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Fearless storytelling, critical voices and thought-provoking architecture from around the world
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    Pet project: veterinary clinic in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Adamo Faiden
    Adamo Faiden’s new veterinary clinic in Buenos Aires is a testament to the growing consideration for non‑human creatures in cities There is nothing to indicate it is a veterinary clinic, yet this anonymous building stands out from its neighbours. From the street, Calle Guayaquil, in the picturesque Caballito neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, its facade is an elegant patchwork of corrugated sheets. Some are white opaque metal, others are perforated, while the ones of transparent plastic give passers‑by a glimpse of what lies beyond, and of the sky above. On the overcast day of my visit, the greys of the sky blend with the building’s tones. With its shimmering skin and irregular height, it almost resembles a temple. The clinic, designed by the Buenos Aires‑based architecture practice Adamo Faiden, is situated between a two‑storey early‑20th‑century house and an eight‑storey residential tower made of red brick. Although there is no visible trace from the outside, the concrete frame of the site’s previous occupier – a townhouse also built in the early 20th century – was largely kept, in an attempt to avoid complete demolition. ‘Why should we demolish it if it works?’ asks co‑founder of Adamo Faiden Marcelo Faiden. Despite its boldness in terms of composition and materiality, the veterinary clinic’s facade remains respectful of its surroundings. Its articulation references the next‑door house’s height and elements such as the ground‑floor double door. On the pavement in front of the clinic, an old plátano hispánico, a plane tree commonly found in the city, has been preserved. The clinic’s nearly symmetrical facade responds to this tall tree; its central bay towers above the two lateral wings. ‘Plants and pets give life to the building’s otherwise austere language’ Instead of coinciding with this central axis, the entrance door is offset to the right – where the front door of its predecessor was also positioned. Walking in, I was surprised to see the small entrance hall open, past a glass door, onto a 10m‑tall atrium with natural light flooding the interior. Reminiscent of a winter garden, the nave‑like central space is used as a large waiting room; it is not hermetic, as perforations in the corrugated‑metal sheets on both the front and back facade let a pleasant breeze in, which helps keep the interior odour free. Most plots in the orthogonal urban grid of Buenos Aires – an inheritance from the Laws of the Indies during the Spanish colonisation – are just 8.66m wide, while their depth can vary, particularly if on the corner of a block. The 8.66m‑wide house that previously stood on the Guayaquil site was organised in three bays; the floor and roof slabs of the central bay, dedicated to circulation and featuring a prominent staircase, were removed and the space extended upwards to become this covered passage, which leads to a large garden at the back. The floor is made of concrete with exposed stone, while newly planted vegetation – and visiting pets – give life to the building’s otherwise austere architectural language. The programme is accommodated linearly on either side of this central axis; consultation rooms are on the ground floor, while a laboratory as well as X‑ray and operating rooms are up on the first floor. The 1.2m by 1.2m sheets of corrugated metal, and the metallic structure that supports them, cover the old concrete frame, giving rhythm and structure to the interior while dictating the dimensions of rooms. The old structure is more visible on the upper floor, where concrete columns are left exposed. Much less prominent than its predecessor, the new staircase is light and practical, located at the back, in the building’s southern corner.     The architects believe that all construction is an act of conversation with history. ‘History gives growth direction,’ Sebastián Adamo and Marcelo Faiden write in their monographic book The Contemporary Constructor, published in 2018. Since memory is ‘never perfect’, they argue it is ‘an image composed of, or degraded from, a previous situation or moment’. As a ‘partial construction’, each memory is ever‑evolving, and has ‘the potential for self growth’. Faithful followers of Lacaton & Vassal, they rely on industrial materials to create large volumes, while keeping costs low: corrugated as well as flat sheets of metal and PVC, off‑the‑shelf windows, iron and steel pipes, screens and meshes. They want users and inhabitants to appropriate the spaces they design, and be able to monitor internal circumstances to provide optimal conditions for life to occur – with gestures as simple as opening or closing a window. These are materials and ideas that Adamo Faiden have been experimenting with in their recent projects. One of their most recent, the Di Tella University pavilion, resembles a greenhouse; it functions as one in winter, trapping the sun’s heat, while in summer the roof gives way to a system of awnings that allow the heat to rise and escape. At Cepé House, completed in 2021, all the rooms are articulated around a central space that is covered by a large glazed roof; a simple system of sliding enclosures allows inhabitants to adjust visual connections and control the climatic environment. Back in 2012, they encased the mixed‑use 33 Orientales 138 building in a metallic ornamental mesh, a material they have used again for the recently opened branch of Italian restaurant Orno in the neighbourhood of Palermo. The Guayaquil veterinary clinic’s winter garden becomes an open‑ended space that is ventilated and luminous, but without a fixed programme. Reminiscent of Lacaton & Vassal’s ‘extra’ space, provided in addition to what is required and programmed, it is a space open to the interpretation of humans and their pets to play an active role in deciding when and how to inhabit it. Throughout the clinic, transparency prevails, making visible the constant movement of people and animals. Fixed and blind panels alternate with glazed panes and openings. Upstairs, the large central atrium is crossed by a bridge, part of the same modular system. The same width as a room, it is not reduced to simple circulation; furnished with a bench, it becomes a place where pets and their owners wait to be called in by the staff for their appointment. Argentina has more pets per capita than any other country in the world. Pet adoptions increased significantly during the Covid‑19 pandemic – at the time, taking your dog for a walk was one of the few valid reasons to be able to spend time outside. Today, 80 per cent o the families in the country who have at least one animal in their home own a dog. Buenos Aires alone counts an estimated population of 475,000 dogs – the most popular pet – and the city has adapted to it. There are now many dog walkers, pet shops and medical facilities; the Guayaquil veterinary clinic has been busy since its opening in 2022. The architects, who think that the greater recognition of cohabitation with non‑human species in cities gives us ‘rights and responsibilities’, see architecture as a way to ‘connect private ambitions with public needs’. By stripping the old Guayaquil townhouse back, the architects have chosen to do away with some of its layers, replacing them with air, lightness and vegetation that in turn infuse the surrounding city. At night, or on very cloudy days, the interior’s artificial lighting irradiates the street. 2025-04-23 Francesco Perrotta-Bosch Share AR April 2025Buy Now
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    Competition: South Africa preschools
    An open international contest is seeking ideas for new preschools in South Africa (Deadline: 31 July) The competition – organised by Team NowNow in partnership with University of Nottingham, University of Cape Town and Education Africa – seeks ‘scalable, modular and aspirational’ proposals for new preschool designs which could be deployed on three rural and suburban sites. The call for concepts aims to identify a range of innovative solutions which could help South Africa’s government meet its target of delivering more than 115,000 new preschool facilities and help boost education in the country where only half of children attend early learning programmes. According to the brief: ‘This competition is for a modular, adaptable, and aspirational preschool design appropriate to the social, environmental, and financial context of South Africa. ‘The design should also be cost-effective as competition partners are seeking to construct the winning proposal in conjunction with Education Africa’s Social Architecture Project during 2026, serving as a prototype for the cost-effective development of high-quality preschool infrastructure in the future.’ The contest invites architects, urbanists, engineers, artists, makers, students and anyone with a passion for the future of our urban environments to draw up concepts for new £18,800 (470,000 ZAR) preschools which could occupy a typical rural site measuring 50m by 50m. Submission may focus on one of three locations: a plot in the village of Mthatha where an active, accessible and secure site boundary is required; a rural village site in the KwaZulu-Natal Lowlands with varying topography and climate; and a site in Limpopo surrounded by semi-formal housing with an opportunity to introduce new shared green spaces. The competition is organised by Cape Town-based Team NowNow which in November launched an international contest for ideas to adapt and reimagine the disused Ijora Power Station in Lagos, Nigeria. The project backer is Education Africa, an NGO which has built 20 preschool buildings throughout Southern Africa with the help of volunteers from around the world. Submissions should include two A2-sized panels featuring illustrations along with a 300-word project description. Concepts should be able to host up to 40 students aged 0-4 years old; be universally accessible; and feature play areas, storage spaces and toilets. Judges will include early childhood development campaigner Theodora Lutuli; Kevin Kimwelle, community architect and designer of a food pavilion using recycled materials at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront; and Papa Omotayo, founder of A Whitespace Creative Agency and creative director of MOE+ Art Architecture in Lagos. The overall winner will receive a £1,200 (30,000 ZAR) top prize. A second prize of £600 (15,000 ZAR) and third prize of £200 (5,000 ZAR) will also be awarded. How to apply Deadline: 31 July Competition funding source: Education Africa, Umncedi, University of Nottingham, University of Cape TownProject funding source: Education Africa, TBC Owner of site(s): TBC (likely to be community owned) Contact details: info@nownowcompetition.comVisit the competition website for more information 2025-04-22 Merlin Fulcher Share
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    Competition results: winner of Catalunya Media City contest revealed
    Garcés de Seta Bonet Arquitectes and MARVEL have won a contest to create a new home for the Catalunya Media City in Barcelona The Barcelona-based studios won a contest organised by the Catalan government which focused on adapting and expanding the landmark Three Chimneys factory in the city’s Sant Adrià de Besós neighbourhood. The project – planned to complete in 2028 – will deliver a new audiovisual and digital content hub for the Catalunya Media City initiative within the waterfront complex. The winning scheme will retain the building’s three chimneys and turbine hall while also delivering a new extension. The complex was originally built in the 1970s as part of a larger thermal power station and features three, 200m-tall chimneys. Once complete, the restored and converted building will feature training areas, research spaces, an open space 5,600m² exhibition zone, an auditorium, performance studio, library and meeting rooms. Jonathan Marvel, co-founder of MARVEL studio, said: ‘Transforming an infrastructure that has had a significant environmental impact in the past into one that promotes the future of media collaboration, leveraging the existing structure to reduce the energy consumption of the new program, seems like a key objective for the architecture of the future.’ Anna Bonet, co-founding partner of the Garcés de Seta Bonnet studio, said: ‘The turbine hall nave is a powerful prismatic body with a contrasting interior, where a forest of pillars, voids, and solids at different levels coexist in fortuitous harmony. ‘The new intervention is superimposed on the richness of this interior landscape without obliterating the pre-existing scenery. The large hall on the third floor is reminiscent of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, the Aviva Studios Warehouse in Manchester, or the Park Avenue Armory in New York.’ Bonet added: ‘All of these unique spaces from a recent industrial past offer generous elements in terms of dimensions, proportions and remarkable capacity. In the specific case of the third floor of the turbine hall, the space is 17 m high and 160 m long. ‘The project enhances the void character of this magnificent space, only fully equipping the ceiling and the floor, allowing this flexible space to host any activity, from intimate performances to large-scale installations with capacity for up to 4,500 people.’ Located on the north-eastern coast of Spain, Barcelona is the capital and largest city of Catalonia with 1.6 million residents. Last month, the winners of an open international contest to remodel various venues on the city’s Montjuïc trade fair site were revealed. The latest appointment comes almost a year after a competition – backed by Barcelona City Council and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe – was launched to remodel 10 permanent blind walls which are spread across the city’s 10 districts and could ‘leave a lasting legacy in Barcelona’. An open call for participation in the upcoming UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona was announced earlier this month.
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    The great outdoors: Parque Realengo in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by Ecomimesis Soluções Ecológicas and collaborators
    A green oasis intended to contribute to neighbourhood health in Rio de Janeiro, Parque Realengo is rapidly being colonised by consumer culture In order to improve the life and wellbeing of citizens in boroughs far from beaches or public gardens, Rio de Janeiro’s municipal government recently launched the Parques Cariocas programme to oversee the renovation of existing and creation of new parks with leisure and health facilities. Opened in June 2024, the Parque Realengo Susana Naspolini is among the new parks created under the scheme, and is located in a populous lower‑middle‑class neighbourhood whose origins date back to the early 19th century. Although it is flanked to the south by the 12,400 hectares of Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca, one of the largest urban forests in the world, the Realengo neighbourhood did not have public spaces suitable for outdoor physical exercise and other leisure activities. The most popular site of recreation among Cariocas (Rio residents) might be the beach, but the closest one to Realengo is 22km away, an hour and a half by public transport. Due to its geographical position, wedged between hills with limited wind flow, and the lack of trees in its streets, Realengo is notorious for its extremely high temperatures – it is common for them to soar above 40°C. In the centre of the neighbourhood, a large piece of land lay abandoned for decades, with vegetation taking over scattered industrial remnants. Home to the Brazilian Army’s Cartridge Factory from 1898 to 1977, the plot was set to be transformed into a residential complex for military personnel but met resistance from the local community. After about two decades of political struggle, the City eventually agreed to convert more than half of it, corresponding to 80,500m2, into a public park. Local architecture and landscape firm Ecomimesis Soluções Ecológicas was commissioned for the park’s masterplan and landscaping, and construction began in 2022. Mayor Eduardo Paes’s idea was to create a local version of Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. There was no shame or shyness in wanting to build ‘supertree’ simulacrums; the municipality aspired to create a landmark in the suburban landscape, a symbol of its administration. This decision is best explained not by urban planning theory, but by a famous quote from the great Carioca carnival designer Joãosinho Trinta: ‘The people like luxury, those who like poverty are intellectuals.’ This is the quintessence of Rio de Janeiro’s culture. Like the floats of samba schools parading down the Avenida Marquês de Sapucaí during carnival, the towers of Parque Realengo seek to represent wealth and opulence. It was a conscious strategy to create a popular symbol, and copying the foreign reference of the time is nothing new; in the 1924 carnival, a replica of the Eiffel Tower was built in nearby Madureira. The five towering structures of Parque Realengo rise above a water basin and among curvilinear walkways designed to provide Instagrammable views. As lower‑tech versions of their half siblings in Southeast Asia, they integrate a water sprinkler system to mitigate the heat‑island effect with planters at their base, for vegetation to climb and twine round the metal profiles. The structures truly come to life after dark; every evening, a sound and light show takes place, a low‑cost Dubai fireworks spectacle with powerful speakers playing popular Brazilian music.  Parque Realengo is a real stage for popular activities and celebrations, with an intense and vibrant energy. This is the product of both the current day‑to‑day management of the park and enthusiastic appropriation by the locals, rather than the architecture and landscaping. Throughout the day, it is buzzing with bicycles, food carts, skateboards, and the hustle and bustle of crowds. This is not a park for silent enjoyment or to admire botanical species. Ecomimesis did propose the planting of 3,700 trees, incorporating 60 new native species in the park grounds, yet the landscape design does not follow any specific Brazilian tradition. Its approach is closer to the École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles (where Ecomimesis founder Pierre‑André Martin studied), concerned with the resilience of microenvironments, than to the ideas of Roberto Burle Marx, whose tropical compositions alluded to cubist paintings. Internal paths are winding, so the park reveals itself gradually to those who walk, run or cycle. While there is no privileged vantage point from which to see the place as a whole, the park delivers a series of pleasant surprises, with most structures and stops along the route protected from view by vegetation. Between the football pitch and the skatepark is the community’s vegetable garden; the use of two multisport courts and a smaller one for 3 × 3 basketball is regularly fought over by neighbours; the outdoor gym equipment seems popular among older people. Dozens of benches and tables scattered throughout the park provide places for users to stop, rest and picnic, while the covered barbecues spread around the lawns become meeting points around which families and friends gather; when I visited, on a summer’s Friday night, four birthdays were being celebrated at the same time. Noise levels reach a climax in the water play area, with fountains shooting water upwards and hanging buckets that tip over once filled, their water pouring down to the delight of children who want to cool off. After sunset, once temperatures begin to drop, children rush to the playground with their toys. Although the builders did not follow the design to the letter, the infrastructure to manage stormwater runoff and help with soil drainage is functioning. To minimise the impact of extreme rainfall – increasingly common due to global warming – the park’s rain gardens and bioswales absorb and filter excess water before it is directed and stored in a retention basin near one of the park’s entrance gates.  Two structures stand out for their architectural quality. Both were designed by six young architects commissioned by Ecomimesis: Juliana Ayako, Helena Meirelles, Larissa Monteiro, Carlos Saul Zebulun, Rodrigo Messina and Francisco Rivas. At the southern end of the park, the Mercado na Praça (‘market square’) acts as a gateway from the busy street. The improvised, non‑legalised shops that previously stood on the site were removed to widen the pavement and create a large square just outside the park’s boundary. Two long, horizontal structures provide shelter from the elements; overlapping and arranged at a 90° angle to one another, they also structure the open space. The lower, single‑storey axis consists of a row of 11 units where shop owners were relocated; above, running perpendicular to it, a 66m‑long, 3m‑tall steel roof seems to float, its trusses supported by just a few pillars. Designed without a specific programme, the space below and around the canopy – peppered with flowerbeds, tables and benches – supports spontaneous and ephemeral occupation. At the other end of Parque Realengo, the Cobertura Multiuso (‘multipurpose canopy’) speaks a similar language. Deep metal trusses hold a roof that slopes inwards, descending towards a central patio. The architects imagined it could host yoga sessions, dance classes or samba school drum rehearsals, but nine stalls have been built underneath the roof, turning the whole into an outdoor food court. Like Venturi and Scott Brown’s ducks, the popcorn kiosk and ice cream parlour have the shapes of the products they sell; their eccentric, oversize decor works surprisingly well at one of the structure’s corners, partially overtaking the roof. The six architects also designed a third building: another hollowed‑out structure with a courtyard, this one with its roofs sloping upwards towards the centre. Only its general proportions and the roof silhouettes were kept; the building, intended to be a cultural centre, now houses a health centre and educational space for the locals.  Parque Realengo represents the triumph of consumerism. It is an open‑air public space full of free activities, but with a high number of commercial establishments – around 40, both carts and fixed structures. With its motorised go‑karts for children to rent out and race, its main alley resembles a shopping‑mall corridor. The unemployed and underemployed members of the local community have spontaneously taken possession of the park as their economic platform – not part of the architects’ projects, this necessity was understood and facilitated by the municipality. Consumption and ideas of a healthier lifestyle coexist. In its own way, Parque Realengo has proven to be a success, so much so that the city recently reached an agreement to use the remaining land belonging to the army to expand it in the coming years. 2025-04-22 Francesco Perrotta-Bosch Share AR April 2025Buy Now
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    Irene Barclay (1894–1989)
