Sadiq Khan is considering allowing new towns of more than 10,000 homes to be built on London’s green belt, the mayor’s office has confirmed. Planned communities such as Stevenage and Milton Keynes formed a major part of new housing delivery after World War II, and the current Labour government has revived the concept as part of its plans to ramp up housebuilding in the UK. Source: Daniel Gayne The government’s New Towns Taskforce is currently examining almost 100 proposals for new towns and will recommend locations to ministers in July. London’s mayor announced his own radical plans to boost housebuilding in the city last Friday, including a major review of the capital’s green belt, which could see large swathes of land opened up for development. Khan’s speech came alongside the publication of a consultation document, which gives the first indications of what the next London Plan might look like. “Opportunities for large-scale development (10,000+ homes in each location) in London’s green belt are being considered in areas with good public transport access (or where this could feasibly be delivered),” it said. The document said there is ”significant potential with the government’s New Towns Taskforce”, which it said the Greater London Authority would be engaging with. However, it said that ”any new homes delivered would need to count towards, not be additional to, meeting London’s nationally-established housing need of 88,000 homes per year”. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government’s current position is that new towns housing numbers would not count towards meeting the assessed housing need of the area in which they are built.  A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “We are doing all we can in London to help deliver the homes that are so desperately needed. “The Mayor wants to work with the UK Government and New Towns Taskforce to make sure that any work on new towns goes hand in hand with the development of his next London Plan to deliver high quality and affordable homes.” >> See also: ‘I make it a virtue that I’ve changed my mind’: Sadiq Khan makes a show of green belt housing U-turn, but where might the new homes actually be built? As well as mooting possible new towns in London’s green belt, the consultation document also alludes to using the capital’s designated ‘Opportunity Areas’ as potential new town sites. “We will also explore whether and how the government’s New Towns Taskforce work might apply within London’s current urban area to certain OAs of significant scale,” it said. Opportunity Areas, many of which are in more central parts of the city, are locations identified in the London Plan as having major potential for new homes, jobs and infrastructure. A report by Business LDN late last year said at least one new town should be built in the capital in order to address housing need. The report, developed with consultants, architects and planners, including Arup and DP9, said the capital’s unique political structures made it relatively easy to launch new towns, with strategic plan-making through the London Plan, and a mayor with the power to establish development corporations and responsibility for much of the city’s transit system. It did not pinpoint exact locations for a new town in London, but noted that 60% of London’s green belt was within 2km of an existing rail or tube station and that a number of those locations overlapped with existing ‘Opportunity Areas’, earmarked in the London plan as apt for new homes and infrastructure. Jonathan Seager, policy delivery director at BusinessLDN, said at the time: “If the Government wants to move fast on new towns, London has the connectivity, demand and political set-up needed to get spades in the ground swiftly. ”The city is uniquely placed to house multiple types of these developments as part of the drive by Ministers to hit ambitious housing and growth targets.  ”Building one or more new towns in the capital should be a no-brainer for both economic and social reasons.” Earlier this week (13 May), the House of Lords built environment committee heard evidence in its inquiry into the practical delivery of new towns. John Sturzaker, Ebenezer Howard chair of planning at the University of Hertfordshire, told the committee that public acceptance of the new towns would be heavily influenced by how well important infrastructure requirements are realised in advance. Source: ShutterstockNew towns brought forward by the government may be significantly smaller than post-war developments like Milton Keynes (pictured) ”I think it’s really important that the infrastructure to support these communities is going in before, or at the very least, at the same time as new housing, whether that’s a village hall, whether it’s schools, whether it’s shops, so that you don’t have people living a sort of pioneer lifestyle,” he said “We need to have an infrastructure first approach, which common in other parts of Europe”. The professor also noted that the government’s definition of new towns would include much smaller developments than the post-war new towns. ”10,000 is not very big in terms of a new town. if you wanted a standalone new town like the traditional ones you might be looking at 10 or 20 times that,” he said, suggesting that the government was more likely to be looking at urban extensions or networks of smaller new towns. Speaking to Housing Today’s sister title Building, he elaborated on his comments to the committee and addressed how the government could approach new town development within the M25. “The traditional model of new towns that we’re familiar with in this country, places like Hatfield or Stevenage or Milton Keynes, would be too big to be within Greater London,” he said. He referenced Chapelton in Aberdeenshire and Chelmsford Garden Community in Essex as examples of new towns of a smaller scale. He said he wasn’t aware of any suitable sites in London but said he had “no doubt there will be some”.

