magazine with some recent fine examples of...

Auguste Perret. (Poor Perret).(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2002... By Karla Britton. London: Phaidon Press, 2001. [pounds sterling]39.95 'Even with the extensive amount of serious research that has been devoted to Perret, the enigmatic, even impervious quality of his work remains a stumbling block',...

Cities in a globalising world. (Grotesque Contrasts).(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2002... United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat). London: Earthscan, 2001. [pounds sterling]20 Some of us remember friends scraping together the cost of attending the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I)...

Luis Barragan's gardens of El Pedregal. (Ideal Landscape Captured).(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2002... By Keith L. Eggener. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 2001. $40, [pounds sterling]28 From 1945 to '53 Luis Barragan oversaw the conception, design, construction and successful marketing of El Pedregal. Keith Eggener explains in...

Delight: In an extraordinary fit of local and national enthusiasm, Sefton park has been crowned again with its gleaming iron and glass Palm House, now faithfully restored to Victorian magnificence.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Sefton is one of the more affluent suburbs of Liverpool. In 1872, its park was inaugurated, a mighty green space like those of the other northern industrial towns: Open to the poor and surrounded by the villas of the rich -- a concept first...

North 4 Design. (Specifier's Information).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Vision panel specialist North 4 Design has added a 30-minute fire integrity to its expanding range of vision panels for doors and walls. Finished in brushed stainless steel with a choice of glass and fixings, they provide an attractive solution...

Concord:Marlin. (Specifier's Information).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The new lecture theatre is part of an upgrading of facilities at Cardiff University by architect Powell Dobson. The architect wanted to integrate the lighting into the design. In consultation with the Cardiff office of Ove Arup, the Marlinea...

Levolux. (Specifier's Information).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A new building at Bristol University, the Synthetic Chemistry Laboratory, has a Levolux brise-soleil system set within recessed bays with extensive glazing on the south elevation. The brise-soleil system projects 2m from the face of the...

Luxcrete. (Specifier's Information).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A nine-storey cylindrical staircase enclosure, constructed in-situ from Luxcrete glass blocks, stands at the corner of the new national stadium at the Millennium Plaza, Cardiff, Wales. The enclosure was made in panels of 190 x 190 x 80mm...

Louis Poulsen. (Specifier's Information).(new size for PH Artichoke)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 2002... Until now PH Artichoke, the classic lighting fixture, was in three sizes with diameters of 840mm, 720mm and 600mm. It is now available with a diameter of 480mm, suitable for domestic interiors; it can be suspended, for instance, over dining and...

Pilkington architectural. (Specifier's Information).(glass)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Ebbisham Centre is a millennium project in Epsom, Surrey, that combines housing, library, leisure facilities and retail space. At the heart is a glazed concourse, 60m long with a facade of Pilkington PlanarTM glass. The architect RMJM wished to...

Alcan. (Specifier's Information).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The new Scottish Enterprise building in Glasgow, Scotland, has a facade and curtain wall incorporating a total of 2800[m.sup.2] of Alcan aluminium sheet. The 3mm sheets were anodized in two different finishes, natural silver and Analok Il dark...

Kalzip. (Specifier's Information).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Kalzip aluminium standing seam roof has been specified for the new terminal buildings at Barajas Airport, Madrid, Spain. The terminal, designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, has a roof formed of complex double arches, rising at the eaves...

Foreword.
April 1, 2002... I first met Max Fordham in 1996, when we won a competition for a centre for the performing arts on the harbourside at Bristol. Not anticipating success, we had entered the competition without considering how we would work with engineers or...

Taking the brief: The great glass house, National Botanic Garden of Wales.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... An environmental engineer contributes to the design of the built form to optimize its performance as a climatic modifier. The first part of this is to understand and develop the brief. The levels of light, heat, humidity, etc, affect the...

Robust design - research machine: Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen.
April 1, 2002... The role of the services engineer is to generate a robust philosophy for the building form, services design, distribution and integration that matches the environmental and architectural aspirations and complexity of the building. These aspects...