    The work of the UK’s first female chartered building surveyor prioritised the wellbeing of some of the poorest people in the country ‘Everyone wants to build, nobody wants to do maintenance,’ wrote the author Kurt Vonnegut. Irene Barclay (1894–1989), Britain’s first female chartered building surveyor and secretary of the St Pancras Housing Association, however, wanted to do – and did – both. During a career spanning more than 50 years, Barclay penned reports on housing conditions across the country, spearheaded slum clearance and construction of modern blocks of flats, ran a surveying practice, started a nursery school for children under five, took landlords to court, and managed the day‑to‑day running of housing in Somers Town, near St Pancras, in London. She was a socialist who put her beliefs to material use, pursuing practical work for better housing and improved health for the so‑called slum dweller in London and across the country. The daughter of pacifist Christian minister Basil Martin and Alice Turberville, Barclay was born Irene Turberville Martin in Hereford in 1894. Her parents were adamant that Barclay and her siblings receive the best possible education, but Barclay’s unorthodox home background, which encouraged independence and free‑thinking, did not always make her formal schooling easy; in People Need Roots, a book she wrote in 1976 on her work at the St Pancras Housing Association, Barclay mentions being ‘utterly miserable’ and an outcast at Monmouth High, the boarding school she attended. Regardless, following the family’s move to London in 1913, Barclay studied history and social science at Bedford College.  Irene Barclay was a prominent advocate of improved conditions for impoverished people, commissioning social housing projects in her role at St Pancras Housing Association. Here, Barclay (left of image) studies the drawings of the third phase of St Richard’s House, built in 1967 and part of the Eversholt Estate, with a colleague at St Pancras Housing Association Margaret White Credit: Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre Barclay then worked with Maud Jeffery at the Crown Estate (the organisation that manages property held by the British monarch), where she became a rent collector and social worker – a unique type of role championed specifically for women by social reformer Octavia Hill. It was here that Barclay was mentored and encouraged, following the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, to pursue a qualification in surveying. She enrolled and was qualified in 1922. Evelyn Perry, who was the second woman pursuing the degree, graduated the year after. The two women founded a joint surveying practice in 1924 and enjoyed a long‑lasting professional partnership. One of the first pieces of work Barclay and Perry undertook was a survey of housing conditions in London’s Chelsea. The document, revealing dangerous levels of overcrowding and poor‑quality dwellings, later served as proof in litigation against the landlords. The practice produced a number of similar surveys, which were sometimes illustrated with plans and other drawings, and went into the detail of architectural deficiencies and public health hazards. Statements from residents and witnesses were also included: for example, a teacher’s testimony to the bad effects of living in damp homes on children’s health. In the survey of housing in Kensington, they wrote of the mews dwellings in Bolton Road that they were ‘badly ventilated and unhealthy’.  ‘Barclay saw housing as inseparable from public health’ Barclay and Perry did not stop at condemning these issues, they also offered solutions: alternative arrangements of modern blocks of flats and financial calculations of their construction are outlined. The surveyors visited vast numbers of families when preparing these surveys, and the resulting documents were an important way of bearing witness to the struggles of city dwellers living in poverty – but also served to empower them, influence public opinion, and most importantly to pave the way for reform.  Barclay and Perry’s view of the built environment was holistic: they paid attention to ceiling heights, ventilation, furniture, greenery and the general state of repair. They saw housing as inseparable from public health; they lamented ‘houses that are dangerous and injurious to health’. In the introduction to the Survey of Housing in the Royal Borough of Kensington, they thanked the medical officer of health and members of his department, suggesting a close relationship between their surveying practice and public health officials. Irene Barclay was the UK’s first female chartered surveyor. A key part of her practice involved documenting the state of existing housing conditions, such as this report of housing in St Pancras, made in 1933 Barclay was involved in the construction of several estates in Somers Town, including the Drummond Estate – she is pictured (centre of image) at the new St Joseph’s Flats on the estate with the Duchess of Gloucester (left of image) in 1936 Credit: Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre The new flats advocated by Barclay replaced housing with inadequate sanitation provision in a dire state of repair. In contrast, the new flats included running water and hot-water boilers In her broader writings, Barclay appears to be a jack of all trades: well versed in financial arguments, interested in sanitation, public health, policy, design and, most of all, people. Although not an architect, she had big ideas about the design of the built environment. Informed by her upbringing in the countryside and her early work for Louis de Soissons, architect of Welwyn Garden City, spaces ‘about buildings’ – encompassing courtyards, gardens, playgrounds and laundry drying yards – were for her of the utmost importance. In the Kensington survey, Barclay and Perry described the drab greyness of an area, bemoaning the absence of flowers and trees, the monotony of discoloured brick and smoking chimneys. Writing about Somers Town in People Need Roots, Barclay clarified her understanding of the term ‘environment’, noting that it must cater for social living and include the way a place looks, sounds and smells – ‘all that impinges on an individual as he or she leaves a dwelling’.  Among a rich variety of engagements – including speaking, broadcasting and sitting on the boards of a number of housing associations – Barclay’s work as honorary secretary and estates manager of the St Pancras Housing Association, a dual position she held for 48 years, is best documented. In Somers Town, she oversaw slum clearance and the construction of new blocks of flats, as well as the founding of a nursery, a subsidised furniture shop and a country house where local children could spend holidays, among other initiatives. In Barclay’s correspondence with Ian Hamilton, the architect of the Drummond Estate (1936) and Sidney Street Estate (1938) in Somers Town, she relayed various defects and issues reported by the estates’ residents, revealing her involvement in the day‑to‑day maintenance of the flats and her intimate knowledge of the buildings and their particularities. Hamilton’s letters, on the other hand, give a glimpse of the relationship in which Barclay clearly figures as a client, as he repeatedly asked for her sign‑off and approval on various design details. Unlike council housing, the projects built by St Pancras Housing Association were funded by donations to the Christian charity. In 1934, the Archbishop of Canterbury blessed the newly completed St Nicholas Flats, part of the Sidney Street Estate (below) Credit:  Smith Archive / Alamy Credit: RIBA Collections Communal washing lines, provided to avoid the damp caused by drying clothes indoors, were adorned with decorative finials designed by Gilbert Bayes (below), since largely destroyed or stolen Credit: Hulton Archive / Corbis / Getty Credit: Bonhams In Somers Town, the drive towards better health was manifested in sanitation improvements. The existing back‑to‑back brick terraces with small yards and narrow lanes were poorly laid out and overbuilt, the damp interiors infested with bedbugs. Pest control measures, which included emptying the homes and fumigating furniture in Bangor Wharf in Camden Town, only went so far in alleviating the issue. In its early days, the St Pancras Housing Association, founded as the St Pancras House Improvement Society by priest and housing reformer Father Basil Jellicoe in 1924, undertook refurbishment of such homes but it was quickly decided that only construction of new buildings would provide a truly improved environment. The same bedbug eradication regime was applied before people moved into their new flats and the pests became part of the mythology of the publicity‑conscious association, who photographed opening ceremonies where effigies of bedbugs and other vermin were burnt in bonfires.  Flats in the four and five‑storey neo‑Georgian brick blocks of the Sidney Street Estate were accessed from external decks that faced bright, airy courtyards. State‑of‑the‑art services were installed in the homes: running water, tubs for washing and hot‑water boilers. The courtyards featured plant beds, trees, a playground and purpose‑built laundry drying yards, the spaces contrasting starkly with the small backyards of the demolished terraces, where laundry flapped against the dirty brick walls, or was dried indoors, causing unhealthy levels of moisture in the overcrowded homes. The concrete washing‑line posts were topped with ceramic sculptures, or as Barclay described them ‘decorative devices’, inspired by Christian and folk tales and made by sculptor Gilbert Bayes, providing not only utility, but also delight, bringing art to the doorsteps in Somers Town. The first estates built in Somers Town, and later dubbed ‘garden estates’ by the association for their privileging of gardens and courtyards, provided a model not only for the association’s similar projects in Kentish Town and Tufnell Park, such as the Athlone Estate (1937) and York Rise Estate (1938), but also for the 1930 Housing Act. This policy was more radical than previous legislation passed in 1909 and 1919, as it empowered local councils to buy unfit homes from private landlords and provided subsidies based on the number of people rehoused, encouraging large‑scale demolition of some of the country’s unhealthiest housing stock. In addition to housing, Barclay supported the provision of nurseries for children, such as St Christopher’s Nursery School, installed on the top floor of a block on the Sidney Street Estate in 1934 Credit: Hulton Archive / Topical Press Agency / Getty Barclay moved her office into St Martin’s House on the Eversholt Estate, built by St Pancras Housing Association in 1940, and worked there until her retirement in 1972. A blue plaque was installed on the building in May 2024 Credit: Spudgun67 / Wikimedia One of the most important aspects of the huge resettlement project in Somers Town was that communities were to be kept intact. This of course provided a logistical challenge and the new buildings had to be built quickly and efficiently. Barclay, during her long tenure at the housing association, became embedded in the community. As more new homes were built, other initiatives began. St Christopher’s Nursery School for children under five was perched on the rooftop of a block built in 1934 on the Sidney Street Estate, a location born out of lack of space but a decision that turned out to have many advantages: it was private and quiet, the air cleaner than at street level. Although there was initial opposition from the London County Council to a nursery on a rooftop, Barclay’s campaigning and perseverance eventually won them over. It was a safe and modern facility with an outdoor terrace protected by tall glass barriers above flower beds; the features were enviable even by contemporary standards (though it closed in 1994) and included a climbing frame, a mattress to jump on, bicycles, toy cars, a paddling pool and a sand pit.  Unlike an architect, who may follow clients and projects around the country, or even around the world, Barclay was invested in a particular place and community for an extended period of time. She commissioned the buildings but also stayed to oversee maintenance, gaining the trust of the residents in the process. In 1964, Barclay’s office, originally located in Finsbury and later in Euston, moved to St Martin’s House, built by the association in 1940 as part of the Eversholt Estate; she located herself where she could be seen, approached and held to account by the community she was serving. While the association’s model of operation was paternalistic by design, Barclay’s style of management was empathetic and direct.  In 1966, Barclay received an OBE for her work with housing associations, and in 1972 she retired and moved to Toronto, where she died in 1989. Throughout her career Barclay never confined herself to either social work, public health, estate management or housing. Instead, she saw all these disciplines as integral parts of her work towards improving the health and wellbeing of the people she worked with. In the pursuit of this holistic vision she left no stone unturned, enthusiastically advocating improved housing for some of the poorest in society.  Lead illustration: Yeyei Gómez for The Architectural Review 2025-04-20 Kristina Rapacki Share AR April 2025Buy Now
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    A modern almshouse: Appleby Blue in London, UK, by Witherford Watson Mann
    Witherford Watson Mann’s Appleby Blue Almshouse in London aims to de-institutionalise housing for older people It is a bright spring day and the early March sun is raking through the Garden Room, the communal heart of Appleby Blue, a new almshouse in London’s Bermondsey, just south of the Thames. Captured in photographs, the Garden Room has that familiar, static, ‘architectural’ quality: devoid of people, furniture arranged just so, light carefully calibrated. On its south side, it opens up to a courtyard animated by ginkgo trees and narrow reflecting pools. But in real life, the double‑height space is a glorious tumult of noise, colour, people and intergenerational activity. There is nothing static about it. At one end, a baby and toddler group is volubly making its presence felt, and at the other, the community kitchen, which also functions as a cookery school, is in full swing, while elderly residents are animatedly chatting and drinking tea. As the building’s physical and social fulcrum, the Garden Room is designed to support an array of activities. Beyond the daily routines of eating, drinking, gossiping and watching the world go by, these might include coffee mornings, film nights, dance classes, markets, music performances, plays and making workshops. The kinetic human theatre of this ‘civic room’ can be apprehended from the street through a glazed walkway, like an elongated, ribbed vitrine that projects out along the main facade. ‘The idea was to build right in the heart of the community, in a busy place, with a very direct relationship to the high street, not to hide people away,’ says Stephen Witherford of architects Witherford Watson Mann (WWM). Redolent of pastoral benevolence and distressed gentlefolk, the term ‘almshouse’ conjures a sense of passivity and parsimony, of cellular dwellings arrayed around courtyards, sequestered from the outside world. As a building type, its origins extend back centuries, giving a semblance of dignity to the poor, the old, the sick and the marginalised. Appleby Blue’s client, United St Saviour’s, a Southwark‑based charity, currently owns and operates Hopton’s Almshouses near the swishy precincts of Tate Modern, constructed in 1752 with money left by philanthropist Charles Hopton. Typical of its time, it takes the form of a two‑storey ensemble of austere Georgian buildings arranged around a U‑shaped courtyard. United St Saviour’s itself traces its roots as a charity back to the 16th century. For WWM, the challenge was not only how to reconceptualise the traditional almshouse form, but how to look beyond the simple provision of housing and conceive it as the locus of a hosting network – a set of rooms to be shared with like‑minded local organisations. St Saviour’s is also a grant‑making trust that supports refugee groups and youth centres as well as cultural organisations. The idea is that these will make use of the building’s communal spaces, so it feels like an integral part of local life, rather than a secluded retirement home. Set on meandering Southwark Park Road, the site contends with tightly packed Victorian terraces and gardens to the south, and a looser agglomeration of postwar blocks to the north. Previously, it was occupied by a vacated care home, which, though theoretically catering for a similar demographic, negated any sense of connection with the wider world. Both in its architecture and operation, Appleby Blue is a consciously extrovert presence and a retort to the all‑too‑prevalent notion that older people should be shunted to the urban and sociocultural margins, with invariably adverse consequences for their mental and physical health.  ‘Hosting an array of activities, the Garden Room is Appleby Blue’s physical and social fulcrum’ From upmarket private retirement communities to sheltered housing, the options available to people as they grow older usually involve some form of retreat, strategically distanced from the bustle of the wider community. Yet as people live longer and remain active (10 per cent of the world’s population is currently over 65; by 2050 the UN estimates this will rise to 16 per cent), not everyone wants to withdraw from city life. Given the choice, many prefer to remain in or around their old urban neighbourhoods, connected to social and familial networks.  Reinventing the almshouse for the modern era as a place of care, shelter and social connection, Appleby Blue constitutes a different model. Aimed at those over 65 who meet the charity’s definition of being in financial need and who have lived in Southwark for more than three years, it contains 59 dwellings and can accommodate single people and couples. Extending along Southwark Park Road, a five‑storey block of mottled brown and blue brick completes the street line. To the rear, deferring to the scale of the Victorian terraces, it steps down to a smaller, two‑storey volume. Within the five‑storey block, floor heights are slightly reduced the higher up you go, with the topmost floor articulated as an attic storey wrapped in zinc. Pale oak window frames expressively counterpoint the dark brick and metal. Instead of rent, almshouse residents pay a maintenance contribution, which is lower than the average rent of local properties rented from a council, housing association or private landlord, to help cover the costs of running and maintaining the housing. This model of affordability dates back to the early days of almshouses, in which it was stipulated that ‘by living in this almshouse the residents will face no greater hardship’.  A key move in the architects’ ambition to de‑institutionalise the building was the abolition of claustrophobic and disorientating internal corridors. Instead, access to individual flats is by means of glazed galleries that wrap around the south side of the main block. Furnished with robust oak benches, quarry‑tiled floors and planting boxes, which residents can populate as they see fit, the galleries function as informal inside/outside spaces in which to sit or chat with neighbours, while savouring enviable views of the Victorian terrace gardens and the hills of suburban London beyond. In warmer weather, the galleries can be opened up through large sliding screens, introducing fresh air and the sounds and scents of the outside world.  Accentuating this connection with nature is another important aspect of the scheme, manifest in a trio of gardens that extend and enrich the living environment. Along with the main ginkgo courtyard, a more modest green enclave runs along the south edge of the building, while the two‑storey block is topped with a roof garden of raised beds and sitting nooks. Dedicated to cultivating produce for use in the kitchen, it is maintained by a local gardening group, although residents can also make horticultural contributions.  Ranging in size from 55m2 for a one‑bed flat, to 79m2 for a two‑bedroom unit, apartments are compactly but thoughtfully planned. All enjoy a dual aspect, with kitchens overlooking the galleries, and bedrooms and living rooms facing the street. Bay windows add visual and experiential variety and riff on the area’s Victorian predecessors. There are 11 wheelchair-accessible flats and two studio units for research assistants and students, who, as part of a post‑occupancy initiative co‑ordinated by St Saviour’s, monitor aspects of the residents’ wellbeing and nutrition, to explore the broader relationship between environment and health. Historically a redoubt of docks, factories and tanneries, Bermondsey has been fitfully transformed by post‑industrial gentrification. Yet in the early 20th century, it had a surprisingly progressive approach to public health, as social historian Ken Worpole, who worked with WWM on the project, points out. In the 1920s, local Labour councillors Ada and Alfred Salter introduced measures to reduce poverty, improve housing, expand the school medical service, and create new parks and swimming pools, all under the auspices of the Beautification Department’s motto ‘Prevention is better than cure’. The idea that by improving living conditions, in tandem with wider civic and social provision, health outcomes will also be improved is not new, but in the current era it struggles to gain traction when set against the UK’s increasingly polarised and pressurised housing, health and social care systems.  ‘Appleby Blue is a retort to the all‑too‑prevalent notion that older people should be shunted to the urban and sociocultural margins’ ‘The scale of public funds required to underwrite long‑term care is so enormous that new ways of thinking are essential,’ notes Worpole. Today, social care accounts for 65 per cent of UK local authority budgets, up from 57 per cent since 2014, leaving scant resources for anything else, including preventative measures. This precipitates a vicious cycle as without early interventions, elderly people become unwell more quickly, thereby requiring more intensive and expensive care in the long run. Clearly, in the area of prevention, the form and quality of housing can play a significant role. ‘In trying to find ways to mitigate loneliness, we tried to increase opportunities for sociability by creating a kind of porosity,’ says Witherford. ‘It may be anecdotal, but other things, such as children coming in, personal health, communal activities, being taken outside your comfort zone and being part of a collective society, seem to have really helped a lot of people.’  For all its laudable intentions, Appleby Blue is still a drop in a vast ocean of need. And imaginative architecture can only do so much. But in suggesting different ways of doing things, it does provide an exemplar that has the potential to be replicated. And though it’s not all ‘rainbows and unicorns’, as Witherford puts it – some residents have issues around addiction, dementia and mental health – people seem to appreciate their surroundings and relish being part of the almshouse community. ‘On Saturday night, residents come down to the Garden Room with their wine’, says Witherford. ‘And one night, on the other side of the road, was a group of younger people who obviously had had too much to drink. They were looking across at the residents and there was a moment of mutual recognition.’ Resounding down the ages, the memento mori ‘as I am, so you shall be’, is a reminder of our fragile and finite mortal existence, and that ultimately, ageing is a mutual human experience to be confronted and even celebrated. 
