A fascinating, eleven-storey up-market housing development adjacent to the Foster studio: a scheme of 186 apartments in eleven stories that takes a simple multi-storey block and cleverly bends it around whilst dividing the internal accommodation into a front / back split, so that every apartment has a river-facing terrace. The adjacent social housing block (45 […]

More ‘volumetrics’. The positive aspect of this apartmentblock concerns the service provided to London’s‘key workers’ who can’t afford London’s apartmentprices. However, one can’t but worry about varieties of‘experimentation’ on comparatively deprived sectors ofthe community. The scheme provides very small ‘flatlets’(36 sq. m. one bed, and two-person apartments of 54.sq.m.) made from units of 3.6m x […]

A Southbank University building that is a pleasant neo – Scandinavian surprise on the inside. The exterior, one has to confess, is a less than scintillating contribution to the urban fabric, but don’t let this put you off the neo-Ralph Erskine interior (by a partner of BDP who used to work with the late master). […]

Described as, ‘A Modern self-catered accommodation providing 160 bedsitting rooms, with angular walls of dramatic zinc tiles and bright render enclosing a quiet courtyard with reflective pool. RIBA Award Winner 2005’ Friendship House is a clever and welcome exercise in fitting single-person rental accommodation into a difficult central site — bang up against the proverbial […]

What to do: old ‘60’s wreck of a school; building that needs updating? You cover over its central courtyard with inflated pillows and locate a new school hall for 1000 students right at the heart, crossing the court with a new bridge to promote better flows. The outcome is an iconic gesture that has them […]