Group looking to overhaul Docklands estate in wake of changing working practicesThe Greater London Authority (GLA) has granted permission for a 912-bedroom student accommodation scheme at Canary Wharf in east London. Canary Wharf Group’s (CWG) 46-storey student accommodation tower at 7 Brannan Street in Wood Wharf was called in by the mayor’s office after being rejected by Tower Hamlets councul in November last year.  The local authority had deemed that the development by “virtue of its density and high number of student occupants” would lead to anti-social behaviour and noise that would be “detrimental to the existing residential amenity of neighbouring properties”. Source: CWGThe scheme at Wood Wharf will be home to more than 900 students But officers at the GLA recommended the council’s decision be overruled, which was confirmed after a hearing yesterday afternoon (Tuesday). Designed by Howells, the scheme includes a range of amenities at ground, mezzanine, ninth and roof levels, as well as ground floor retail and two waterside public gardens. Others working on the scheme include Chapmanbdsp as M&E and sustainability engineer, Waterman Group as structural engineer, Arup as fire engineer, T&T Alinea as cost consultant and WSP as planning consultant. The tower will be located to the south of Blackwall Basin and falls within both the Isle of Dogs Opportunity Area and the Wood Wharf masterplan, the latter of which was approved in December 2014 under outline planing permission for between 1,700 and 3,610 homes. A S106 agreement for the scheme requires provision of 320 affordable rooms, secured at equal to or below 55% of the maximum government maintenance loan for living costs. Tom Venner, chief development officer for Canary Wharf Group, said: “7 Brannan Street will be a fantastic addition to the diverse range of residential offerings at Canary Wharf. “We are already home to world-leading education and learning facilities, including the UCL School of Management operating from One Canada Square. “This building will help meet the demand for modern, high-quality accommodation located within a metropolitan environment offering a rich mix of retail, leisure, hospitality and green spaces for students to enjoy.”   Canary Wharf has historically been office-focused and dominated by the financial and professional sectors, but recent years have seen CWG, which owns nearly 40ha of land across the estate, push for a diversification of the site, with additional residential, educational and life science uses. CWG currently owns and manages interests in more than 1,100 build-to-rent apartments and claims that 3,500 people already live in Canary Wharf. Earlier this year, the UCL School of Management doubled the size of its presence in the One Canada Square building in Canary Wharf.

The UK-founded design and engineering giant will support the Nordic Office of Architecture, which has studios in Norway, Denmark and Iceland, and Oslo-based Rodeo Arkitekter. The team won the commission ahead of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in collaboration with Danish practice AART Architects and local practices Snøhetta with LINK Arkitektur. Entries were judged anonymously. The building, located at Normannsløkka in Oslo, will be arranged across two sections: a four-storey base, aligned with the surrounding urban scale, containing studios, workshops, newsrooms and support spaces; and a recessed, circular upper structure offering modern workspaces with panoramic views across the city.Advertisement The upper structure reflects the public broadcaster’s circular branding. It will include 60,000m² of gross floor area and 50,000m² of utility floor area, to include modern studios, publishing desks, post-production facilities, concert studios, workshops, and warehouses. A statement from the Nordic Office of Architecture said its sustainable development would ‘enhance the visibility and integration of NRK in the cityscape, promoting interaction with the local community’. It also described the ‘signal building surrounded by a park that extends onto the roof, with stormwater management and biodiversity enhancing the environment and ecological connections’. NRK broadcasting director Vibeke Fürst Haugen, who was on the competition jury, said panel members supported the Nordic Office of Architecture/Arup/Rodeo proposal unanimously, adding: ‘The solution appears good, robust, open and inviting.’Advertisement Arup director Nick Jackson said the facility would become a ‘world-class media production and an outstanding workplace for future generations’. He added: ‘The collaboration on its new headquarters reflects a shared ambition to create a flexible, future-ready media environment that fosters creativity, collaboration and innovation.’ Planning permission is still being sought for the building, with the broadcaster hoping to occupy it in 2029. Jackson said the win built on Arup’s London team’s recent win with Nordic Office of Architecture on a new stadium for the northern Norwegian football team FK Bodø/Glimt. The wood and recyclable aluminum Arctic Arena, for this season's Europa League semi-finalists, is set to have a capacity of 10,000.