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    Village life: dementia centre in Oslo, Norway, by 3RW Arkitekter and Nord Architects
    3RW Arkitekter and Nord Architects’ design for Oslo’s Furuset Hageby creates a micro-environment where  people with dementia are gently encouraged to lead active lives As dementia progresses, lines begin to blur. The past and the present meld together and fragment. The place you thought you were a moment ago is no longer where you find yourself. There is confusion and sadness, sometimes even anger, before it all begins again. Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia are conditions that affect more than memory and cognition – they also cause disorientation and ‘visuospatial’ difficulties, diminishing patients’ understanding of how things interrelate in three‑dimensional space, with serious implications for safeguarding and general wellbeing.  Such conditions pose architectural challenges unique in healthcare infrastructure. The response, in the past few decades, has been the emergence of the ‘dementia village’. As Annmarie Adams and Sally Chivers observe in their 2021 e‑flux essay ‘Deception and Design: The Rise of the Dementia Village’, this new typology of care ‘is a direct counterpoint to the uncaring institution, the traditional nursing home, and its long list of much maligned architectural features – the car‑dependent entrance, double‑loaded and crowded corridors, identical rooms, enclosed courtyards’. Instead, the dementia village seeks to create an enclosed and perambulatory environment shaped around the specific visuospatial needs of those with diminished cognition and memory.  Furuset Hageby in Oslo, designed by Bergen‑based 3RW Arkitekter and Copenhagen‑based healthcare specialists Nord Architects, is the latest addition to this typology. The word hageby, meaning ‘garden city’, provokes images of low‑rise housing units flanked by tree‑lined streets and lush meadows. The centre is in fact located in a rapidly expanding neighbourhood typical of Oslo’s outskirts, and currently abuts an enormous construction site, dust‑filled and noisy with heavy machinery in the process of erecting a huge apartment complex. This area is a hotspot of activity for the municipality – alongside the new housing, the dementia village neighbours a brand new school, and across the surrounding sports fields, there are kindergartens and playgrounds abuzz with activity.  On the day of my visit, Furuset Hageby was marking its first anniversary. I was met by Helge Lien, a representative of the client Omsorgsbygg, a branch of the municipal property developer, Sykehjemsetaten, which is tasked with building care homes and other healthcare facilities in Oslo. ‘We would like the local community to take part in the life here,’ says Lien of the location. ‘We want to invite kindergarten children to take part in activities, and for the local residents to use the roof garden to grow vegetables and plants.’ ‘By contrast to a fenced facility, the village itself creates the boundary in Furuset Hageby’ You enter the village through its green administration building, one of what the architects call ‘special houses’. Inside is a bright, double‑height space with windows facing into one of the interior courtyards, where people walk past as if window‑shopping on a high street. There are three special houses – the green administration building, a red cultural centre and a shiny, glass greenhouse – each with its own visual identity. Together, they create a subtle hierarchy and variety of building types that emulate what you might find in ordinary small town centres around Norway.  The village structure has found its own Norwegian flavour in this project by employing a specific type of rural urbanity. Historically, small agricultural communities were built around tun, meaning a dense cluster of buildings that shelter the inner communal areas from the elements. The tun form a sort of cityscape in miniature, with a main thoroughfare and alleys running between the dwellings and specialised farm buildings. Here, the function is sheltering a vulnerable user group from the surrounding world rather than farmers from the whipping rain. ‘Of all the dementia villages we have seen, this one is the most village‑like,’ says Sixten Rahlff, principal architect at 3RW. ‘A lot of traditional dementia homes reuse a building and put a fence around it, to make patients safe within that setting. Here the village itself creates the boundary.’ To be within this care facility properly is also to be outside, in the courtyards and along a step‑free ‘green loop’ that runs on top of the roofs of the lower buildings. As the terrain of the site sits on a slope, the character of this perambulatory route shifts from urban, surrounded by buildings on all sides, to a gradually more green, natural and lush setting. As the building mass steps down below the pathway, the views open towards the surrounding neighbourhood, parkways and sports fields. This was the main reason the project won the competition, Rahlff explains. The sloping site allowed the buildings to terrace downwards, and the rooftops to make way for the walkway, which always leads patients back to the same spot.  This simple idea behind the green loop symbolises a lot of the intention in the conceptual thinking around the project as a whole, providing the cognitively impaired patients autonomy and freedom, while simultaneously avoiding situations that might create discomfort or confusion in the first place, such as suddenly finding yourself at the end of a corridor or pathway, without any memory of how the dead end was reached. ‘In conventional nursing homes, patients move in when they are so old and sick that they are physically unable to take care of themselves,’ notes Johannes Molander Pedersen of Nord Architects. ‘But at a dementia centre, patients’ physical state may be good.’ The opportunity to move about is beneficial to the residents, and encouraged. Dementia patients are an incredibly diverse patient group. The youngest inhabitants at Furuset are in their thirties, housed in a special division for younger patients. At present, this group is a minority here, but you would be forgiven for assuming that their presence had a bigger part to play in the design than it does, as so much of the project is centred around activity. When pleasant and safe outdoor areas are available at all times of day, and when going for a walk in the spring sun is not something that has to be arranged a day in advance, the health benefits multiply tenfold. This appears to bear out quantitatively too. In its first year in operation, staff at Furuset Hageby have observed a decline in the need for certain medications, says head of Furuset Hageby, Anne Gry Neby. ‘The freedom that the concept of living gives the residents allows physical activity throughout the day,’ she explains, ‘and we are observing less use of antipsychotic and sedative medications for patients compared with before moving to Furuset Hageby.’ Researchers from Oslo Met are currently studying the effect, and will report their findings at a later date. ‘Staff have observed a decline in the need for certain medications since moving to Furuset Hageby’ At all scales, and inside and out, effort has been made to disguise the centre’s institutional programmes. The common social areas, such as the bar and restaurant, the library and the common rooms of the different dwelling units are warm, intimate and homely. Natural materials and colourful surfaces counteract the aesthetic effects of the mandatory fittings and trimmings of a healthcare institution. Corner and wall protectors and hygienic ceiling systems are in constant negotiation with the concept of the home, which is what Furuset is ultimately meant to be. Here they have found a gentle middle‑ground. The dementia village is ‘purposely anti‑medical’, Adams and Chivers suggest. ‘That is, medical care is disguised.’ According to a recent study published by The Lancet, cases of dementia are expected to triple globally by 2050, and as our understanding of the disease grows, it becomes increasingly clear that the current standard of care does not sufficiently meet the needs of patients whose condition is far more complex than merely that of ageing bodies. Furuset Hageby, coming to the end of its first year in operation, approaches its users with both care and determination, and points the way forward in the continuing process of finding better ways to care for this rapidly growing patient group.
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    Competition: Isola apartment, Milan
    An open international ideas contest featuring an €9,000 prize fund is seeking concepts to reimagine a typical tenement-style apartment in Milan’s Isola district (Deadline: 12 September) The ‘Milan Design District’ competition – organised by TerraViva Competitions and supported by Material Bank – invites architects, designers, interior designers, artists and students to transform an apartment inside Via Arese 18 into a ‘masterpiece of contemporary design that embodies Milan’s avant-garde spirit.’ The call for concepts aims to identify a range of solutions that could be used to re-imagine Milan’s classic traditional tenement-style ‘Casa di Ringhiera’ buildings. Concepts must provide a home for a single person or a couple aged under 40 working in the architecture or design industry. Contest site: Via Arese 18 in Isola, Milan According to the brief: ‘The competition challenges designers to rethink urban living in Milan, blending tradition with bold, future-forward interiors that prioritise both aesthetics and functionality. ‘Proposals should create a cohesive apartment for a young professional or couple, embracing flexibility, innovative spatial solutions and a strong design identity. ‘How can contemporary interiors foster a sense of community while offering personal retreat? How can design bridge tradition and progress? With this challenge, designers are invited to push boundaries, embracing daring creativity to craft a vision for the future of urban living in one of the world’s great design capitals.’ Located a short distance from Milano Porta Garibaldi railway station, Isola is a popular residential district in the centre of Milan. Local landmarks include Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale residential skyscrapers and the Isola Pepe Verde community gardens which were the focus of an architectural competition in 2018. In 2023, TerraViva held an earlier contest for new housing at the abandoned Cascina Lossano complex in rural Italy. Taiwan and Italy-based Corrado Kay Hwa Severino, Luca Quadro, Jacopo Leccia and Giorgio Martellono won the €5,000 top prize with a vernacular architecture concept featuring a new greenhouse. The latest competition comes four years after London’s PLP Architecture, New York’s Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Carlo Ratti Associati of Turin and Gross Max of Edinburgh were named winners of an international competition to masterplan an Olympic Village for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics at Porta Romana on the other side of the city. Contest site: Via Arese 18 in Isola, Milan The ‘Milan Design District’ competition seeks proposals to transform an apartment within a prominent corner complex located at Via Arese 18 in Isola. Proposals may reconfigure the interior walls and introduce new partitions but existing window locations must be retained. Concepts will be judged on originality, creative interpretation of the programme, interior design, contemporary approach, sensitive use of materials and colours, and graphic representation. Submissions should include two digital A1 panels, a short written description and a visual mood board. Judges will include Joachim Stumpp from Material Bank, Stefania Carraro of Milan-based SDA Bocconi, Harrison Stallan from OMA of Rotterdam, Tatiana Dimou of Tatiana Dimou Architects in Greece and Giulio Ubini of TUC Studio in Milan. The overall winner – to be announced on 13 October – will receive a €5,000 top prize while a second prize of €2,000 and third prize of €1,000 will also be awarded along with a Material Bank ‘best mood board’ award worth €1,000. How to apply Deadline: 12 September 2025 Fee: Until 13 June: €59; from 13 June to 8 August: €79; from 7 August to 12 September: €109 Competition funding source: Terraviva & Material BankContact details: Project funding source: (no funding) Owner of site(s): Private info@terravivacompetitions.comVisit the competition website for more information 2025-04-14 Merlin Fulcher Share
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    Competition: UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona
    An open call is being held for participation in the upcoming UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona (UIA2026BCN) (Deadline: 23 May) Professionals from architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, design, engineering, research, photography, film and art are invited to submit proposals for projects, essays or multimedia pieces which could feature in the upcoming conference. Key aims of the open call include bringing together knowledge ‘across research, practice and education to generate new perspectives and strengthening connections between disciplines.’ Barcelona will host the 70th UIA congress from 28 June to 2 July next year and will also take the title of 2026 UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture. Collage of digitally manipulated images by Judit Musachs and Pol Pérez selected by the UIA2026BCN curatorial team According to the brief: ‘The UIA2026BCN Scientific Committee and the Evaluation Committee, will evaluate the proposals from broad and cross-disciplinary perspectives. ‘After an initial pre-selection by subject matter experts, a jury composed of internationally renowned professionals – specialised in each category – as well as the congress curatorial team, will make the final selection. ‘Accepted proposals will be part of the central events of the UIA2026BCN congress between 28 June and 2 July 2026. The jury will determine the form of participation, which may include individual presentations, debates or other planned formats. ‘Additionally, it will decide whether the selected works will be exhibited physically or digitally at the congress exhibition and whether they will be published in the official catalogue.’ Located on the north-eastern coast of Spain, Barcelona is the capital and largest city of Catalonia with 1.6 million residents. Last month, the winners of an open international contest to remodel various venues on the city’s Montjuïc trade fair site were revealed. UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona open call The open call comes almost a year after a competition – backed by Barcelona City Council and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe – was launched to remodel 10 permanent blind walls which are spread across the city’s 10 districts and could ‘leave a lasting legacy in Barcelona’. The UIA2026BCN congress is themed ‘Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition’ and aims to explore transformative ideas that address contemporary challenges. As part of the lead up to the event a separate competition is seeking ideas to transform construction waste into new materials for public spaces across Barcelona, Spain. The winning submissions selected for inclusion in the UIA2026BCN congress programme will be announced on 30 September. How to apply Deadline: 23 May 2025 Competition funding source: Not supplied Project funding source: Not supplied Owner of site(s): Not supplied Contact details: callfor@uia2026bcn.orgVisit the competition website for more information
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    Competition results: Peja Culture Pavilion winner revealed
    The winners of an open international competition to revitalise and transform a neglected public space in the centre of Peja, Kosovo have been announced Open to everyone and organised by Buildner, the anonymous competition sought proposals to revitalise the site of a 15th-century water fountain which has played a crucial role in the social and cultural history of the settlement but has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Alexandra Ilinca Domnescu, Daria-Alexandra Pirvu, and Mario Eduard Peiciu from Romania won first prize and a student award for their ‘Trace’ proposal featuring an oval amphitheatre and a cultural pavilion. The winning concept features mirrored elements intended to enhance visual continuity with tiered seating designed to improve acoustic performance during events. Second place and the sustainability award went to Jiongyuan Chen from China while third place was awarded to Shpend Pashtriku, Sarah-Alexandra Agill, and Kaltrina Pashtriku from the UK. The €50,000 project, backed by Collective Action for Culture which specialises in rejuvenating urban spaces through artistic expression and community involvement, aims to upgrade the site and deliver a ‘flexible multipurpose pavilion and an engaging outdoor space’ which integrates and celebrates the water fountain. The winning entries will be considered for construction by the project backers. Located in the Rugova mountainous region around 70km west of Pristina, Peja is the fourth largest city in Kosovo with a population of 96,500 people. Local landmarks include the Kinema Jusuf Gërvalla which was constructed in the 1950s and reconstructed following the war at the turn of the Millennium. The Peja Culture Pavilion contest focused on the site of a neglected water fountain located on the city’s main boulevard close to the river and central square. The project aims to revitalise and enhance the site by delivering a new pavilion that provides a ‘versatile environment for social events, art activities, and community gatherings.’ Key aims of the project include transforming the dilapidated public space into a ‘vibrant public hotspot’ and achieving a balance of ‘contemporary architectural advancements with historical conservation.’ Proposals for the €50,000 intervention were required to include a 50-70m² pavilion structure suitable for exhibitions and community meetings, an outdoor amphitheatre, a central feature around the water fountain, green spaces and public art. Competition site: Peja Culture Pavilion, Kosovo
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    Kashef Chowdhury to judge the AR Emerging awards 2025
    The Dhaka-based architect and previous AR Emerging winner will join the jury in London in November The Friendship Hospital in Satkhira, Bangladesh, by URBANA. Credit: courtesy of URBANA Kashef Chowdhury co-founded the Dhaka-based firm URBANA in 1995, leading the practice as principal since 2005. The practice’s projects address Bangladesh’s watery landscape: as Niklaus Graber wrote in the AR in 2019, ‘Chowdhury has developed an architecture which leaves room for water, but offers protection against it too.’ Recent projects include the Kuakata cyclone shelter and Friendship Hospital, for which URBANA won the AR Emerging awards in 2012. The cyclone shelter in Kuakata, Bangladesh, by URBANA. Credit: courtesy of URBANA AR Emerging awards 2025 Find out more and apply today Submit by 16 May 2025 to save £100 on your entry Entry deadline: 27 June 2025 Inaugurated in 1999, the AR Emerging awards support young architects and designers at a key stage in their career, promoting their best work to a worldwide audience. The awards recognise excellence in an overall body of work, rather than a singular project: entrants are asked to submit a small portfolio rather than an individual completed building. Shortlisted projects will be featured in a special edition of the AR and all finalists will present their work to our acclaimed judging panel in London this November to win the £5,000 prize. Previous winners include A Threshold, Comunal Taller de Arquitectura, Carla Juaçaba Studio, Sou Fujimoto, Klein Dytham, Anna Heringer, Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Heatherwick, Li Xiaodong and Frida Escobedo. Find out more about last year’s winning and commended projects here. 2025-04-11 AR Editors Share
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    Join the AR and AJ in Venice on 9 May to hear from winners of the W Awards 2025
    Register for free to join the AR editors and AR W Awards winners and finalists in Venice during the opening week of the architecture biennale Join the Architects’ Journal and The Architectural Review to celebrate the winners of the W Awards 2025 in Venice. This free event will include presentations from the winners of the Jane Drew Prize for Architecture, Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture, and Prize for Research in Gender and Architecture. The winners of the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture and MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice will also be revealed in a joint prize-giving ceremony. Date: Friday 9 May 2025 Time: 11am–1pm Location: ECC, Palazzo Michiel, Venice Register your attendance here Each winner will be presented with a trophy designed by the previous year’s research prize recipients, Swedish architecture collective Mycket. Read about their trophies, crafted from rush and salvaged plastic packaging, here. Read more about the winners and shortlisted practices here, or pick up a copy of AR March 2025 to read all about them in print. 2025-04-11 AR Editors Share
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    Pride without prejudice: designing LGBTQIA+ health clinics
