The Architectural Review articles from July 2006

The Architectural Review archives from July 2006

London is swinging again.(view)(London Architecture Biennale)
July 1, 2006... The London Architecture Biennale took place for the second time last month--an extraordinary combination of events, temporary works, lectures, debates, installations and exhibitions. Norman Foster had to drop out of a sheep drive across his...

Roundhouse restored.(view)(John McAslan and Partners partnered with Torquil Norman)
July 1, 2006... When Torquil Norman bought London's Roundhouse through his charitable trust 10 years ago, he found himself owning one of the capital's distinctive historic landmarks, but one which has turned into an albatross for his many predecessors who had...

New Deal.(view)(The Architectural Review awards for Niall McLaughlin Architects)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Niall McLaughlin Architects charmed the judges of the 2002 AR Awards for Emerging Architecture with their delightful Bexhill Pavillion Band Stand. Bucket and spade in hand again, perhaps, they are soon to return to the British coastline, having...

The AR's Dark Side.(view)
July 1, 2006... Only a tiny number of architects, by definition, can take part in the Venice Biennale. However, 'The Dark Side', a 'fringe' event organised by White Partners and The Architectural Review, will crit a selection of projects which can be...

AR Awards call for entries.(view)
July 1, 2006... The Architectural Review Awards for Emerging Architecture are entering their eighth cycle. Inaugurated in 1999, the awards are intended to bring wider international recognition to a talented new generation of architects and designers under 45....

Errata.(Correction notice)
July 1, 2006... The dates for the AR's late night 'fringe' event at the Venice Biennale, The Dark Side, are 7, 8 and 9 September, and not 8, 9, 10 as stated in AR June, page 39. Yew Choong Chan's ingenious RIBA Silver Medal winning scheme V.EN (vertical...

Peter Cook: Los Angeles played host to America's architects--with a little help from their friends.(view)(American Institute of Architects Convention)
July 1, 2006... At the end of four hectic days, it ceased to surprise me that it was the intrepid Yung Ho Chang that we'd spotted down the other end of a Santa Monica restaurant. When we joined him, he explained that it seemed neat to stop off in LA on his...

Carbon footprints in the sand: should we all stop travelling now?(comment)(The Travel Foundation's debate)(Column)
July 1, 2006... Should we all stop travelling now? Some environmental campaigners say that we should curb our huge appetite for foreign holidays and breaks--are they right? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This blunt question was recently used as the...

Spanish soft machine: Madrid's new airport terminal is a highly expressive cocktail of political ambition and architectural ideas.(Madrid Barajas Airport)
July 1, 2006... Trudging at midnight along Gatwick's deserted corridors to board a six hour late flight to Madrid, it struck me that Gatwick epitomises all that is worst about the modern airport experience. The queuing, the disorientation, the anomie, the slog...

World's end hotel: This hotel in remote Patagonia treads thoughtfully and lightly in stunning landscape.
July 1, 2006... This is the third in a series of remarkable hotels in remote locations by Chilean architect German del Sol. At the tapering tip of South America lies Patagonia, the 'uttermost part of the earth', a harshly beautiful terrain of mountains,...

Tunnel vision: Though monumental in scale, Berlin's new central station has a powerful internal drama.
July 1, 2006... For more than a century, traffic planners have been eagerly conceiving ambitious railway solutions for the German capital. An inner-city railway viaduct was first constructed during the era of the Kaiser and still snakes languidly through the...

How convenient: For tourists, Japanese lavatories provide great entertainment; heated, remote controlled and with water jets. Shuhei Endo provides three more facilities.
July 1, 2006... It is not uncommon to see groups of elderly gentlemen sitting together in Japan's civic parks and gardens. They can sit for hours, apparently doing nothing, communicating mentally, as conversation and movement are rare. Groups of women, by...

Running rings: Kyoto-based Amorphe have recently completed this titanium circuit for fast track weddings.(Amorphe Takeyama and Associates, Brighton Hotel)
July 1, 2006... Weddings are big business in Japan, and as time means money, conveyor belt systematisation has taken hold. Many large international hotels host packaged ceremonial services and provide an increasing number of stand-alone wedding chapels such as...

Tubular troglodytes: Off-the-peg industrial grade concrete cylinders are appropriated to create the ultimate budget hotel.
July 1, 2006... This is perhaps the ultimate boutique hotel, an individual concrete tube set in lush green surroundings, running water not included. Aimed principally at the young and hardy, Dasparkhotel makes a virtue of economy, streamlining both...

Pirates of the Caribbean: local practice, Architects Cubed, discuss how tourism and Colonial pastiche are challenging development of an authentic architectural typology across much of the Caribbean.(place)
July 1, 2006... With current forecasts by the World Travel and Tourism Council predicting a 4.6 per cent increase in business during 2006, tourism is clearly still on the move. All in, with related business, the industry contribution to global GDP is likely to...

Club class: Virgin Atlantic has brought new thinking to the generally prosaic passenger lounge.(interior design)
July 1, 2006... Airport lounges, as an architectural type, are at the anonymous end of the design spectrum. Their main function, other than reminding passengers with expensive tickets that they don't have to slum it with the general public in waiting areas, is...