The International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia,  has returned, with its grand opening held in early May. The exhibition runs until November 23, 2025 The Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioner of Canada’s official participation in the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, administers the selection process and oversees the exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. But in addition to the Canada Pavilion, Canadian architects and designers have a presence in several other exhibitions that are part of this year’s festival. Here’s a round-up of the Canadian work in Venice. Picoplanktonics. Photo credit: Valentina Mori Picoplanktonics led by Living Room Collective Canada’s official entry to the Biennale is Picoplanktonics, a 3D-printed living artwork incorporating cyanobacteria—a global first at the intersection of architecture, biotechnology, and art. The exhibition, developed by the Living Room Collective, showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Picoplanktonics is an exploration of the potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that “remediate the planet rather than exploit it.” The installation transforms the Canada Pavilion into an aquatic micro-ecosystem, where architectural structures grow, evolve, and naturally degrade alongside their living components. It was designed according to regenerative architecture principles, and is not only a built object, but also a breathing organism interacting with its environment, which prompts reflection on potential futures of the built environment. The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee. Etude Ile Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault. Photo credit Alex Lesage Les boucaneries de l’île Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault Atelier Pierre Thibault has been invited to participate in this year’s Venice Biennale as the only team from Québec. His project is inspired by the old fish smokehouses, or boucaneries, of Île Verte. With the support of the fifty permanent residents of Île Verte, Atelier Pierre Thibault has designed a participatory architectural project that aims to reinterpret the boucaneries as creative canvases to imagine new uses to strengthen Île Verte’s autonomy. This includes community greenhouses, artist studios, and gathering places. The exhibition aims to highlight, as Thibault puts it, “the strength of a sensitive and collective gesture in response to the erosion of traditional buildings and the major climate challenges faced by inhabitants living year-round in an isolated island environment.” The construction of the installations, along with the exchanges sparked with the community, was documented through photography and video, and captures both the process and the spirit of collaboration that defined the project. Celebrating the Verdoyants’ collective intelligence and inviting reflection on the future of the boucaneries, this participatory project highlights the exemplary and internationally resonant nature of this approach. The Atelier Pierre Thibault project will be on view at the Corderie dell’Arsenale. The pavilion itself will take the form of a temporary, lightweight structure constructed from reused materials, situated on the grounds of the French Pavilion, which is currently undergoing renovation. The curators have selected 50 projects to be featured across six thematic sections: Living With the Existing, the Immediate, the Broken, Vulnerabilities, Nature, and Combined Intelligences. Image courtesy of WZMH Architects Speedstac by WZMH Architects as part of Living With…Combined Intelligences  As part of the exhibition “Living With… Combined Intelligences,” WZMH Architects presents Speedstac, a prefabricated modular precast solution that aims to reimagine how urban areas devastated by war can be rebuilt. Originally designed to accelerate housing construction in Canada, Speedstac took on urgent new relevance following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With more than 170,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and millions displaced, WZMH’s innovation, developed through its R&D lab, sparkbird, aims to offer a scalable solution: self-contained, plug-and-play building modules with integrated electrical and plumbing systems that can be seamlessly inserted into existing structures. The use of modern materials such as high-performance concrete can reduce the weight of the modules, making them easier to lift and move using conventional crane equipment. Using a robust locking mechanism, several modules can be securely fastened and unfastened as needed, to produce an adaptive modular housing solution. The Speedstac system aims to offer a solution to the challenges of traditional construction methods, enabling faster, more flexible, and more sustainable building projects. The Vivre Avec / Living With exhibition is hosted in the French Pavilion. Presentation, Northern Horizons. Photo credit: Blouin Orzes architectes Northern Horizons by Blouin Orzes architectes as part of Time Space Existence  Through a wide selection of projects—ranging from conceptual works, models and photographs to videos, sculptures and site-specific installations—the exhibition Time Space Existence, hosted by the European Cultural Centre, aims to provoke participants to question their relationship with space and time, re-envisioning new ways of living and rethinking architecture through a larger lens. Quebec firm Blouin Orzes’ participation revolves around their first-hand understanding of Inuit territories, where they have been working since 2000. Their contribution is based on their  recent publication, Northern Journeys. Blouin Orzes’ contribution in on display at the Palazzo Mora, and additional contributions to Time Space Existence are on view at the Palazzo Bembo and Marinaressa Gardens. View of Commercial and Residential Towers from Seymour and West Georgia Streets. Image credit: Henriquez Partners Studio BC Glass Sea Sponge Another contribution to Time Space Existence is the work of Henriquez Partners Studio. The transformative mixed-use development which they are presenting merges architectural innovation, social responsibility and urban revitalization, and has recently been submitted to the City of Vancouver. The project is about ambitious city-building, and aims to unlock public benefits on currently underutilized land in a way