    Despite recent progress, the spatialisation of LGBTQIA+ health reveals a history of discrimination and stigma that is at risk of resurfacing Checkpoint Zürich, one of Switzerland’s largest centres for HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) care, moved to its new purpose‑built premises on Limmatstrasse in 2023, just steps from the city’s main station. Designed internally by architects Skop under the lead of Basil Spiess, the facility occupies half of the ground floor and the entire first floor of a new six‑storey mixed‑use building. Two large street‑level windows reveal glimpses of administrative and laboratory work, making a quiet statement: sexual healthcare should be as open and transparent as any other form of medical service. Once inside, the space feels nothing like a conventional STI clinic – and indeed, it is far more than that. The double‑height atrium, where clients check in for their appointment, instantly sets the tone; six large, glittering disco balls echo queer nightlife and inject a sense of joy. The interior, accommodating a 40‑person team, is designed to be open and inviting rather than clinical and intimidating. Over the past three decades, attitudes towards sexual health and access to related services have changed significantly across several European countries. Along with the advancement of sexual rights, the focus of sexual and reproductive health has shifted from control, policing and stigma to emphasising self‑determination, personal responsibility and overall wellbeing. Growing up gay in East Germany in the 1990s, there was a pervasive sense of fear around sexual health. Even though HIV had become a manageable chronic condition, shame and anxiety prevailed. Regular testing for HIV and other STIs was hard to access, and obtaining unbiased, holistic advice on sex and intimate life felt nearly impossible. You either braved the judgement of your doctor or had to visit a specialist, risking forced outing. Only after moving to London in the mid‑2000s did I experience genuinely LGBTQIA+‑centred care at places like the sexual health clinic 56 Dean Street in Soho.  Switzerland has long been a leader in HIV prevention and destigmatisation: this poster from 1997 was part of a bold campaign advocating condom use. (Bundesamt für Gesundheit BAG) Checkpoint Zürich has been redefining access and dignity in sexual healthcare in my hometown since 2013. The central waiting area on the first floor is a quiet inward‑looking space that follows the centre’s overall club aesthetics. Exposed concrete ceilings, dark walls and painted structural elements create an industrial atmosphere, while plush rugs, upholstered poufs and greenery provide warmth and comfort. Iridescent glass panels shift in colour depending on the angle of view, representing the fluidity of queer identities while avoiding overt rainbow symbolism. Privacy has been carefully considered, with acoustically and visually sheltered spaces for those in need of a moment of retreat. Together, these elements create an atmosphere that radically differs from typical healthcare settings, which often feel cold, utilitarian and impersonal due to their dull mix of white or pastel‑coloured wall coverings, uniform antibacterial flooring, glaring fluorescent lighting and unwelcoming, wipe‑clean furniture.  The architects’ goal was to create a ‘queer space without any prejudice’; the resulting space is safe, hassle‑free and judgement‑free, offering a full spectrum of medical, psychological and preventive services, alongside mobile testing, campaigning, community and cultural events. These services include counselling about gender identity and access to gender‑affirming care, advice on mental health, drug use and addiction, HIV treatment and prescription of PrEP (pre‑exposure prophylaxis), as well as STI testing regardless of sexual orientation. ‘Self‑organised sexual healthcare has historically been a necessity rather than a choice for the LGBTQIA+ community’ Historically, sexual health clinics – known since the late 19th century as venereal disease clinics – were largely driven by state concerns about public health, crime control and eugenic thinking rather than individual wellbeing. These institutions primarily targeted working‑class and racialised populations, soldiers, sex workers and those whose sexual behaviours were considered ‘deviant’. Doing so, they not only reinforced class‑based and moralistic ideas about sexuality but also policed bodies and ways of life beyond heteronormative, bourgeois standards of respectability. Sexual health was intrinsically linked to the growth of the metropolis, where rising urban populations and shifting social norms heightened anxieties over public morality.  The early 20th century, however, saw advances in sexual health being reclaimed by those who were controlled by such measures. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science), which opened in Berlin in 1919, was one of the first centres dedicated to LGBTQIA+ health and gender‑affirming care before it was brutally attacked and destroyed by Nazi students and paramilitaries in 1933, with Hirschfeld’s extensive research library set on fire. The institute occupied two adjacent late‑19th‑century buildings, one a three‑storey villa and the other an apartment building with a ground‑floor restaurant. As the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, the buildings served, in Hirschfeld’s words, as ‘a research institution, a place of learning, a healthcare centre and a place of refuge’. The large rooms of the villa housed the world’s first gay rights organisation, the Wissenschaftlich‑humanitäres Komitee (the Scientific‑Humanitarian Committee), as well as consultation rooms, a sitting room and dining room for visitors, and a scientific archive. Located on the attic floor were guest bedrooms for clients of the institute (counting 3,500 in the first year), some of whom also worked there. The former restaurant on the ground floor was converted into a library and lecture hall, where events such as costume balls were held. Self‑organised sexual healthcare has historically been a necessity rather than a choice for the LGBTQIA+ community due to discrimination and systemic exclusion from medical services. In Toronto, the Hassle Free Clinic began operating in 1973, open 24 hours, seven days a week, in the city centre on Yonge Street; once the city’s hub for commerce and entertainment, strip clubs, porn theatres, body‑rub parlours, gay bars, clubs and bathhouses began to populate the street in the late 1960s. Initially focused on drug crisis counselling and treatment, the Hassle Free Clinic provided discreet, non‑judgemental care under the government’s Local Initiatives Project. In the following years, the clinic shifted to offering STI and birth control services. Similarly, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) was launched in 1982 in New York City, offering life‑saving services during the early AIDS crisis when governments failed to respond. Prevention efforts often emerged in spaces linked to casual sex, such as saunas and bathhouses, where community outreach programmes provided education, condoms and, later, HIV testing.  Checkpoint Zürich’s origin story echoes these efforts to establish community‑centred sexual health services to counter the cultural competence that was lacking in LGBTQIA+ issues within traditional healthcare settings. Established in 2005 in response to the rising rates of HIV and other STIs among men who have sex with men, it created a space where testing, prevention and treatment could happen without stigma. The initiative stemmed from a collaboration between the Zürcher AIDS‑Hilfe (now Sexuelle Gesundheit Zürich, SeGZ), founded in 1985, and Arbeitsgemeinschaft für risikoarmen Umgang mit Drogen (ARUD). The latter was instrumental in addressing Switzerland’s heroin crisis in the early 1990s, advocating harm‑reduction strategies at a time when the city’s central Platzspitz park had become an open drug scene. ARUD’s expertise in tackling addiction provided a crucial foundation for Checkpoint Zürich’s integrated approach to sexual health, harm reduction and community outreach. Off‑site, mobile STI testing, for instance, remains a core aspect to this day. The first incarnation of Checkpoint Zürich occupied a former apartment on the upper floors of a late‑19th‑century residential building that fronted onto Sihlquai, an area known for street prostitution until 2013 when it was banned. Due to the successive expansion of services over its near 20‑year history, significantly to include care and advice for trans and non‑binary people, and the resultant increase in client numbers, Checkpoint Zürich outgrew its former premises. The new Checkpoint Zürich clinic joins other recent purpose‑built sexual health clinics, such as the Burrell Street Clinic (designed in 2012 by Urban Salon, now Mowat & Company) in London and Family Tree Clinic (designed in 2021 by Perkins & Will) in Minneapolis. Burrell Street Clinic, London’s largest sexual health centre, provides a stigma‑free environment open seven days a week in one of London’s youngest, as well as most ethnically and sexually diverse, boroughs – also ranking among those with the greatest sexual health need in the country. Featuring a large glass facade and non‑clinical interior, the facility that occupies two railway arches in Southwark was designed to be as welcoming as possible to encourage people to walk in for check‑ups. The Family Tree Clinic in Minneapolis, dating back to the 1970s, likewise serves a broad range of communities, including LGBTQIA+ individuals, people of colour and those on low incomes. Its new‑built clinic prioritises accessibility and safety, incorporating warm, inviting spaces, discreet entrances and a design that fosters both privacy and inclusivity. The expansion of Checkpoint Zürich has greatly improved regional availability of sexual healthcare, yet challenges persist in ensuring nationwide, equitable access. Other centres, albeit smaller and less modern, exist in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne and Lucerne, creating a network of queer‑friendly sexual health services. Nevertheless, accessibility remains uneven – rural areas and certain cantons lack comparable facilities, leaving many without easy access to specialised STI care. Sexual health services have made tremendous strides, but recent political shifts threaten to undo decades of progress. The closure of clinics, cuts to public health funding and erosion of LGBTQIA+ health protections disproportionately impact marginalised communities. Numerous studies have shown that queer people already face significant health disparities, making these setbacks even more damaging. Without urgent action, hard‑won advances in sexual health equity, represented by clinics such as Checkpoint Zürich, risk being reversed. 2025-04-10 Reuben J Brown Share
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    Primary care: radiotherapy and hemodialysis centre in Barcelona, Spain by Baas Arquitectura and Casa Solo Arquitectos
    The radiotherapy and hemodialysis centre in Granollers, Spain, designed by Baas and Casa Solo, is an elegant alternative to sterile healthcare architecture While hospitals naturally require particular sanitary conditions, they must also accommodate people who are among the most vulnerable in society. The newly born, the sick, the injured and the dying are all in need of a comforting environment. This is something that was understood by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, who designed Barcelona’s Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in the early 20th century as a series of pavilions set in a tranquil and verdant park on the edge of the Eixample extension. The 1860 Eixample extension of Barcelona by engineer Ildefons Cerdà was itself a direct response to the dismal living conditions in old Barcelona. At the time, the city was delimited by an urban defensive wall and suffered from severe overcrowding and hygiene issues, with diseases spreading rapidly and an average human life expectancy of only 30 years (today it is 82). Since then, health and hygiene have continued to influence architecture and urbanism; the functionalist movement of the 1920s and ’30s, for instance, insisted that modern buildings must be white, bright and easy to clean. Hospital interiors are typically kept germ‑free with the aid of easy‑to‑clean glazed ceramic tiles and glossy enamel paint, all coloured white. These materials impede acoustic and haptic comfort, but the visual appearance of cleanliness normally takes precedence.  With its noble materials, exquisite ornamentation and innovative underground galleries to connect the different pavilions, the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau is both a stunning examplar of Catalan modernism (our local equivalent to the French art nouveau, Austrian Secession and German Jugendstil) and an important precedent to what is referred to today as ‘patient‑friendly’ architecture: one that strives for a more balanced notion of human wellbeing rather than a strictly germ‑free environment. A more recent example of a patient‑friendly building is the radiotherapy and hemodialysis facility in Granollers, 30km north‑east of Barcelona, by Baas Arquitectura and Casa Solo Arquitectos. Here, ‘materials and colours that are less antiseptic than in the typical hospital were used in order to create an environment that is more comfortable and humane’, says Baas founding principal Jordi Badia.  Designed for people who suffer from kidney failure and different kinds of cancer, the clinic contains the very latest in healthcare equipment for blood filtration and radiation therapies, as well as building systems that support such technology – such as an elaborate HVAC system as well as very thick concrete walls and lead doors – yet its architecture is one of dignity and serenity instead of ‘whiteness’.  The new facility adjoins a large, modern hospital complex from the 2010s designed by the architectural firm Pinearq, also based in Barcelona, which is itself an extension to a 19th‑century Catalan modernist hospital and asylum by the architect Josep Maria Miró i Guibernau. The Granollers hospital complex serves a large catchment area stretching from the outskirts of Barcelona to the pre‑Pyrenees; the radiotherapy and hemodialysis centre was built next to it precisely so patients from this vast region requiring long‑term therapy would not have to deal with the added stress of commuting into Barcelona, an ordeal even at the best of times. Hemodialysis patients usually undergo treatment at a centre three times per week, each session taking three to four hours to complete, while radiotherapy sessions are typically five times per week, but shorter in duration. Catalonia has been building a network of smaller, more locally accessible ambulatory care centres for some time, as part of an effort to improve general health through primary care. This way, pathologies that are more complicated and expensive to care for, requiring centralised XL‑scaled facilities, can be prevented from occurring in the first place. The relatively small size of these facilities – Baas has also designed CAP Cotet in Premiá de Dalt – contribute to making them more patient‑friendly. Bigger is not always better. Wedged into the north-western corner of the Granollers hospital complex, the ambulatory care clinic for radiotherapy and hemodialysis makes the most of its irregularly shaped site. To the south, where it meets the more institutional architecture of concrete and high‑pressure laminate panels of the existing hospital, the building retreats to create a small entrance plaza, a welcome addition to the narrow street. Since the site is sloped, there is another entrance on the top floor, accessible from a garden within the hospital grounds. The clinic’s vertical stratification helps structure the programme: spaces for radiotherapy are concentrated on the ground floor, while the second floor is dedicated entirely to hemodialysis. The intermediary level is a mechanical floor that conveniently services the floors both above and below. Overall, there is roughly 1m2 of mechanical floor area for every 2m2 of clinic. Two lightwells, one of which is enclosed while the other extends, above the ground floor, to the front facade, puncture the building mass to supply the deep and partly sunken interior with natural light. Clad entirely in a solid clay brick that looks handmade but is industrially produced, the building’s exterior walls are rounded at all corners, creating a facade that playfully curves in and out. Brick pilasters, protruding out every 800mm, accentuate the building’s curves while providing shade (lessening heat gain) and improving interior privacy. In front of the lightwell opening onto the facade, the pilasters briefly transform into pillars, while at mid‑height they are interrupted by extensive brick latticework to naturally ventilate the intermediary mechanical level. With its tripartite composition of horizontal bands, which vary in width according to interior ceiling heights, the building’s facade is a veritable catalogue of the many architectural uses of the humble brick – clearly a reference to both the original Catalan modernism of the Hospital of Granollers and the town’s important ceramics industry. The interior of the radiotherapy and hemodialysis centre is where patient friendliness is most palpable. Upon entry, patients are greeted by brick walls, wooden doors and raw concrete ceilings textured by rough‑sawn board formwork: a far cry from the typical hospital interiors of stainless‑steel surfaces, panic doors and acoustic ceiling tiles with fluorescent lighting. Borrowing some cubic metres from the mechanical floor above, the foyer and waiting room on the ground floor are serene double‑height spaces fitted with pendant lights designed by Alvar Aalto. Rarely does a public healthcare waiting room look this dignified. The elegance of these interiors is made possible by a clever design decision: separating the patients’ circulation from that of staff. It is only when a waiting patient’s turn is called and they enter the treatment zone, through changing rooms, that they encounter highly antiseptic architecture. The entire ‘front of house’ avoids any semblance of a hospital, including the stressful buzz of medical staff hastily at work, which greatly reduces stress and improves patient wellbeing.   In the treatment areas, cleanliness and functionality rule, yet walls and ceilings around the radiation therapy machines feature backlit images of the scenic landscapes of nearby Montseny to distract anxious patients. To help contain radiation, these treatment rooms feature concrete walls that are more than 2m thick in places, along with hefty sliding doors containing lead. The hemodialysis floor, by contrast, contains a water purification plant that is purposely exposed behind a glass wall in the entranceway, the only technology visible outside a treatment area. Its sight reassures hemodialysis patients that the water meets very high purity requirements. Although it is completely hidden, the intermediary mechanical floor likewise contains highly advanced systems. Heating and cooling requirements are met by two independent ground‑source heat pump systems (24 wells 130m deep) as well as two independent air‑source heat pump systems, lest one system should fail or require assistance. Electrical service is backed up by an emergency diesel generator as well as large batteries and photovoltaic panels on the flat roof. Interestingly, no louvres or grilles are visible anywhere in the foyers and waiting rooms: air circulation, both supply and return, is through simple holes bored through brick, timber and interior windowsills. This reveals the degree to which mechanical systems and technology are banished from view in these spaces.  The radiotherapy and hemodialysis centre belies the cutting‑edge technology it contains, going to significant lengths to do so. A peek through the centre’s brick latticework reveals, in places, opaque wall construction behind. The facade treatment is not applied exclusively for purposes of ventilation or shading, but also for that of architectural composition and ornament – clear evidence the building seeks to distinguish itself from functionalist or high‑tech architectures of cleanliness and techno‑progress.   2025-04-09 Reuben J Brown Share AR April 2025Buy Now
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    Competition results: CHYBIK+KRISTOFs winning Czech forestry HQ
    CHYBIK+KRISTOF has revealed images of its competition-winning new headquarters for Czech National ForestryThe London, Prague, Brno and Bratislava-based practice won a two-round, anonymous competition to create a new base for Czechias forestry commission in 2017.The studios winning Forestry in the Forest concept has now been revealed providing a template for environmentally-oriented design using low-carbon materials.The 12,000m office complex in Hradec Krlov will be the largest wooden structure in Czechia and is intended to bring about legislative changes to help promote more large-scale timber construction.Ondej Chybk, founding partner of CHYBIK + KRISTOF said: Wood is the material of the future - deeply rooted in our heritage, yet one of the most versatile, high-performing, and renewable resources.Designing for the Forestry, we saw wood as the natural choice, embodying the very essence of their mission. This project aims to pave the way for large-scale wooden buildings in the Czech Republic and serves as an invitation to fully embrace the potential of this material and the expertise behind it.The winning concept features five distinct, elongated sections which will each contain a different department. These elements are interconnected by a central main hall and separated by green courtyards.The office spaces are mean organised around shared internal areas creating a learning landscape with spaces for collaboration, workshops, and individual-focused work.Jan Stolek, design director at CHYBIK + KRISTOF said: The walls are constructed in the two-by-four system; the ceilings, horizontal slabs, built-in subcentres and railings are made of CLT panels; and for the large-span structures wooden glued trusses are used.Furthermore, sustainable solutions and materials are used as much as possible for example rubber flooring. The lighting of the building is provided by LED lights that are automatically switched off in corridors and sanitary areas. The roofs of the building are designed as green to retain water, which is then collected within the property or used for watering the garden atriums.Last month, an open international architecture competition was launched for a new 24.5 million (CSK 730 million) bus station and civic complex in Valask Mezi, Czechia.