Robust design - form follows funk: National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The four performance space drums are topped with massive turrets that turn the air intakes in synchrony to face the wind. The fresh air is forced down the annular wall cavity and enters the space through the floor. Fan coils in the wall cavity...

Robust design-for study: Rutherford Information Services Building, Goldsmiths College, London.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The major issues here are: daylight, glare, road noise, and overheating. The tall, north-facing glazed elevation overlooking a busy main road lets light into the space. Perforated louvres stop the glare from low summer sun and the oblique sky...

Robust design -- pure theatre: The Savoy Theatre, London.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The auditorium of the Savoy Theatre was gutted by fire in 1990. New services, including the latest theatre technology had to be accommodated without compromising the exuberance of the original Art Deco interior designed by Sir Basil Ionides...

Interfaces: Making all the building elements work together.
April 1, 2002... Industry is reasonably good at developing products for the market it serves. It is not good at thinking outside its areas of expertise and interfacing with other trades. This is the role of a consultant, who is capable not only of managing the...

Delight and fun: Engineering for entertainment.
April 1, 2002... Services are dynamic installations that can be hidden and anonymous or alternatively, expressed to celebrate some aspect of their function or the environment. RELATED ARTICLE: Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. Plasma lamps provide an...

Managing daylight: Using this serendipitous natural force for lumens and enlightenment.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Daylight is a valuable resource as it provides contact with the outside and is a free source of light It needs careful management, however, as it can cause glare and overheating in the summer. Ignoring these problems leaves the occupants little...

Managing airflow: Making small forces work for you.
April 1, 2002... Understanding and managing the airflow around and through a space is important to enable designers to manipulate natural ventilation forces, minimize the energy used and noise created to distribute the air, and to control the visual impact of...

Ground coupling: Using the great heat store beneath our feet.
April 1, 2002... The ground is thermally stable and massive. Its temperature is higher than the air in the winter and lower in the summer, making it a potential source for heating and cooling. It can also be used to store heat. Managing the flow of heat in and...

Invention: Creating new solutions.
April 1, 2002... Approaching a problem from first principles often throws up ideas that are not in manufacture. It is one of the pleasures of our job to generate new designs for products and systems to meet a particular brief or ambition. RELATED ARTICLE:...

Renewable Energy Systems: Making it your business to be green.
April 1, 2002... Renewable Energy Centre, King's Langley RELATED ARTICLE: Renewable Energy Systems Ltd is a firm of commercial wind farm developers. Obtaining planning permission for the high profile site - on green belt and visible from the M25 - was...

Using plants: Natural, green, practical and biodegradable.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Plants and planting can be designed to perform a number of useful tasks that can displace or reduce the need for more mechanical intervention, Planting can enhance amenity and comfort of spaces by providing shelter and shading. Planting on a...

Urban futures: Generating dynamic, attractive and sustainable communities.
April 1, 2002... Our future is in cities -- by the end of the twenty-first century it is thought that three-quarters of the world's population will be urban. Making these cities healthy, vibrant and sustainable is an exceptional challenge in which solar energy...

Custodio Vieira da Silva in The National Palace.(Review)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Caption: Sintra is one of the most entrancing places in the world. On a massive rock in the hills behind Lisbon, It was the country seat of the kings of Portugal, and their palace, which dominates the village, is memorable not only for its...

Architektur + Technologie.
April 1, 2002... Caption: Thomas Herzog imparts magic to even the most mundane building types. This detail of the ventilation system of his Landsberg petrol station shows his imaginative commitment to the green agenda. Thomas Herzog, Architektur + Technologie...

Hansenglass. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A Thermospan structural glass facade forms part of the new headquarters of HMT Hojgaard and Schultz, Denmark's largest building contractor, in Copenhagen. The assembly consists of 19mm single-glazed units structurally bolted to a delicate steel...

Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St Antony at the Red Sea.
April 1, 2002... Caption: The Coptic monasteries of Egypt are quite extraordinary. Lost in the deserts, they are some of the oldest religious foundation in the world, and St Antony's under a barren yellow cliff in the east of the country is the most venerable...