that supports some of the city’s most urgent needs, while contributing bold architecture to the city skyline. Four towers, designed by Henriquez, draw inspiration from rare and ancient glass sea sponge reefs, whose ecological strength and resilience have shaped both form and structure. These living marine organisms, which are unique to the Pacific Northwest, aim to serve as a metaphor for regeneration and adaptation. This concept is translated through the architectural language of the towers: silhouettes, sculptural forms, and sustainable performance. The tallest tower, a stand-alone hotel, proposed at 1,033 feet, is shaped by a structural diagrid exoskeleton that allows for column-free interiors while maximizing strength and minimizing material use. Developed in collaboration with Arup, the structural system references the skeletal lattice of sea sponges; a concept researched at Harvard for its groundbreaking structural efficiency. Henriquez Partners’  contribution is on display at Palazzo Bembo. Renewal Development Shishalh Project Duplex Renderings – Image credit: Renewal Development Shíshálh Nation: Ten Home Rescue Project as part of theLiving With / Vivre avec exhibition Vancouver-based company Renewal Development has been selected to appear as part of the French Pavilion’s exhibition on housing innovation. In 2024, Renewal Development partnered with developer Wesgroup and the shíshálh Nation to relocate ten high value Port Moody homes set for demolition to the shíshálh Nation on the Sunshine Coast. The Nation has been experiencing an acute housing shortage with 900 Nation members currently on a waitlist for housing. Renewal Development says that this initiative reflects its “deeply held values of sustainability, and reconciliation” and its “work to offer real-world solutions to waste and housing shortages by reimagining what already exists.” The project will be on display in the French Pavilion. The following is a list of other Canadian groups and individuals contributing to this year’s Venice Biennale: On Storage Brendan Cormier is a Canadian writer, curator, and urban designer based in London. He is currently the lead curator of 20th and 21st Century Design for the Shekou Partnership at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Prior to this he served as the managing editor of Volume Magazine. La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London present for the ninth consecutive year the Applied Arts Pavilion Special Project titled On Storage, curated by Brendan Cormier, in collaboration with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). It explores the global architecture of storage in service of the circulation of things, and features a newly commissioned six-channel film directed by DS+R. From Liquid to Stone: A Reconfigurable Concrete Tectonic Against Obsolescence Inge Donovan, based in Boston, achieved her Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Design and Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto in 2019 after growing up in Nova Scotia, Canada. The Curse of Dimensionality Adeline Chum is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Spatial Research and third-year student in the MArch Program at GSAPP. She has received her Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo, Canada and has worked in small and medium-sized architecture firms in Toronto, New York, and London. Oceanic Refractions Elise Misao Hunchuck, born in Toronto and currently based Berlin and Milan, is a transdisciplinary researcher, editor, writer, and educator. Her practice brings together architecture, landscape architecture, and media studies to research sites in Canada, Japan, China, and Ukraine, employing text, images, and cartographies to document, explore, and archive the co-constitutive relationships between plants, animals, and minerals—in all of their forms. SpaceSuits.Us: A Case for Ultra Thin Adjustments Charles Kim is a designer currently based in Boston. Stemming from his background in architecture, he is interested in materials, DIY, and the aesthetics of affordability. Since graduating from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2022, he has been working as an architectural designer at Utile. Uncommon Knowledge: Plants as Sensors Sonia Sobrino Ralston is a designer, researcher, and educator, and is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in Landscape Architecture and Art + Design at Northeastern University in the College of Arts, Media, and Design. She is interested in the intersections between landscape, architecture, and the history of technology. Doxiadis’ Informational Modernism Mark Wasiuta is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Columbia GSAPP and Co-Director of the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program. Wasiuta is recipient of recent grants from the Onassis Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, NYSCA, and the Graham Foundation, where he was an inaugural Graham Foundation Fellow. Blue Garden: The Architecture of Emergence Tanvi Khurmi, based in London, UK, is a multidisciplinary designer and artist. Her practice is focused on addressing and combatting issues surrounding the climate crisis. After receiving a Bachelor’s in Architecture with a minor in Environmental Studies from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, she earned a Masters of Architecture in Bio-Integrated Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. Design as an Astronaut Dr. Cody Paige is the Director of the Space Exploration Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, a team of 50+ students, faculty, and staff building and flying advanced technology for space exploration. The Initiative focuses on helping students take their research into space. The pipeline developed to achieve this works with students from across the Media Lab and the MIT community to prototype space-related research in the lab, fly and test them in microgravity on parabolic and suborbital flights, and finally to take them to the International Space Station or on to the Moon. Cody also has a background in geology, specifically quaternary geochronology, and completed her Master of Applied Science at the University of Toronto in Aerospace Engineering and her Bachelor of Applied Science from Queen’s University in Engineering Physics.   The post Round-up: Canadian-led exhibitions at the 2025 Venice Biennale appeared first on Canadian Architect.