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    Patient plan: Kinderspital in Zrich, Switzerland by Herzog & de Meuron
    Herzog & de Meuron confirm their expertise in the design of spaces forhealing and recovery with Kinderspital Zrich, but replicability is questionableTo reach the new childrens hospital in Zrich, we have to leave behind the cobbled, medieval streets of the city centre and head up the hills. On a foggy, rainy Wednesday in February, they were green and wet, dotted with vineyards, fruit orchards and scattered residential buildings, at times offering glimpses of the lake and its shimmering grey expanse. Nestled between several other medical facilities and private hospital buildings, Zrichs private and university Kinderspital (or as it is affectionately known in these parts, the Kispi) was conceived by Baselbased practice Herzog & de Meuron over the course of a decade, following a competition win in 2011, and finally opened its doors to the public last autumn.Click to download drawingsApproaching the Kispi means walking alongside a long facade, where the wood is showing signs of the effect of the humid and wet Swiss winter. Many plants are already climbing up the walls, striving to grow and adapt to their new home, and getting ready to fully bloom come spring. The main entrance is shaped by two large wooden gates, which in a different universe could have signalled the entrance to Tolkiens Rohan. Imposing and disproportionately large, they give way to a low tunnel clad in timber and marked by portholes placed at a childs height to show glimpses of what awaits inside which leads to an impressive round tripleheight courtyard. Open to the sky, it is full of vegetation, trees and birdsong. A little girl is riding her bicycle around the green, humming along.This feels new, and it is. The Kispi opened in November 2024, with a considerable delay and more than CHF 150 million over budget, totalling a cost of CHF 761 million. When running massively over budget during construction, the Zrich government decided to inject CHF 250 million into the project; the move made the news but was described by the city as necessary. The Kispi is Switzerlands largest paediatric university hospital, founded in 1874 under the patronage of the private Eleonore Foundation. Offering a full spectrum of paediatric, medical and surgical care, including many rare diseases, makes it a meeting point for specialists and clinical research teams. One of the first impressions the hospitals medical director, Michael Grotzer, heard from a visiting mother was that she felt safe. Thats about the biggest compliment we can get, he points out. Entering the hospital, the first impression is indeed that this cannot be a hospital. With wooden ceilings throughout, Artek childrens furniture in waiting rooms, an expansive cafeteria with floor to ceiling windows, as well as impeccable (and expensive) finishes everywhere, it could be a youth hostel in an affluent neighbourhood, a disproportionately large mountain chalet or a coworking space in a Nordic country.Beyond material qualities, it is both the spatial considerations and organisation that set Kispi apart. Pierre de Meuron describes the hospital as a town with courtyards, streets, alleys and squares, providing clear and memorable orientation, plenty of daylight and a connection to nature. Christine Binswanger, Herzog & de Meuron partner and Kispi project lead, points to the idea of a holistically conceived, functional building that is calm and quiet despite its diversity. A linear distribution indeed offers easy access to the different facilities; a main central corridor connects all areas of the building, while large circular courtyards, skylights and expansive glazed areas bring daylight into the hospital.For Grotzer, who worked alongside the architects from 2018 until the opening, the fact that the Kispi doesnt look, feel or smell like a hospital is a helpful factor when considering healing processes. He mentions a 2024 University of Toronto study that probes the potential for incorporation of nature into the hospital environment as a component of a therapeutic hospitalisation showing exposure to nature leads to a better healing experience. For him, this confirms the power of architecture. On Kispis second floor, all 200 inpatient rooms have views to the nature outside and a small porthole window, placed at a childs height. One of the buildings most remarkable features, the rooms allow every child to have an independent space and bathroom, and welcome the parents as well, who can spend the night next to their children. While from the inside these are organised along gently curving corridors that run alongside the edges of the building, from the outside they appear as independent units, all with pitched roofs at different angles, like a linear sequence of mountain huts that are randomly squashed together. It is one of the buildings playful, almost humorous, moves, which seek to bring lightness and pleasure to those who inhabit it. The Kispi is made not in a childish way, but in a childspecific way, Grotzer points out, noting how the atmosphere plays a positive role. Parents report that the waiting times, which arguably make up most of the experience inside any medical facility, are made easier by themed rooms patients and siblings can play in a forest or outer space, or read in the Harry Potter cave. There is also an outdoor playground, pleasant break rooms where parents can work, eat and drink coffee or tea, as well as a school and kindergarten for children spending longer periods at Kispi. Raphael Heftis colourful lighting installation Starmix, on display at the spiral staircase, highlights the main access between floors, and is one of the many artworks that greet patients and their families at unexpected moments.A more unusual and particularly sobering space is the socalled room of silence, located in the basement, where bereaved families can spend time mourning the loss of a child. Past a screen of small sleigh bells, a fully woodpanelled room features diverse seating arrangements offering the possibility to sit together or in solitude. It is an ample, grave space, marked by a fulllength floortoceiling window revealing a large, ancient boulder found on site during construction. This element could evoke the stillness and muted comfort of a Zen garden, but it is also a testament to the magnitude of what takes place inside this building life, death, and everything in between.Medical facilities are concentrated on the ground and first floors, including an emergency department, the polyclinic entrance, a pharmacy and different ambulatory specialties. The Kispi is a private hospital, but in Switzerland, that does not mean that it is only for the few. The whole national health system is privatised, with every person in the country having mandatory private health insurance that allows access to health facilities in the country. At the Kispi, that means more than 8,000 inpatient cases, 140,000 outpatient and 42,000 emergency cases per year. The hospital specialises in oncology and dermatology, and serves a wide range of children coming from both Zrich and the neighbouring towns and villages. The spacious offices for staff, distributed along the short edges of the buildings first floor, include numerous typologies of meeting and break rooms that allow for a flexible use of the space, as well as garden offices filled with plants on all four corners of the building. Employees are encouraged to leave their belongings in a locker at the entrance and plug into any workstation they deem convenient for the day.As a complement to the Kispi, Herzog & de Meuron also designed a circular tower across the street, which hosts a sevenstorey paediatric research and teaching centre. The two buildings are almost polar opposites. While the horizontal hospital is a timberclad concrete frame with a facade that seeks to disappear within the surroundings, the research centre stands tall, a Guggenheim lookalike cylinder placed at the foot of the hill. Two large semicircular portals that seem to crawl up the facade serve as entrances, much like periscopes, and lead to what the architects call an agora: a central gathering space with a double-height ceiling that is surrounded by three auditoriums, a caf and, on the first floor, a study space. On the afternoon of my visit, the caf was full, the study space and auditoriums empty.For such a simple spatial concept a circle from where all other spaces radiate the building is confusing. A series of halfstorey accesses lead to dead ends or emergency exits, and finding a toilet proves to be a labyrinthine endeavour. The study space features a halfsunken circular shelf with embedded desks an impressive work of carpentry that further peers onto the agora below; hard to say if studying here is a voyeuristic activity or a focused one. Overall, spaces are clean and muted, overtaken by white plastered walls, a few wooden panels marking features such as the auditoriums and various exposed concrete spiral staircases a favourite Herzog & de Meuron trope, seen in several of their other projects, including the Kispi.While the idea of a hospital as a holistic experience is not that common, Kispis concept is a derivation of a formula that Herzog & de Meuron have already experimented with, namely in the REHAB Basel project also led by Binswanger and completed in 2002. This groundbreaking project for a clinic for neurorehabilitation and paraplegiology already put in practice the larger concept of the hospital as a city, in a lowrise, timberclad building organised around open courtyards. The formula seems to function so well that a further derivation is at the core of the firms New North Zealand Hospital in Denmark, currently under construction and expected to finish in 2026, with Binswanger part of the core team. The architects describe the lowrise, woodenclad building arranged around a courtyard as an appropriate typology for a hospital because it fosters exchange; across the various departments, the employees work on a shared goal: the healing of the ailing human being.Many established architecture firms copy and rehash their best ideas over and over again. The idea of the horizontal hospital might be a Herzog & de Meuron trope, but it is true that the architects have cracked the code for what makes a good space for healing and recovery. However, it is only thanks to the tightly coordinated work between the office and the medical teams, for over a decade, and the resources that enable it, that projects like Kispi can be made possible.2025-04-07Reuben J BrownShare AR April 2025Buy Now
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    Competition: Europan 18
    The latest edition of Europes biennial competition for young designers Europan has opened for entries (Deadline: 29 July)Open to multidisciplinary teams under 40 years of age and based in Europe Europan 18 seeks proposals for 47 urban sites spread across 12 countries. Countries contributing competition sites include France, Spain, Germany, Sweden and Norway.The latest competition focuses on re-sourcing existing neighbourhoods and public realm by reconsidering natural elements, ways of life and inclusivity, and materials. The winning teams will each receive a cash prize worth 12,000 in local currency, along with support to negotiate a commission to deliver their scheme.Contest sites include a 253ha railways lands site neighbouring Lisbons Aguas Livres AqueductCredit:Image by Paulo Juntas Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic licenseAccording to the brief: The fragility of the Earths ecosystem and social crises lead to the imagination of alternative practices to harmful extraction of resources, overconsumption and pollution of living milieus.Regenerating projects that embrace nature and culture are to be thought up and implemented. It is about weaving synergies between biogeophysical data with socio-spatial justice and health ones.Three main directions for designing forms of resilience and resourcing of inhabited milieus make it possible to reactivate other forms of dynamics and narratives around the ecologies of living and caring.First held in 1989, Europan was set up to boost young European designers and promote open dialogue and co-operation between European countries on issues relating to housing and urban planning.Now in its 18th edition, the contest is organised by a European federation of national architecture organisations.This years sites are themed around reusing derelict structures, promoting open neighbourhoods, creating new urban relationships, dealing with water, reactivating soils, and regenerating landscapes.Plots featured in the contest include a 148.6ha former winery in Felanitx, Mallorca; the 26ha village of Roa near Oslo in Norway; the 410ha Klara Nova agricultural district on the edges of Novi Zagreb in Croatia; a 253ha railways lands site neighbouring Lisbons Aguas Livres Aqueduct (pictured); and a 103ha industrial site in the centre of Turku, Finland.Competitors may apply for a maximum of one competition site in each participating country. Their applications may include either a strategic reflection on the overall site or an architectural solution for a defined part of the plot. All proposals will be evaluated by the Europan Scientific Council prior to the national juries selecting a winner.Participating teams must feature at least one architect, with all members aged under 40 and holding either a European degree or working in Europe.Submissions may be in English and potentially the local language of the contest site and must include three A1-sized display boards, a description of the submitted project plus three promotional images and a project text of four pages. Applicants pay a 100 registration fee.The overall winners, to be announced on 17 November, will each receive 12,000 and support to negotiate a design commission. Runners-up will receive cash prizes worth 6,000. A special mention may also be announced.How to applyDeadline: 29 JulyCompetition funding source: Not suppliedProject funding source: Not suppliedOwner of site(s): Not suppliedContact details: contact@europan-europe.euVisit the competition website for more information
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  • Casalgrande Padanas elegant and versatile Concept collection
    The Architectural ReviewCasalgrande Padanas elegant and versatile Concept collectionSponsored feature: these new porcelain stoneware tiles add originality and character to contemporary spacesThe post Casalgrande Padanas elegant and versatile Concept collection appeared first on The Architectural Review.AR Editors
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    Out of the sewer: Wastewater treatment plant in Arklow, Ireland by Clancy Moore Architects
    The Arklow wastewater treatment plant in Ireland, designed by Clancy Moore, is an act of public serviceThe Irish Sea near the town of Arklow was once home to 90km ofnaturally occurring oyster reefs. During the 19th century, Arklow was the countrys main port for oysters 40million were harvested in 1863, with many exported to England, the colonial metropole. But by the end of the 1800s, the oyster beds were depleting due to overharvesting and pollution from the Avoca mines upstream; even in the 1860s, oysters were rebedded elsewhere to remove the taste of copper, dispensed into the river by the mines, beforebeing sold.Since the 19th century, the water qualityof the Avoca River and the sea into whichitdischarges has suffered, due to bothindustry and a lack of wastewater infrastructure. Until June 2024, when the new Arklow wastewater treatment plant began operation, raw sewage as well as greywater and surface runoff was released directly into the river. The lower reaches ofthe Avoca River constituted the most polluted stretches of river in Ireland, according to a 2003 Eastern Regional Fisheries Board report. In 2019, the European Court of Justice took Ireland tocourt for its failure to treat wastewater inArklow, along with 37 other Irish towns.Attempts to build a wastewater treatment plant began in the 1990s but were frustrated by searches for a suitable site. In 2016, alocation was selected at the mouth oftheAvoca River, next to the marina andprominently visible from the town tothesouth. We came to the conclusion that if were going to build something there, it needs to be a civic building that were proud of and that speaks to the town, explains Michael Tinsley, an engineer and senior manager at Uisce ireann (formerly Irish Water), who commissioned the project. Weneed to get an architect involved here. There was an invited competition in 2016 for a practice to join the existing design team, led by Arup and Ayesa Engineering. Dublinbased practice Clancy Moore were anunlikely addition to the lineup, invited on the commendation of a planner who hadbeen impressed by a house on a sensitive quarry site which the practice had designed in 2008.The lower reaches of the Avoca River constituted the most polluted stretches of river in IrelandClancy Moore found themselves aconsultant among many; around 20 specialisms were represented in the design team (odour engineerarticularly niche favourite). In the built project, however, thearchitects hand is keenly felt. From a distance, the monumental louvred volumes appear almost toylike, emerging from between tanks and warehouses like oversized pleated origami. This is how thebuildings will be experienced by most people: a landmark viewed across the river from the south quay or glimpsed on a windy walk by the sea to the north. As Andrew Clancy, cofounder of Clancy Moore, explains, while not accessible to the public,the project is fundamentally for andabout the public good.Clancy Moore have achieved more than just smart dresses for giant sheds. In one ofmany meetings, the architects casually asked if it was possible to put this on that, marking a departure from typical sewage plant design, in which processes are arrayed horizontally and tanks are sunk into the ground. At Arklow, the initial treatment processes where grit and nonorganic objects, such as wet wipes and nappies, areremoved take place on an upper level, with large storm tanks and skips for collecting the removed material below. Wastewater ispumped up to the raised level from the underground sewer and then flows by gravity to the second volume which contains aeration tanks effectively giant petri dishes where bacteria break down harmful compounds before making the journey down a kilometrelong outfall pipe to the Irish Sea.This decision to stack processes precipitated a chain reaction of happy consequences. Volumes were able to be morevertical: confident urban figures with acivic presence. The only evidence that the buildings are in fact part of a sewage works will be a lorry coming out a couple of times aweek to take dried sludge away to eitherbe used as fertiliser or incinerated togenerate electricity. The volumes had to have roofs because the higher areas needed to be served by gantry cranes, which in turn meant that solar panels could be installed onthe roofs (currently just one roof but there are plans to roll out on the second inacouple of years). These will be able to contribute up to40 per cent of the plants energy demands reduced compared with typical arrangements, where wastewater ispumped between each tank rather than fed by gravity. The reduced built area alsoallowed a third of the site area toberewilded, including plants that willhelp todecontaminate the ground.The giant louvres, like halfclosed Venetian blinds, allow air circulation without revealing the unsavoury innards, and are already welcoming small birds looking for a nesting spot (though netting prevents wildlife from venturing further inside). The fins of corrugated fibrecement board, the colour of oxidised copper, hang from a steelframed carapace, the steel columns meeting the ground on hefty concrete feet, a precaution against manoeuvring trucks. The small office building at the site entrance speaks the same language as its two larger siblings butin a softer register, with concrete wedges supporting a portico that echoes the louvres, gently lapped cementboard cladding in the same marine green, and windows in a dance along each facade, like notes on a stave.The reference here to John Hejduks Kreuzberg Tower in Berlin is wittily rehearsed (the facade at the entrance resembles I suspect intentionally a face in profile), and the two louvred sheds heavily quote Hans Christian Hansens Amager switching stations in Copenhagen: large warehouselike buildings with corrugated louvres that flap up and down to allow ventilation. Clancy Moores project itself hasalso been quoted; before the wastewater plant was even completed, DMOD Architects headquarters for Arklow Shipping was builtin 2022 with an oversizedgreen sawtooth roof.Concrete was a prerequisite for the tanks and other processes, for which no other material is suitable, and a steel frame was selected due to structural demands and the exposed marine location. The choice of fibrecement cladding emerged following countless iterative studies: a cast in situ concrete facade was vaunted as there was plenty more concrete already being poured on site, and timber options were considered, though it unfolded that withstanding the tough conditions would require slowgrowth oak and copper nails. This was unsurprisingly quickly dismissed. A hardier, more industrial palette was selected; the corrugated cement board rhymes with thesurrounding industrial sheds, still usedfor shipbuilding.One resident welled up as she noticed that the frothy scum that had habitually laced the edges of the river had disappearedThe Arklow wastewater treatment plantisa rare example of a sewage works designed by an architect, and one of, if not the first in Ireland. The project wastendered as part of a design and build engineering contract that did not include a single drawing. Instead, the architects drew through writing, in a document of over 60 pages, meticulously describing the basis of the buildings: from the plans (a foursided structure, rectangular in plan) down to thedetails (there are to be no horizontal joints between fibrecement panels). Thedocument proves, in case there were anydoubt, that a drawing is worth several thousand words.This is a project of conversation between professionals from innumerable disciplines, and with planning authorities and local people. Clancy and cofounder Colm Moore see the practice as stewards or guardians of the project, navigating and negotiating between the various specialist expertises placed on the table, rather than leading theproject. They also proved to be crucial advocates of the project in consultations with the public: The architects had them sitting down and within five minutes, they were nodding about how the project would speak to the marine history of Arklow, Tinsley describes. Very early on we saw thebenefit of having the architects involved.Tinsley also notes that there has been very little resistance to the project from the local community perhaps expected given the previous dire situation, though unusual asnot everyone wants a sewage plant as aneighbour. Any qualms that the public might have about frivolous spending of taxpayers money on aesthetics can be quelled by Tinsleys estimates that only around 3 per cent of the projects budget was spent on the architecture a small price to pay for a civic landmark.This is a socially and ecologically transformative piece of infrastructure. Onanopen day shortly after the plant beganoperations last year, one resident welled up as she noticed that the frothy scum that had habitually laced the edges of the river had disappeared. But perhaps the most dramatic transformation that will result from the operation of the plant will beurban growth, suppressed since the late 1990s on the grounds that there wasnt adequate wastewater treatment provision the population of the town has hovered around 13,000 for the last 15 years. The new wastewater treatment plant is the key that will unlock development: the plant has the capacity to allow the town to nearly triple insize, with two tanks currently dormant. Asingle development of 476 units on agreenfield site to the south of the town wasgranted planning permission in December 2024.But the towns population had been suppressed since long before the 1990s. The population of the Republic of Ireland only recently, in 2022, surpassed five million for the first time since 1851, just recovering after centuries of English then British colonisation, including a genocidal famine. As Clancy points out, the population growth in Arklow will not be an explosion, but areturn to the normal population dynamics ofthe country as a whole. He hopes young people may now choose to stay and that a considered approach will be taken to urban development. One small positive from the failure to build a plant before is that Arklow was spared the substandard developments of the boom, and of the last 10 years.The deprivation caused by British colonisation and economic mismanagement since independence in 1922 has resulted in underdeveloped infrastructure, including wastewater. In 2014, 50 Irish towns were without water treatment; Arklow was the 35th on the todo list (six more are set to receive treatment plants this year, and thelast nine are at planning stage). The stateowned water company Uisce ireann, established in 2013, is funded through taxation rather than householder water bills (it is a strongly held principle in Ireland that water is free). In contrast, across the Irish Sea in England, privatised water companies operate as uncompetitive monopolies, extracting profit for shareholders while allowing water infrastructure to languish. In2024, Londons private water company Thames Water was responsible for 300,000 hours of raw sewage overflowing into waterways, despite having over 350 treatment plants. The same year, it paidshareholders dividends amounting to 158million. Thames Water has announced water bill increases of 31 per cent beginning 1 April to an annual average of 639 per household.The new use of this site to clean water in Arklow is in stark contrast to its historical uses which excreted a plethora of toxic substances; a gypsum board factory, active between 1964 and 2002, was demolished to make way for the project, and an ammunitions factory for the English Kynoch Company factory was on the site before that. Even thesoil itself reclaimed from the sea during the 19th century is likely contaminated spoil from the Avoca mines. Both the weapons and extracted copper and sulphur that continue to leave their traces inArklow were used by England for imperial gain. Large rusting cylindrical tanks that held industrial waste remain on the site areminder of the toxicity that came before.Today, the river runs clean for the first time in over a hundred years. There are hopes that the oysters will return.
