Landscape Juice

Brinscall Quarry stone used on Gaudi's Basilica de la Sagrada Familia

Stone quarried from a Lancashire quarry is being shipped to Barcelona to be used in helping complete Antoni Gaudi's Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. The stone used for the bell towers on the Nativity and Passion facades is sandstone from Montjuic in Barcelona. The quarries in this region became exhausted and closed many years ago thus meaning original stone could only be sourced from demolished buildings. So began a worldwide search for stone that would match that already used, and it is through this process that the sandstone from Brinscall Quarry, near Chorley, was selected alongside stone from other Continents.... Read more →

London's Garden Bridge is saved by 11th-hour cash deal

London's visionary Garden Bridge has been saved in an 11th-hour deal that slashed £20 million from the cost to the capital’s taxpayers. Talks between Labour mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan, Lambeth council leader Lib Peck, Transport for London and the Garden Bridge Trust reached a dramatic breakthrough that will allow work to start on schedule next year. The key was a cut in funding provided by TfL, from £30 million to £10 million. The other £20 million will be loaned by TfL if needed, and ultimately funded by the private sector or future revenues. It lifts a shadow from the £175... Read more →

Burntwood School wins RIBA Stirling Prize

Burntwood School, a large comprehensive girls’ school in Wandsworth, London by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) has won the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize 2015 for the UK’s best new building. Now in its 20th year, the RIBA Stirling Prize, sponsored by Almacantar, is the UK’s most prestigious architecture prize. AHMM’s transformation of Burntwood School reimagines a 1950’s modernist secondary school campus for 2000 girls and 200 staff. The architects created six new faculty buildings and two large cultural buildings linking original buildings by renowned 1950s/1960s architect Sir Leslie Martin. Every building is full of light and air with double height... Read more →

Gay architects are less comfortable with construction site visits due to offensive banter

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender architects are unlikely to be open about their sexual orientation whilst visiting construction sites. In a recent survey by The Architects Journal, only 12% of those asked said were comfortable with others knowing they were gay. This figure is very low compared to the 70% who were more open about their private life in the office environment. 29% of those surveyed were comfortable with being open about their orientation when in the company of clients or at industry events. 'The biggest challenge is attending construction sites and dealing with contractors who very often use the... Read more →

Sixties celebration of architecturally brutal buildings

This autumn the National Trust partners with Southbank Centre, Urbansplash and the University of East Anglia for Brutal Utopias, a nationwide project celebrating Brutalist architecture. Brutalism was the dominant post-war architectural movement that sought to offer the best of design to the masses through public housing schemes, new universities and venues for the arts and education that were accessible to all. Fifty years on, Brutal Utopias reconsiders this era. For a period of ten days starting on Friday 25 September 2015, a number of one-off opportunities to experience Brutalist architecture anew will be curated by National Trust with our partners.... Read more →

Four Brutal and Beautiful modern buildings given Grade II listing

(image: Capel Manor House ©James Davies English Heritage) Four modern buildings have been added to the National Heritage List for England A cold war bunker in Gravesend, a high tech' warehouse in Swindon, a concrete electricity sub station in Sheffield and a steel-framed private house in Horsmonden, Kent have become listed buildings because of their architectural importance in the modern era. A Roman Catholic Church in Birkenhead has also been upgraded to Grade II status. The buildings are the most recent post-war buildings to the National Heritage List for England, supplementing the nearly 700 which have been added since post-war... Read more →

Truly sustainable wooden dry stone wall

(image: the 22 wood artists behind their Story Wall creation) How is this for a sustainable landscaping concept? This summer, twenty-two wood carving artists, including carvers, turners, furniture makers and sculptors, worked together for one week to create a 'Story Wall' for the Carlow Arts Festival. The result was a concept Story Wall built to resemble one of the many Irish dry stone walls, which had inspired Australian wood artist and writer, Terry Martin, after one of many of his visits to Ireland. The wall is 6.5m long and made of individual wooden stones. Each stone has been cut with... Read more →

The heritage of the Garden Museum goes green

It was proving difficult to track down the Garden Museum, until I asked a passer-by who opened up their sat nav and pointed me on my way, writes Carol Miers. I was meeting Jess Turtle the museum manager and fascinatingly, the burgeoning museum is inside its own de-consecrated church. We sat down in an aisle near to a modern, wooden stairwell and panelling and I learnt that the church has had many reincarnations as there has been one standing here for roughly 1,000 years. Today, it is a nest of ideas, the latest exhibition From Garden City to Green City... Read more →

Explore the architecture and landscape of Rome in 3D

Rome's history spans over 2500 years and regimes from the early kingdom, through the republic, the empire, and later as the heart of the Catholic faith in the Vatican city, each has made their mark on the current urban architectural landscape of Rome. Now, with the release of thousands of new 3D buildings for the city, you can explore the blending of the ages in layered construction of Rome from within Google Earth. Read full post in Google Sketchup Read more →