Moonshine: with crystal clear views, and a particularly potent flavour, this West Country homebrew deserves to be savoured.(house)
July 1, 2006... When architects have to consider the nuance of a place, it is often as hard adequately to describe essential qualities as it is to know immediately what to build. Rushing to impose hard and fast solutions is misguided, and if time permits,...

Focus on Portugal: Portuguese materials such as ceramics, stone and cork have shaped the country's buildings and fuelled its manufacturing industries. Catherine Slessor considers the history of some well-known materials and how contemporary designers and manufacturers are meeting the challenges of the modern marketplace.(products)
July 1, 2006... To a profound extent, Portuguese architecture was and continues to be shaped by the availability of local materials. The country's great tradition of tile making and design has left an indelible and distinctive mark on the Portuguese built...

Specifier's information.
July 1, 2006... Hacel Lighting Oledo Spectrum from Hacel's Desire catalogue is a unique inground luminaire using 36 high intensity, long-life LEDs and an etched acrylic diffuser housed in a polished stainless steel, IP65 die-casting. The Power Supply Unit...

Building and healing.(The architecture of hospitals)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... THE ARCHITECTURE OF HOSPITALS Edited by Cor Wagenaar. Rotterdam: NAi. 2006. [euro]59.50 The new University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) opened in 1997 after ten years of construction and reconstruction. It was soon recognised...

Joining in.(Architecture And Participation )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... ARCHITECTURE AND PARTICIPATION Edited by Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petrescu, Jeremy Till. London: Spon. 2005. [pounds sterling]25 This re-evaluation of the art of participation in architecture and planning is both stimulating and...

Hooked on classics.(Phaidon Design Classics )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... PHAIDON DESIGN CLASSICS London: Phaidon. 2006. [pounds sterling]100 Here is another of Phaidon's astonishing blockbusters, the kind of book that makes one gasp and stretch one's eyes. This one is a directory of international 'design...

Chunking the future.(Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Methodologies are Poised to Transform Building Construction)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... REFABRICATING ARCHITECTURE: HOW MANUFACTURING METHODOLOGIES ARE POISED TO TRANSFORM BUILDING CONSTRUCTION By Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake. London: McGraw-Hill. 2004. [pounds sterling]13.99 This book starts with an architect...

Best in the west.(A History of Western Architecture)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... A HISTORY OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE By David Watkin. London: Laurence King. 2005. [pounds sterling]24.95 Anyone attempting to write a book with a title such as this one faces daunting problems, not least the huge amounts of information...

The Eames Lounge Chair--An Icon of Modern Design.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Eames Lounge Chair in production, from The Eames Lounge Chair--An Icon of Modern Design, by Martin Eidelberg et al, London: Merrell, 2006, $45, [pounds sterling]29.95. In continuous production since 1956, its familiar sleek-yet-chunky lines of...

NYZ: New York Zaha.(Zaha Hadid)
July 1, 2006... First impression of Zaha Hadid is surprise that no telltale intervention competes for attention in the famous white void of the Guggenheim. Instead we are treated to a chronological progression of Hadid paintings, drawings and models spiralling...

Wizards of Oz.(browser)(Architecture Australia)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Keeping track of former Architectural Association computery stuff genius, John Fraser, has always been interesting and the latest clue to what he is doing (research co-ordinator for Gehry Technologies) is in a footnote to an interview with him...

Putting it together.(browser)(www.fabprefab.com)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Except in architectural circles, prefabricated building has had a pretty poor press. The results spoke for themselves--even if the idea has always had something going for it as the recent spate of books on the topic underlines. Add to books...

Upping the ante.(browser)(www.castordesign.ca)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A colleague thought it would be lots of fun to make a joke about Castor Design's extremely quirky site at www.castordesign.ca--'A load of pollux' was the tagline. This is precisely the kind of site I urge serious architectural practices to...

Bartlett boy draws good.(browser)(www.pingmag.jp)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... I have just found a great magazine Pingmag at www.pingmag.jp. The full monty for the architecture section is www.pingmag.jp/category/architecture/ but there are so many delights on the home page that you will want to hang around here nibbling...

Vroom, vroom.(browser)(www.makezine.com)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... I never did find the jet powered backpack at www.makezine.com--even on the blog (www.makezine.com/blog) because, as on Pingmag, there was so much else to look at: bicycle-mounted steady cams, a light bulb aquarium, how to run mains voltage...

Diary.
July 1, 2006... AR'S CHOICE OF INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS AUSTRIA DOMINIQUE PERRAULT: CITY LANDSCAPES Architekturzentrum WIEN, Vienna 6 July-30 October Four projects by French architect Perrault at the construction or planning...

Delight.(Blackpool seaside resort)
July 1, 2006... We all know that the English summer leaves something to be desired--grey skies, damp sandwiches, biting wind and so on--yet English seaside resorts still attract their fair share of optimistic pleasure seekers. Here in windswept Blackpool,...