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    A bugs life: towards a probiotic architecture
    The battle against bacteria has shaped modern architecture, but the health of humans as well as the planet depends on letting the bugs inArchitecture and illnesses have always been entangled. Itcould even be argued that the beginning of architecture is the beginning of disease. As doctor Benjamin Ward Richardson put it when introducing Our Homes and Howto Make them Healthy, a compendium of texts by doctors and architects for the 1884 International Health Exhibition in London: Man, by a knowledge and skill not possessed by the inferior animals, in building cities, villages, houses, for his protection from the external elements, has produced for himself a series of fatal diseases, which are so closely associated with the productions of hisknowledge and skill in building as to stand in the position of effect from cause. Man in constructing protections from exposure has constructed conditions of disease.Doctors and architects have always been in a kind of dance, often exchanging roles, collaborating and influencing each other, even if not always synchronised. Imhotep, the Egyptian architect of the step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara of 2600 BCE, was also a physician and the author of many medical treatises more than two millennia before Hippocrates, usually considered the father of medicine. Vitruvius in the 1st century BCE launched western architectural theory by insisting that all architects needed to study medicine: Healthfulness being their chief object. He devoted a large part ofhis Ten Books on Architecture to the question of health, giving detailed instructions on how to determine the healthiness of a proposed site for a city by returning to the ancient method of sacrificing an animal that lives there and inspecting its liver to make sure it is sound and firm. Likewise for the health of buildings, he discussed the theory of the four humours, which was the dominant medical theory of the time. Vitruvius even argued that those who areunwell can be cured more quickly through design, rebuilding the system of those exhausted by disease including consumption, now known as tuberculosis.In 1985, architect Lina Bo Bardi curated the exhibition Entreato para Crianas (Interlude for Children). The poster included the architect as a toddler anddrawings of insects alongside the words dont step on the ants, dont killthe cockroaches.Credit:Instituto Lina Bo and PM Bardi / Casa de VidroElsewhere, architects and planners have long waged wars against bugs. InLubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, disease spread by flies and mosquitoes was used byBelgian colonialists to justify a cordon sanitaire. Sammy Balojis Essay on Urban Planning documents its lasting urban legacyCredit:Photo (detail): Alessandra Bello / Courtesy of Sammy Baloji and Imane Fars Gallery, ParisEvery subsequent architectural theory added something to this medical paradigm. Cities represent an accumulation of theories ofdisease from ancient times to the present. The history of architecture and the history of the city is the history of disease, thehistory of a series of structures and infrastructures put in place to counter the previous epidemic, as if it was always a step behind. From new building types, such as the lazaretti in 15thcentury Italy, designed to contain those infected by the plague, or suspected to beinfected, to the great infrastructure works of the 19th century: sewage systems, clean water, urban grids and parks that completely reshaped cities in the name of health.Modern architecture was produced under emergency conditions. Throughout the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th, millions died of tuberculosis every year all over the world. Modern buildings offered a prophylactic defence against this invisible micro-organism, the tuberculosis bacillus that was only identified in1882 by Robert Koch. All the defining features of modern architecture white walls, terraces, big windows, detachment fromthe ground were presented as both prevention and cure. LeCorbusier, for example, wrote that pilotis separated the housefrom the humid ground where disease breeds.Cities represent an accumulation of theories ofdisease from ancient times to the presentTo produce the idea of modern architecture as healthy, 19thcentury architecture was demonised as nervous, unhealthy andfilled with disease, especially the bacilli of tuberculosis. Decorative excess was itself treated as an infection. Modernising architecture was firstly a form of disinfection, a purification of buildings leading to a healthgiving environment of light, air, cleanliness and smooth white surfaces without cracks or crevices where contagion might lurk.It was not until 1928 that the first modern antibiotic, penicillin, was accidentally discovered by Alexander Fleming when he observedthat mould stopped the growth of bacteria, unknowingly reactivating an ancient knowledge; Imhotep had already applied mouldy bread to skin infections, and plants with antibacterial properties have been central to the health practices of many Indigenous communities all over the world for thousands of years. Streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis, wasnot discovered until 1943 and not widely available for a decade but there was already an antibiotic philosophy of architecture. Modern architecture was the antibiotic. It was modern inasmuch asit was free of bacteria, particularly the bacillus of tuberculosis. Inthat sense, it saved lives.In response to the tuberculosis epidemic in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century, modernist sanatoria prioritised access to direct sunlight.The rooms of Lake County Tuberculosis Sanatorium, built in 1939 to designs by William Ganster and William Pereira and appearing on the cover of Revista Nacional de Arquitectura in 1952 (left), all faced south to maximise sun exposure. In todays hospitals, sky ceilings imitate natural light and vegetation, as captured in Lewis Khans Theatre series (lead image), started in 2014Credit:Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM) and Lewis KhanThe medicinal nature of modern architecture and the unimaginable horror it was responding to has been largely forgotten. We act as if each pandemic is the first, as if trying to bury the pain and uncertainty of the past. In the early days of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020, buildings designed for temporary events hosted an emergency medical architecture, a space for disease. The scene was repeated all over the world, from Belgrade to Lahore, Wuhan toKuala Lumpur, So Paulo to New York City. Vast halls, stadiums, armouries and urban parks were turned into field hospitals. It was not the first time: during the 1918 flu epidemic that killed more people than the two World Wars combined, huge empty spaces werefilled with beds. A photograph of a field hospital in a US armytraining camp in Camp Funston, Kansas, where the 1918 virusfirstemerged, shows hundreds of ill soldiers in a grid of beds inan uncanny resemblance of what would happen a century later. Inhealth emergencies, all buildings are medicalised. Medical crises bring architecture to the foreground.Like antibiotics, modern architecture eventually created its own monsters. It produces sickness, most obviously sick building syndrome. The airconditioning systems that architects such asLeCorbusier celebrated for isolating the inside air from the contaminated outside air turned out to be reservoirs and vectors ofdisease, circulating pathogens. The kind of architecture that wassupposed to inoculate its occupants against disease turned against them as in a sciencefiction horror film.Many of the diseases of our time obesity, diabetes, manyformsofcancer, autoimmune disorders, allergies are nowunderstood to be plausibly connected to the diminishing diversity of bacteria. Buildings have their own microbiomes, and the diversity of these microbiomes is just as important in buildings as they are in human bodies. The bacteria of buildings continuously enter the body and the bacteria in the body are spread out across buildings along with the bacteria of fellow humans, other animals, insects and plants.Models of health paradoxically produce vulnerabilities toillnessAll these archaeological layers of sick architecture are inherently political. Models of health paradoxically produce vulnerabilities toillness. They privilege and shelter a normalised subject from threatening others. The violent exercise of colonial power, whether external or internal, is inseparable from the architecture of health. The ancient emergency strategy of the cordon sanitaire, used to isolate territories during the centuries of plague epidemics, for example, was turned into an instrument of permanent urban planning in the Belgian Congo to separate the Indigenous city fromthe European city in the name of preventing yellow fever, as suggested in the research of the artist Sammy Baloji. A 400mwide band, the distance it was thought no mosquito could fly, divided Black citizens from white settlers. The mosquito dimensioned the city. But the medical border acted as a mechanism of racialisation. In fact, all borders, whether of a room or a nation, are medical borders reinforced by countless protocols and policing. These borders are typically not a single line but a nesting of lines at multiple scales, each with its own architecture.The construction of the Panama Canal, which was first and foremost the conquest of the mosquito, involved hugescale interventions like clearing forests and draining swamps. Thearchitecture of health is always multiscalar, traversing and definingterritory, nation, ethnicity, race, class and domesticities. Itcreates models of normality, which are also models of exclusion, disadvantage and prejudice.Health is not just physical. Already in ancient Greece, a variety ofmental illnesses were identified and spatialised, as sufferers were forced to remain indoors or roam the outdoors without a permanent address. Eventually specialised buildings offered both isolation and care. Thepreeminent philosopher and physician in the Muslim world IbnSina, also known in the west as Avicenna, worked in the first mental health hospital set up in Baghdad in the 8th century to treat the head sick with calming gardens and fountains, in buildings located in the heart of the city to encourage visitors. His Canon of Medicine considered psychology to be very important and was the most influential medical text in Europe up to the 17th century. TheHospital dels Innocents, founded in Valencia, Spain, in 1410, after observing the Islamic institutions that housed the insane, isconsidered the first psychiatric hospital in the western world. Eventually the whole architecture of mental illness was undone by the antipsychiatry movement in the 1960s, but the experimentation continues today in architectures that allow those on an expanded mental spectrum to be at once sheltered and engaged in city life. Inthe Caritas psychiatric centre in Belgium (AR September 2018), designed by de Vylder Vinck Taillieu with BAVO, neurodivergence isnot treated as an illness and the role of the building is not to isolate but provide a platform.Rather than surfaces that are easy to disinfect, championed by many modernist buildings, probiotic tiles designed by Richard Beckett and Aileen Hoenerloh harbour bacteria. Made of concrete and soil, containing millions of microbes, the textured surfaces encourage the growth of a diverse microbiomeCredit:Richard Beckett and AiIleen HoenerlohDesigned for an ecologist, the shower of the Casa Jardn by Al Borde in Quito, Ecuador, is located in a greenhouse, among the plantsCredit:JAG StudioIn fact, the question of mental health has always been part of architectural discourse. Architects act as if their designs will produce a sense of wellbeing. Each mental condition needs to be countered by architecture. At the turn of the 20th century in Vienna, Camillo Sitte diagnosed the modern city as producing agoraphobia, in the very moment and place the Vienna of Freud the disorder was being actively discussed. Sitte presented his urban design, inspired by the eccentric narrow streets and small piazzas of medieval cities, as a psychological counter. In the late 1940s and 50s, Richard Neutra presented himself as a shrink to his clients, which he understood to be his patients. Likewise, when the concept of stress was identified in the 1960s as the predominant reaction tomodern life, experimental architects such as CoopHimmelblau worked with psychiatrists to produce prototypes of relaxation architectures, as discussed by Victoria Bugge ye. Hans Hollein replaced buildings altogether with an architecture pill providing the desired mental state. In reverse, some conditions such as autism are now seen as inherently spatial, and imply an alternative architecture in its own right. In addition to architectures for an expanded mental spectrum, there is the need to embrace an expanded understanding of the physical spectrum. The diverse abilities of children, older people, those with limb differences, deafness, blindness, and people who arechronically ill call for greater hospitality, opportunity and pleasure from architecture, redefining the very concept of care and transforming the role of buildings in a way that impacts many more than those being treated. Using the language of their time, Aino and Alvar Aalto offered a crucial paradigm shift when they argued that architects should always design for the person in the weakest position. The radicality of thisis to rethink architecture from vulnerability itself.The age of antibiotics and antibiotic architecture threatens our species. The microbiologist Martin Blaser writes about the silent extinction of microbes, arguing that the crisis of the diminishing diversity of the human microbiome is a bigger threat to the species than climate change. So what would a probiotic architecture be? Probably it would be like our gut: more porous, versus the prophylactic attitude of modern architecture. The immune system does not simply keep foreign organisms out; it regulates a dynamic balance between insiders and outsiders. Architecture too could be away of bringing the other in. This might mean experimenting with the idea of rewilding the interior. We used to live intimately with all the bacteria of the soil, the plants and other animals. And we may want to reconnect with even embrace this diversity of bacteria.In the UK, NHS providers produce around 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste every year. This rocketed during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the explosion of single-use plastic PPE (personal protective equipment). The photographs of Natasha Durlachers Postcards from the Pandemic depict discarded masks and gloves, a solemn reminder of the devastating impact of growing ocean and landpollutionCredit:Natasha DurlacherThere is a precedent for a probiotic architecture one that fosterstransspecies communities in some of the work of the ItalianBrazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi. When she designed her Casa de Vidro in So Paulo in 1949, a house suspended in the forest, like a treehouse, she drew every insect, plant and animal living in the site with the same precision that she drew the building. For her they are part of the building. If architecture is all about keeping the bugs out, Bo Bardi embraces a transspecies architecture where insects are not the enemy, but intelligent members of the community, and humans are just temporary guests. She made exhibitions and plays for children about this new understanding of community, imagining spaces in which insects, animals and plants are the real occupants. For Bo Bardi, architecture is architecture only inasmuch as it is dissolved by other species. Even her dramatic demonstrations of geometry and force, like the remarkable MASP, were originally drawn as if being eaten by plants. This is part of a political ethic ofcelebrating and learning from other species.Architecture today needs to be dramatically reconfigured onhealth grounds just as modern architecture polemically reconfigured the 19thcentury architectures that preceded it. Humancentred design sounds good, but it is terrible for humans, aswell as other species and the planet. The first form of life was bacteria, four billion years ago, while the human is a very recent arrival and might already be on the way out. Bacteria are what madeplants, trees and eventually humans possible. The human isnot just one thing but an endlessly complex, everchanging transspecies collaboration: the human is a bag of bacteria. But bacteria are usually treated as an invisible enemy that needs to be exterminated. Instead, bacteria should be at the centre of design. We are nothing without all these foreigners. We live in them more than they live in us.This is the Keynote essay from AR April 2025: Health. Buy your copy at the ARs online shop, or read more from the issue here
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    AR April 2025: Health
    Herzog & de Meuron | Baas Arquitectura | Casa Solo Arquitectos | Nord Architects | 3RW Arkitekter | Witherford Watson Mann | Clancy Moore | Irene Barclay | Ecomimesis Solues Ecolgicas | Adamo FaidenFor most of us, life begins in a hospital and is likely to end in a medical facility too. We visit hospitals during our lives if not for a broken arm or surgery, then for an unwell loved one.Although healthcare is a universal need, access is deeply unequal. The most impressive new hospital buildings, such as Herzog & de Meurons new Kinderspital Zrich, are typically built in wealthy urban centres, and their replicability is questionable. In Catalonia, the public healthcare system has been commissioning primary care centres in the regions smaller towns to improve proximity to facilities while alleviating pressure on the larger complexes.Hospitals and other medical facilities are not the only architectures of health. Interwar social housing advocate Irene Barclay identified houses that are dangerous and injurious to health in her reports of Londons so-called slums. In Rio de Janeiro, the municipality is creating new urban parks so that deprived communities may escape the heat to exercise and socialise. For the first time in a century, the water of Irelands Avoca River is running clear, due to a new treatment plant designed by Clancy Moore.A healthy building supports human life, as well as other living organisms, argues Beatriz Colomina in her keynote. This is not restricted to architectures end users but those who build it too. UK construction workers died at a greater rate than nurses in 2020, Charlotte Banks writes. It is a stark reminder that, even at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the building industry will value profit over human health unless continually and tirelessly checked.1520: Healthcover (above) Damien HirstAs part of a larger group of works featuring shrine-like wall-mounted pill cabinets, Damien Hirsts When the Heart Speaks (2005) explores the boundaries of human belief and challenges societys reliance on drugs as a universal cure. Credit: Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2025 / Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd / Courtesy the artist and Gagosianfolio (lead image) Tobias CohenIn Maaseh Tuviyah, a 1708 scientific reference book by rabbi-physician Tobias Cohen, the human body isimagined not as a proverbial temple, but as afour-storey house with an attic for a head, kitchen for a belly, and plumbing and water features for excretion. Credit: Wikimedia / Houghton Library / Harvard UniversitykeynoteA bugs lifeBeatriz ColominabuildingChildrens hospital by Herzog & de Meuron in Zrich, SwitzerlandVera SacchettibuildingRadiotherapy and hemodialysis centre by Baas Arquitectura and Casa Solo Arquitectos in Granollers, SpainRafael Gmez-MorianaessayPride without prejudiceTorsten LangebuildingFuruset Hageby dementia village by Nord Architects and 3RW Arkitekter in Oslo, NorwayFeliks Ulven IsaksenbuildingAppleby Blue almshouse by Witherford Watson Mann in London, UKCatherine SlessoroutrageBuilding killsCharlotte BanksbuildingWastewater treatment plant by Clancy Moore in Arklow, IrelandEleanor BeaumontreputationsIrene BarclayMarianna JanowiczbuildingParque Realengo by Ecomimesis Solues Ecolgicas, Ayako Arquitetura, Helena Meirelles Arquitetura, Larissa Monteiro, Messina Rivas and Zebulun Arquitetura in Rio de Janeiro, BrazilFrancesco Perrotta-BoschbuildingGuayaquil veterinary clinic by Adamo Faiden in Buenos Aires, ArgentinaMagdalena TagliabueessayThe hospital of the future?Annmarie Adams
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    Crafting stands in opposition to accelerating capitalist efficiency: Mycket on the 2025 W Awards trophies
    The trophies for the 2025 W Awards are woven out of rush from Stngn and Lake stjuten in Sweden, as well as strips of plastic, using basket-weaving techniques. In Sweden, rush which grows in freshwater lakes, marshes and wetlands is usually harvested around Midsummer, when the roots loosen their grip. Rush crafts have become nearly extinct in Sweden, though a new education programme in thatching is emerging, so perhaps a turning point is near.Crafted using traditional weaving techniques and human-made and natural materials, each of Myckets trophies has a unique personalityCredit:Luke HayesThey each include a weight a chunk of the bedrock blasted out from underneath ArkDes to make way for new subway linesCredit:Luke HayesThe best way to harvest is to swim out and gather the reeds. Once you have collected a large bundle, you can float on it (rush can carry entire communities the Uru people of Lake Titicaca built islands of Totora reeds to evade aggressive neighbours and colonisers). After harvesting, the rush must be dried in a well-ventilated space, then soaked before crafting begins.The plastic strips in the trophies come from washed snack bags salvaged from the Catastrophe Carnival we organised last year everyone was invited to come dressed as their worst catastrophe as a way of processing the apocalypse. Each trophy also contains a small weight, a piece of the bedrock beneath ArkDes (the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design) in Stockholm. That bedrock is currently being blasted to make way for new metro lines, and we used fragments of the blasted stone in our project The Secret Garden (20242025).The trophies are made from rush as well as salvaged plastic and aluminium packaging from the collectives Catastrophe CarnivalCredit:Luke HayesWe see these trophies as mini-architectures. When we work with rush, we move through time-scales far beyond the human. Rush grows in cyclical loops, while the plastic and aluminium snack bags take hundreds of years to decompose. Working hands-on with rush and snack bags was not just about shaping trophies it is a way to understand time, relationships, and humanitys place in the world order. The inherent slowness of crafting both in the act of making and in the materials life cycle stands in opposition to accelerating capitalist efficiency. The form emerges in dialogue with the materials: we shape them, and they shape us. We call this process shape-shifting a design practice we are currently investigating to transform the architecture and design professions relationship to the Earth and our fellow beings.Mycket was the winner of the Prize for Research into Gender and Architecture at the 2024 W Awards. The collectives trophies will be presented to the 2025 winners at an event in Venice on 9 May.
