Passivhaus goes large

LISTEN HERE 🔊 Agar Grove is set to become the UK’s largest Passivhaus scheme, with its housing tenants already seeing the benefits from the first completed phase. James Woodward, architect at Hawkins\Brown, tells Roseanne Field why the practice decided to... View Article

Opening a new volume in NYC

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A renovation project on 5th Avenue opens up a public library facility and resolves the functional anomalies of a former department store to provide high quality spaces for all users. James Parker reports on a fruitful collaboration... View Article

Singapore’s central park

A major mixed-use skyscraper with a difference is approaching completion in Singapore’s central business district – the facades of this richly diverse ‘vertical city’ by Bjarke Ingels Group opens up to reveal generous and highly usable green spaces. James Parker... View Article

Renewed sense of purpose

LISTEN HERE 🔊 Arup believes that its redevelopment of the workplace it designed in the 1990s in West London, including a refurbished facade, will save 40,000 tonnes of carbon compared with a new build approach. ADF’s Tom Boddy reports Situated... View Article

Hidden in plain sight

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A new private residence overlooking a valley in the Czech Republic offers a seamless blend of expansive sight lines and privacy, but also a design that subtly disguises itself in its hilly site. Jack Wooler spoke to... View Article

A revealing take on later life

A project in north London offers highly individualised, non-institutional retirement village design both inside and out, producing a carefully detailed brick-clad form on a challenging site. Jack Wooler reports Belle Vue is a high-end retirement community in Hampstead, London which... View Article

Exercising soft power

LISTEN HERE 🔊 Designing a power station on the Italian island of Capri, famous as a luxury holiday destination, required a sensitive approach to sit a sustainable new plant gently in its setting. Enrico Frigerio speaks to Roseanne Field Capri,... View Article

Light relief

LISTEN HERE 🔊 Heatherwick Studio’s first completed healthcare scheme is a new Maggie’s Centre that turns an unloved patch of city centre hospital estate into a landscape-festooned, lightweight timber refuge for cancer patients. James Parker reports. Heatherwick Studio’s first completed... View Article

Light reading

James Parker reports on how a Parisian firm of architects created a highly transparent, modern multimedia library flooded with light, that feels at home in historic Bayeux The new ‘media library’ or ‘mediatheque’ serving the 30,000 citizens of Bayeux. Normandy,... View Article

A copper partner for corten

Phase 2 of a major residential development in Bristol is an industrially inspired block of apartments faced in copper, designed to complement a former tobacco company HQ. James Parker reports Ferguson Mann Architects (FMA) were appointed to design Urban Splash’s... View Article

A vertical learning trajectory

Roseanne Field speaks to Bell Phillips Architects about their first education project – a new building for a fast-growing Kent grammar school which needed to provide a considered aesthetic result to harmonise with the historic buildings surrounding it The Skinners’... View Article

Physical connections

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A new sports and swimming pool addition at King’s College School in south west London was designed around visual connections between old and new, and marked the culmination of the school’s masterplan. Roseanne Field reports Designing a... View Article

Driving green collaboration

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A cutting-edge facility designed to keep future vehicle innovation firmly on the map, with the emphasis on sustainability, has completed at the University of Warwick. Roddy Langmuir from Cullinan Studio tells Jack Wooler how it combines collaboration... View Article

Levelling up food retail

Forming a new landmark with a tiered, cantilevered roof garden, a fruit and veg market in Taiwan will revitalise the concept of selling local food in a natural environment. Winy Maas, founding partner at MVRDV, spoke to Jack Wooler about... View Article

The art & craft of conservation

LISTEN HERE 🔊 An Arts & Crafts Fire Station in North West London kept its original features in a sensitive residential conversion that saw architects Tate Harmer working adeptly within a strict conservation remit. James Parker reports Built in 1915,... View Article

Swiss movement

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A new addition to a prestigious lakeside wellness resort in the Swiss Alps produced a dynamic but discreet form, as part of a landscaped composition that gently enhances its setting. James Parker reports Sitting on the shores... View Article

Social housing with a human face

A new Build to Rent project for a housing association in central Manchester saw Mecanoo use a difficult site cleverly to provide a mix of human-scaled dwellings. James Parker reports on how it avoids the anonymity of the area’s previous... View Article

Fluid dynamics

LISTEN HERE 🔊 Aiming to set a new standard for air transport, the dramatic curves of ZHA’s first airport are as much the result of a need to provide maximum throughput, as aesthetic aspiration. The project’s lead architect tells Jack... View Article

Seamless combination

LISTEN HERE 🔊 The Mill is a luxury housing development that saw a complex conversion combine new build with refurbishment of a historic hosiery factory. Richard Cooper of HSSP Architects spoke to Jack Wooler A former hosiery mill dating back... View Article

City limits

Set in a triangular mews in north London, a quirky mixed-use project offers privacy and bright spaces despite a tight urban context. Jack Wooler spoke to architects Tom Byrne and Simon Lilley to get their take on the scheme The... View Article