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

Renewing social connections

The light-touch refurbishment of a brutalist city centre bus station in the Czech Republic belies the extent of a young Czech practice’s achievement, catalysing the transformation of a local eyesore into a building of renewed social value. James Parker reports... View Article

Diamond life

Newfoundland, the first residential project in Canary Wharf – and London’s tallest build to rent scheme ­­– has been completed, and it’s an architectural landmark in its own right. Lead architect Billie Lee spoke to Jack Wooler about its distinctive... View Article

New wine in old bottles

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A historic soft drink bottling facility in a formerly run-down part of south east London has been stripped and restored by Studio RHE, bringing its attributes to the fore as a lively commercial and events space. Roseanne... 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

Statement architecture

LISTEN HERE 🔊 An award-winning mixed-use project in Munich features 5 metre high LED lettering and an industrially-inspired design that reflects the site’s heritage. Jonathan Schuster, project leader at MVRDV, speaks to Jack Wooler WERK12 is a mixed-use office, culture and... View Article

Taking full ownership

In a project that saw a return to the Master Builder approach, Tikari Works took the role of not only architect, but also developer and contractor on a CLT-framed residential scheme in Peckham – achieving a high quality result in... 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

Critical path to success

LISTEN HERE 🔊 A new critical care hospital in south Wales has been designed by BDP for optimum efficiency to attract the best staff, while achieving an accelerated programme to meet the challenge of Covid. Adrian Hitchcock takes Jack Wooler... 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

Bull in the Oak

Nestled away in a hamlet just outside Market Bosworth lies what appears to be a typical Leicestershire farmstead. Except this country idyll has pushed the boundaries of design and planning and is now home to a bespoke development of five... 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