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    Competition: Ramallah Science and Technology City
    An open international contest is being held for a new technology and innovation hub in the West Bank city of Ramallah (Deadline: 1 June 2025)The single-stage competition invites creative architects to submit visionary ideas for a landmark new Ramallah Science and Technology City (RSTC) development providing educational and research facilities.Once complete, the new complex will provide year-round interactive learning spaces for a range of visitors of all ages including educational school trips, science festivals and community activities.Al-Manara Square, RamallahCredit:Image by Montecruz Foto Attribution-ShareAlikeAccording to the brief: RSTC aims to establish itself as a landmark in the city of Ramallah and across Palestine as an iconic and major tourist destination, attracting thousands of visitors annually.It will change the stigma and stereotype that scientific knowledge is difficult, and only those who dedicate their lives to it can understand it. It will accomplish that through exhibitions, multimedia productions, community programs, and much more that will target children, youth, and adults of all professions. This project will be the first of its kind in Palestine.Ramallah is a major Palestinian city located around 10km north of Jerusalem in the West Bank. Local landmarks include Al-Manara Square (pictured), the Arafat Mausoleum and Jamal Abdel Nasser Mosque.Irish practice Heneghan Peng completed a new Palestinian Museum in the city in 2016 telling the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective. The 3,500m2 museum features a gallery, amphitheatre, caf, library and offices.It was won in a competition against UKs Cullinan Studio, Henning Larsen Architects of Denmark, Canadian firm Moriyama & Teshima, and Consolidated Consultants from Jordan.The latest project will create a major new tourist destination for Ramallah attracting thousands of visitors annually. The complex is expected to feature dynamic exhibitions, multimedia productions, and community programmes.Submissions must include a masterplan, concept description, 3D images, floor plans, spatial configuration and other images. The overall winner will receive a $6,000 USD prize while a second prize of $4,000 and third prize of $2,000 will also be awarded along with two honourable mentions.How to applyDeadline: 1 June 2025Competition funding source: Not suppliedProject funding source: Not suppliedOwner of site(s): Not suppliedContact details: competition@rstc.psVisit the competition website for more information
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    Competition: Dubai Urban Elements Design Challenge
    An open international competition featuring a 500,000 prize fund is being held for small-scale concepts to enhance public spaces (Deadline: 7 May)The competition invites architects, artists, and creatives to put forward proposals for new small-scale architectural elements that could enhance public spaces and contribute to the evolving urban identity of the country bordering the Gulf.Organised by Buildner in collaboration with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority the contest aims to re-imagine human-scale architecture and come up with a range of solutions to promote community, enhance urban life and contribute to Dubais evolving identity.Marina Street, DubaiCredit:Image by Capitaine Chikor Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licenseAccording to the brief: Dubai is a city of ambition a global symbol of innovation, culture, and rapid evolution. Yet, as it continues to expand and redefine itself, Dubai now turns its focus inward, seeking meaning not only in iconic structures but in the spaces that shape daily life. It looks to the in-between the bridges, pathways, and gathering spaces to strengthen its urban identity and connect its communities.Participants are challenged to develop a cohesive design concept across seven distinct zones, each with its own unique character, density, and rhythm. The aim is to craft thoughtful, context-driven solutions that strengthen Dubais urban fabric while responding to the specific needs and identities of each zone.Dubai is the most populous city in the UAE and in 2022 became the first city within the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia region to host a world expo. The House of the Future contest comes five years after London-based IJP Architects and engineer AKT II won a competition to design a 230m-long footbridge in Dubai.The latest competition seeks visionary, functional, and context-sensitive proposals which creatively enhance the city while also promoting cultural awareness, sustainability, and public engagement.Proposals should respond to the unique character, density and social dynamics of seven different zones across Dubai spanning residential, suburban, cultural, industrial and high-end uses.Concepts could include pedestrian and cycle bridges and underpasses, street furniture, shading structures, wayfinding and signage, safety structures, lighting, repair stations and pavement designs.The jury has yet to be announced and will include up to nine experts. Submissions will be judged 30 per cent on innovation and creativity, 30 per cent on response to context, 20 per cent on feasibility and cost and 20 per cent on sustainability.The overall winner to be announced 1 July will receive a 250,000 top prize. A second prize of 140,000 and third prize of 50,000 will also be awarded along with six honourable mentions prizes each worth 10,000.How to applyDeadline: 7 MayCompetition funding source: The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), under the leadership of the Dubai GovernmentProject funding source: The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), under the leadership of the Dubai GovernmentOwner of site(s): Dubai MunicipalityContact details: contact@buildner.comVisit the competition website for more information
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    Competition results: Winners of Barcelona exhibition halls contest revealed
    The winners of an open international contest to remodel various venues on the Montjuc trade fair site in Barcelona have been revealedThe winning teams featuring Chilean-Croatian architect Smiljan Radi, local firm Forgas Architectes and Bjarke Ingels Group of Denmark have been announced by Spains Commission for the Centenary of the 1929 International Exposition.Launched last year, the two-stage competition sought proposals to transform the historic city centre site which hosted the International Expo of 1929 into a new modern, flexible and adaptable exhibition centre.The phased 255 million project planned to complete in time for the sites centenary in 2029 is divided into three lots.The first lot will see the existing Hall 1 also known as the Palau de les Comunicacions renovated and an emblematic new 20,500m multipurpose hall constructed on the site of the nearby Hall 4 and Palau de Congressos de Barcelona.This lot was won by a team featuring the architects Smiljan Radi, Miquel Marin Nez, Beatriz Borque and Cesar Rueda Bonet. Their winning proposal, 2029 Artefacto will create a luminous and monumental complex integrated into its surrounding urban environment.The project will include a new 2,000m landscaped walkway connecting the two pavilions together.The second lot will meanwhile see a new congress hall constructed on the site of the current Alfons XIII hall conserving its listed elements and delivering a new large-capacity auditorium.This contest was won by Forgas Architectes, Archambac (Arquitectura Sideral) and lvaro Alejandro Fernndez with the proposal Umbracle.The winning concept will create a large open-plan and flexible space that gives prominence to natural light and respects as much as possible the current structure designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch.It will include a 6,670m courtyard garden, a 3,132m exhibition hall and a large 2,025-capacity auditorium along with several multipurpose meeting rooms. The self-sufficient proposal also features photovoltaic, aerothermal and geothermal systems and stormwater collection.The old Palau del Vestit which is now part of Hall 8 will also be transformed into an innovation hub focussing on smart cities, food, audiovisual and technology.This final lot was won by Bjarke Ingels Group and MIAS Architects. Their LAvantsala de la Fira concept will deliver a functional and flexible Z-shaped, three-storey building surrounded by garden open to the public.The proposal will combine the buildings existing structures designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Josep Maria Jujol with modern interventions featuring flexible and connected workspaces, meeting rooms and a 200-person auditorium.All three lots represent the first phase of the sites regeneration. Each project is planned to complete by 2029 in time for the expos centenerary.A second phase to remodel both the Palacio de las Comunicaciones Hall 1 and the Palacio de la Metalurgia Hall 8 will see an additional architectural competition launched at a later date.
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    Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland, UK by Nall McLaughlin Architects
    The Faith Museum by Nall McLaughlin Architects in Bishop Auckland, UK, combines the godly with the profaneJacqueline Stephen of Nall McLaughlin Architects is shortlisted for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice 2024. Find out more about the W Awards hereFound at the confluence of theRiver Wear and the River Gaunless, Bishop Auckland, in County Durham in the north of England, has a rich but unsung history as ameeting point of the sacred and the civic. Since the 11th century, the bishops of Durham have been central to the towns legacy. Centuries of conquest and religious ceremony laid further layers of history; industrial revolution and decline shaped the Victorian character and grain ofthe town centre. Auckland Palace the home ofthe bishops of Durham until 2012 hassimilarly been subjected to many transformations since it was built in the 12th century. The bishop of Durhams private chapel on the site, built in 1665, isconstructed from stones reclaimed fromthe 12thcentury mansion, which hadthemselves been salvaged from demolished buildings.Click to download drawingsIn 2012, the palace and its contents were purchased by the Auckland Project, aregeneration charity founded by Jonathan Ruffer, a financier and philanthropist; as acollector of religious Spanish art, Ruffer had a particular interest in the palaces collection of Francisco de Zurbarn paintings. By 2020, Ruffer had invested more than a third of his considerable wealth into the area in a bid to establish Bishop Auckland as a mustvisit cultural destination. An ambitious 25year plan was undertaken to transform Bishop Auckland into a centre of art, history and culture, where the lines between spiritual and secular are readily blurred.From the upper floor of the palace, evidence of an everexpanding cultural offering can be surveyed, alongside the significant archaeological excavations taking place within the site and the surrounding square mile. In 2014, NallMcLaughlin Architects (NMA), incollaboration with Purcell, won the competition to transform the Grade Ilisted Auckland Palace and its grounds into a national museum of religion and religious art. The 35mtall Auckland Tower at the tipof the towns high street opened in 2018;reminiscent of a medieval siege tower, the structure offers a viewing platform overlooking the castle, town and parkland beyond. A twostorey, monopitched building at the towers base houses an information centre, ticketing office and theAuckland Project offices. As part of thewider Bishop Auckland development, neighbouring farmhouses were carefully repaired and now contain galleries, arestaurant, a hotel and facilities for thegroundskeepers and gardeners. And inOctober 2023, almost a decade after its inception, the Faith Museum opened its doors to the public an extension to Auckland Palace housing a permanent exhibition showcasing 6,000 years of Britishfaith.References range from tithe barns to the exquisite detail of reliquary boxesEchoing adjacent activities, the architects designs for the museum began with an archaeological study, uncovering the presence of a building that formed acourtyard garden with the palace. This discovery, confirmed by archival drawings, dictated the location of the new museum and the proposed Faith Garden. The palace grounds and Faith Museum lie beyond Robinsons Arch, a squat stone entrance that is partcrenellated castle wall, parttriumphal arch and partclocktower. Once through the arch, the layers of history unfold. Two walls, parallel to the path, stitch together the varied typologies anderas found within the palace curtilage. Tothe south, a 17thcentury walled garden sharply falls away; its beds and orchards provide food for the palaces caf. To thenorth, a stone wall is intermittently interrupted by elevations of adjacent buildings an agricultural yard, timber loadingbay doors, the Faith Museum proudly stepping forward, the palaces grand entrance and finally disappears from view towards woodland.The size and sharpness of the Faith Museum silhouette are imposing, but its simple form, deft details and singularity lend a quietly assured presence. We wanted a bold piece of contemporary architecture from the start, explains ClareBaron, head of exhibitions at the Auckland Project. We wanted to signal that there is a renewed future for the site, through the creation of a destination for art, culture and faith. The monolithic museums design considers themes of monumental and ordinary, secular and sacred, contemporary and historic, says NMA associate Jacqueline Stephen, who led the project between 2016 and 2023. Acombination of the monumental and theordinary informs the references used by the architects, ranging from utilitarian tithe barns used by medieval farmers for their church offerings, to the exquisite detail of reliquary boxes containers forsacred relics. The building is secular inits function as a museum, but because of the nature of its contents and the religious associations of the site, we sought to give ita heightened sense of the sacred, byelevating certain details.Click to download drawingsThis elevation is discernible at every scale, across every surface, from the locally crafted finials at the roofs apex, to the stonelined drains where the museum meets the ground. Locally quarried CopCrag sandstone is used to create amonolith full of depth and interest, in Stephens words. The material specification balances consistency and variety, allowing the assorted tones to neither cluster nor create a clear rhythm. The stone was cut bylocal masons in different ways: at ground level, splitfaced to bring out its richness and depth; cut into largeformat smooth ashlar for the firstfloor walls, which expresses the variation and patterns; and assembled into an openjointed rainscreen on the steeply pitching roof. Ageing is part of the composition, as the different stone formats weather in different ways; an elegant concealed gutter subtly highlights the contrast between the pristine facade and the roof that has developed into adeeper shade.At first, the museum appears to be a standalone building; however, the extension is in fact accessed from Auckland Palace via the 16thcentury Scotland Wing. The lower level is partially sunken and the enfilade of galleries are artificially and dimly lit to protect the works on display. On the floor above, however, the main gallery is radiant and weightless. Delicately formed steel trusses carry the faintly stippled acoustic ceiling above; the soaring pitched ceiling engenders an ecclesiastical feel. As elsewhere, everyday details are elevated: floor vents necessitated by the strict environmental conditions needed todisplay such fragile objects reinforce thecadence of patterned parquet floors, popping out to reveal services below. Otherwise, none of the innumerable security and environmental controls are apparent. Sliding timber screens conceal goods lifts with effortless grace. Wooden finishes and parchmentcoloured walls givethe gallery warmth. Walls are intermittently broken by deep arrowslit openings, with predictably perfect reveals.Click to download drawingsNMA made for fitting collaborators. TheLondonbased practices portfolio is typified by its expressive and exquisitely crafted architecture in challenging contexts often steeped in history. From its mending of a listed west London monastery in the early 1990s, to their more recent student halls, auditoriums, sports pavilions and libraries for Oxford and Cambridge universities, the practice often blurs the line between divinity and the everyday intheir work. Toplit, lofty volumes pair with humble materials, and revered finishes fuse with quiet, familiar details.Stephen shares that she has a particular interest in the technical and construction stages of projects and notes the scarcity offemale voices among contractors. We wanted the project to have an inherent simplicity, but knew its success would hinge on the detailing and delivery. This required working closely with the main contractor and specialist subcontractors to ensure the execution matched the projects aspirations, even when that meant having difficult conversations. With a scheme so seemingly simple, there is nowhere to hide. From concept to completion, Stephen has guided the process with an extraordinary level of care. Despite its significant scale and tight tolerances, the finished Faith Museum does not feel weighed down by anyof its constraints. Instead, it is light: sacrosanct.
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    Join the AR in Milan on 9 April to hear from winner of AR Future Projects Gort Scott
    Register for free to join AR editors and AR Future Projects winners at Dropcity during the Salone del MobileWinner of AR Future Projects Gort Scott will present their winning project, New Court for Girton College at University of Cambridge, on Wednesday 9 April at Dropcity in Milan, during the Salone del Mobile.AR Future Projects Live 2025Wednesday 9 April, 6pmDropcity, 60 Via Giovanni Battista Sammartini, 20125 MilanoRegister hereto attend for freeNew Court for Girton College at University of Cambridge by Gort ScottWe will also hear from Malta-based practice AP Valletta as well as Guillaume Othenin-Girard at the University of Hong Kong about their highly commended projects: the restoration of a school in Ghana and an archaeological field laboratory in Armenia.Osu Salem Presbyterian School in Accra, Ghana, designed by AP Valletta and David Kojo DerbanGlkhatun archaeological field laboratory in Urtsadzor, Armenia, designed by Guillaume Othenin-Girard and the University of Hong KongLaunched in 2002, the AR Future Projects awards are a window into tomorrows cities. Spanning 12 categories, they celebrate excellence in unbuilt and incomplete projects, and the potential for positive contribution to communities, neighbourhoods and urban landscapes around the world. Find out more about this years winners here.All winners have been published in the 2025 Future Projects awards catalogue purchase a copy here2025-03-26AR EditorsShare
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    Voysey House in Chiswick, UK by dMFK Architects
    dMFK Architects renovation of the fin de sicle offices of a wallpaper manufacturer strikes a delicate balance between restoration and upgradingMathilda Lewis of dMFK Architects is shortlisted for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice 2024. Find out more about the W Awards hereDoes a landmark have to mark the landscape? Voysey House is nestled in a network of alleys off Chiswick High Road in west London. Anattentive stroller might easily miss it. Yetfor admirers of the fin de sicle architect and designer CFA Voysey, it is a landmark indeed, even if you have to peep down one of the slender passages that surround it to see its gleaming white brick walls and Portland stone peaks. I think the photographers feltduped, says Mathilda Lewis of Londonbased firm dMFK Architects, whenthey came and realised that they couldnt get the perspective for a great photo.Voysey specialised in a distinctively streamlined Arts and Crafts style. His country houses reconcile vernacular forms such as pitched roofs with clean, modernising features like white rendered walls. Completed at the height of his practice, Voysey House transferred his ethos to a structure of a verydifferent stripe. Previously known as the White Building, it was erected for the wallpaper manufacturer Arthur Sanderson & Sons in 1902 to complement a redbrick Victorian factory across the passage.After a fire gutted the Victorian factory in 1928, Sanderson moved out to Perivale. Now its successor company, Sanderson Design Group, has moved back in, thanks to property developer and investor Dorrington. After buying the building in 2020, Dorrington invited Sanderson back and began a competition for its restoration. This waswon by dMFK, with Lewis as project architect. Work started on the site in January 2021 and construction took three years.Its architect aside, the building has a significant place in design history. Sanderson was established in 1860, a year before William Morris started his own company. At one point its Chiswick factory accounted for 98 per centof all British wallpaper manufacture. Sanderson hired many of the leading designers of the day, including Voysey. In1940, it bought the wallpaper business, blocks, logbooks, stock and name of Morris & Co, absorbing its most famous rival. The present incarnation encompasses six British luxury interior brands. The companys 75,000item archive, now housed within thebuilding, is a remarkable repository ofwallpaper design.Voysey approached his sole industrial commission with a typical combination offunctionalism and flourish. The buildings hulking dimensions allowed rolls of wallpaper the length of tube carriages to be unfurled atonce. The walls are built of white glazed bricks, with plinths and window frames in a Staffordshire blue variety. Voysey installed huge windows with curved frames toallow in light for work, but also punched whimsical portholelike round windows onthe top floor. The buildings buttresses resemble those of a parish church. Seen from the south, the roof alternates the crowns ofthese structures with parapets topped with cambered Portland stone coping. But any lofty ornamental flourishes are balanced with concessions to the reality of a working building in a 20thcentury city: the buttresses are fitted with urine deflectors to protect them from drinkers from the adjacent pub.Originally known as the White Building, wallpaper-maker Sandersons office used to be connected to its factory across the passage. Its architect wasthe arts and crafts designer CFA VoyseyCredit:RIBA CollectionsAfter Sanderson left, the White Building became a printing works. In 1968, it was purchased by the National Transit Insurance Company. During this period two shuttered garage doors were sawed into the west end of Voyseys structure. They made partitions, added an internal glass lobby and raised deck and removed the original roof. When it was Grade II* listed in 1973 the transformations had already been done. In the 1980s, architect Charles Lawrence bought the building. Lawrence was a member of the Voysey Society and engaged in piecemeal restoration. He rented out the lower three storeys as anoffice while converting the uppermost into a family home, adding another floor, alightwell and a roof terrace while doing so.Over the years, Voyseys bricks had deteriorated. dMFK collaborated with stonework and restoration contractor Paye to repair them, brick by brick. Lewis worked with the client to mark up every damaged brick. It was almost like a game of Jenga, she smiles. How many bricks could we remove without the building falling down? This was possibly the most painful bit of thejob, and in the end you almost dont notice itbecause its so seamlessly repaired.The practices plan sought to bring the building closer to Voysey without turning back time.dMFK director Joshua Scott says: Refurbished glazed brick buildings canlooklike theyve just come outof the factory.They look almost like afacsimile ofthemselves rather than an authentic restoration. dMFK and their partners aimed to instead embrace the buildings wear and age. The exterior isconsequently clean but not glossy.By renewing Voysey House, the architects have made its layers of history all the more conspicuousThe approach continues inside the building. The steel structure is visible, painted in an intumescent paint to protect it from fire. Voyseys original ceiling of white corrugated metal has been cleaned, but dMFK has kept its joins and irregularities. The first and second floors, home to Sandersons offices and design studios, retain Voyseys original wooden flooring, with visible ink stains andmarks from the presses.dMFK also retained Voyseys service coreat the eastern end of the building, adding modern amenities such as showers and bicycle storage, extending the lift to the upper storey and redesigning the staircase with a bespoke nosing of brass inlay and Staffordshire blue brick. These are all hidden from the main space. Network and power sockets are also concealed behind skirting and in the ceiling. The partitions, lobby and raised deck were removed to create freeflowing, open spaces, as Voysey would have recognised. The ground floor is fitted with movable wall panels, allowing separate areas to be created while retaining sight of the entire space.For the windows, dMFK restored the aesthetics of Voyseys original while doing something new. dMFK reimplememted hissmall panes and thick metal frames, replacing his castiron with heatretaining steel. This has both a heritage and security function, with the portcullislike lattice making it difficult for breakins and dispensing with the need for shutters. Through material investigation the architects also discovered and reapplied the frames original bottle green colour.These windows use double glazing, which enhances the buildings heat retention. Thiswas something weve had to fight for in planning, recalls Lewis, because Hounslow Council has a blanket no double glazing policy to avoid double reflectivity. The solution was to place ultrathin panels of Fineo glazing close together. This decreased the buildings Uvalue by over 50 per cent. Itunlocked us getting an EPC A rating, which is quite an achievement for a building of this age, adds Scott.dMFK did not reverse all the interventions of the previous century. The garage doors wereturned into large windows, allowing thebuildings ground floor to serve as a showroom. Lawrences upper floors and lightwell were kept, but heavily adapted. The third floor, with abundant natural light on one side but none on the other, was perfect for Sandersons climatecontrolled archive, while the floor above has been converted into an office space, retaining Lawrences undulating steel ceiling. Weinitially wondered whether this was a good addition, says Lewis. Do we want to embrace it? But taking all that steel away didnt seem like the right thing to do in thecurrent climate. Other features were removed. There were some very strange drainage strategies when we got in, explains Scott. There used to be an internal gulley where rainwater would just run down. Youdpull a bit of wood off the top and thered be water flowing through it. The lightwell was turned into a terrace, with architectural metalwork and vaulted transoms that resemble the outer windows. dMFK clad the walls of the lightwell with TECU oxidised brass panelling. It already demonstrates a vivid patina. In this it represents the project as a whole. By renewing Voysey House, dMFK has madeits layers of history all the more conspicuous. Returning to the building over the past year has been a reminder that its not the glossy photographs that bring the most joy at the end of a job, says Lewis, but seeing how the spaces work for the people who usethem.
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    Competition: Flyover Futures, Gateshead
    An ideas competition is being held to rethink a soon-to-be-demolished flyover in Newcastle, England (Deadline: 28 April)The contest organised by Newcastles Farrell Centre with support from the Northern Architectural Association seeks concepts to transform the A167 Gateshead flyover which closed amid safety concerns at the end of last year and is now expected to be demolished.The competition invites participants to put forward bold, original and compelling solutions to transform the raised road running between St Edmunds Road and Gateshead Foodbank into a new accessible destination which serves as a connector for the local area.The Gateshead flyoverCredit:Image by the Farrell CentreAccording to the brief: This ideas competition looks beyond demolition to explore the possibilities for re-using, re-imagining and re-constituting the Gateshead flyover and what that could offer the city and the region: from the environmental and economic upsides, to the opportunities for supporting health, wellbeing and civic pride by creating a new green space in the heart of Gateshead.Entries will be reviewed by a panel of experts who will select four winning projects, which will be displayed in a small exhibition at the Farrell Centre in May 2025.Gateshead is large town of around 200,000 inhabitants located on the south banks of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle. Local landmarks include the Anthony Gormley-designed Angel of the North sculpture on the town's fringes.The Flyover Futures contest focusses on transforming the elevated Gateshead flyover which closed to traffic in December 2024 following the discovery of structural defects that could have led to its collapse.The Gateshead flyoverCredit:Image by the Farrell CentreThe structure is expected to be demolished and replaced with a new surface-level boulevard however the contest organisers are seeking surprising and transformative ideas to re-use the structure as an ecologically vibrant destination for pedestrians and active travel.Participants are encouraged to consider new ways of accessing the structure and also the inclusive re-development of the immediate environment. The competition is open to everyone with multidisciplinary teams encouraged.Applications should include a maximum of three images and a short 300-text of description. The four winning teams due to be announced on 21 May will each receive a 250 honorarium.How to applyDeadline: 28 AprilCompetition funding source: Northern Architectural AssociationProject funding source: N/AOwner of site(s): Gateshead CouncilContact details: hello@farrellcentre.org.ukVisit the competition website for more information
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    Westminster Coroners Court in London, UK by Lynch Architects
    Lynch Architects renovation andextension of Westminster Coroners Court reintroduces death in the city while paying particular attention to the needs of the bereavedRachel Elliott of Lynch Architects is shortlisted for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice 2024. Find out more about the W Awards hereWestern culture does not seemto be growing any less squeamish about death. Not for us the towers of silence, or dakhma, of Zoroastrianism, where the dead are left in soaring stone structures for vultures to consume. Passing on in Britain today is perhaps even more taboo than it was for the Victorians, with their jetblack mourning jewellery and widows weeds.With the silhouette of a little Queen Anne house and the colouring and magpielike architectural expression of late Victorian civic values, Westminster Coroners Court was built in 1893 to the designs of municipal architect and surveyor, GRW Wheeler. Themain function of the building, which lies not far from the UKs Houses of Commons and Lords, is a firstfloor courtroom with acoved ceiling and skylight hidden from view by the domestic front of a hipped roof. In the 1990s, an anonymous mortuary was added to the rear, while to the side an innocentlooking taxi rank doubles as overspill space in the event of terror incidents like the 2018 Westminster Bridge attack or tragedies such as the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire.The buildings original purpose to investigate the circumstances of unexplained deaths remains unchanged. In recent decades, Westminster Coroners Court hasbeen used by four London boroughs to process some of the around 200,000 deaths reported annually to coroners across England and Wales. Around 40 per cent ofthese require inquests a procedure that involves bereaved people, witnesses, police, lawyers and sometimes jurors (the salacious nature of some cases attracts paparazzi like flies to jam). What have shifted since 1893, along with perceptions of thestate, are attitudes to the needs of thebereaved, something architect Patrick Lynch has written about in relation to hisown experience of a coroners court following thedeath of his father in a 1992 accident.The job of extending and renovating the Grade IIlisted building was won by Lynch Architects in 2016. What was needed was an additional courtroom, an improved entrance sequence, dedicated waiting spaces, more meeting rooms and modern office space. Project architect Rachel Elliott has been with the job since the beginning, attending competition interviews with Lynch shortly before maternity leave and returning to seethe building through design development tolast summers practical completion (by which time her child was well advanced at primary school).Lynch Architects urbanminded response to an ostensibly practical brief was to offset the Victorian aedicule with the monumental (and far more ancient) counterpoint of a barrelvaulted tomb or stone sarcophagus a move that unequivocally introduces the spectre of death into the teeming life of thecity. From Horseferry Road today, theundeniably tombstonelike face of thepalenew volume ghosts the red brick and Portland stone banding of the old structure in two cuts of Jura limestone, aseam formed millions of years ago.A dimly lit, timberlined space offers a cavelike embrace to the bereavedAccessed from the original front door andbreaking through the existing west wall, thenew wing comprises a tall, barrelvaulted courtroom with a zincclad roof above offices and a waiting area a dimly lit, timberlined space offering a cavelike embrace to the bereaved. Here, the 19thcentury memorial symbolism of a truncated stone column, speaking of life cut short, is borrowed to provide a prop or leaning postfor people unmoored by grief and circumstance. Aleitmotif of arches emanating from Lynchand Elliotts first readings of thesite,including the main elevations projecting apse of window seat, isextended through new and remodelled interiors to signal key spaces and routes. The architects wanted people to be aware of transitioning from old to new; this is achieved at ground level by the marker of a line of exposed CLT columns running through the new openplan office space. Upstairs, openings through theold fabric to the new corridor link are arched and colonnaded, facing off against the limestoneclad wall of the courtroom in atall channel. Passing through to the court, the eye might catch a line from Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Wordsworths odeto London, chiselled in cursive script high up on the wall like a frieze. The lofty character of the inner chamber, which can besubdivided to accommodate different scales and styles of hearing, echoes the calm, toplit dignity of the original court, including its cloak of timber panelling. Outside, the whole is flanked by a pair ofnew secluded gardens, offering space for finding composure alongside flowing water and greenery. (To provide mourning space for the Grenfell bereaved, the eastern garden was accelerated as a separate contract in 2018.) The shadow gap of glazed link that connects old and new was set deeper during design development at the suggestion of Westminsters planners and Historic England. It was a good call, and one of very few comments. Now you can see the corners of both buildings clearly, says Elliott.Soon after the commission became public, artist Brian Clarke contacted the architects with the offer of customdesigned stained glass. Like Lynch, Clarke had experienced the inside of coroner courts, not least as executor for artist Francis Bacon, and had strong views on how user experience might be improved. The stained glass is a way of elevating a secular building, of adding a dimension, comments Elliott. Clarkes panels, evocative of flora that might be found in cemeteries or left by graves, are employed to inject poetry and privacy at key junctures: the ends of the glazed link, the family waiting room, and as a glowing, westfacing triptych in the courtroom. Incorporating a gift into a contractual situation was actually quite tricky, observes Elliott. For the art to be fundamental to the building, the points where the architecture and stained glass meet were important in terms of detailing.In contrast to protracted groundworks involving sheetpiling of the entire site, the buildings CLT structure from Eurban went up in five days during the summer of 2023, with an accuracy and speed Elliott describes as incredibly satisfying. By March 2024, thenew build was watertight and the internal openings could be punched through. Changing attitudes and legislation after the Grenfell tragedy meant that fire engineering was the projects biggest challenge, according to Elliott. Although one cost consultant did suggest that the stone cladding be omitted from the rear of the extension because only the dead in the adjacent mortuary would notice.Elliott studied at Glasgows Mackintosh School of Architecture in the era of Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan, where, shesays, the social purpose of architecture was deeply instilled. Her postqualification experience at van Heyningen & Haward Architects fuelled afurther line of interest in working with historic fabric, leading toaccreditation as anRIBA Conservation Architect as well as aBuilding History masters at Cambridge. AtWestminster Coroners Court, Elliotts work contributed to embedding the spirit of an architectural concept deep into the design development and execution of a newbuild and restoration hybrid, ensuring that the quality of spatial and emotional experience befits the weight and substance of the buildings ongoing public duty. Over time, moving stories of personal encounters with the new building and its stainedglass illuminated spaces willno doubt emerge as part of Londons collective consciousness. Interms of the social mores of death in the city, I would suggest that postoccupancy evaluation might take another century or so.
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