AJ from The Architects’ Journal. Architecture news and information. Tiny homes called micro-flats

Tiny homes called micro-flats are set to be introduced in London to allow struggling young professionals to join the capital's booming housing market.

The miniature flats, based on the design of yachts and caravans have space for a double bedroom, lounge, shower room, kitchen and balcony.
But they measure just 25 metres square - about the same size as a mobile home.
Their compact layout means the properties will sell for a fraction of the price of the average city pad.
Costing £60,000 - £80,000 the flatlets have been billed as a housing solution for lower paid professionals.

AJ Published 24 August 2001 at 11:33

Grimshaw and Arup design stunning new links into Battersea

The developer of the redundant Battersea power station has unveiled a series of major public transport schemes to improve access to the Thames-side site – including a redevelopment of an existing railway bridge by Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, and another footbridge by Arup.

AJ from The Architects’ Journal. Architecture news and information. Companies, buildings, design, products, jobs Prince’s Foundation launches new-look design programme



The Prince’s Foundation has unveiled the first in a range of new courses now being designed to replace the year-long foundation course which was dropped earlier this summer (see "Prince drops Foundation bombshell").

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | How do they do it?

In Paris, they care about the people who use public transport. Earlier this year, for example, the regional transport authority offered a soothing cup of green tea and a relaxing 10-minute massage to Metro passengers. "Let's dream, let's smile, let's relax, let's love . . . Join us for massage and tea-tasting. Together, let's make city rhyme with stress-free," said the poster. Even the PR-speak is more fruity on the Metro than on the tube, and London is never going to rhyme with anything relaxing.

Read it before ONE magazine disappears into the internet ether....

ONE - Design Matters Finland's Fire Bugs

Most visitors pass through Vuosaari, Finland, as fast as they can. Sure there's golf, the pines and sea shore — it's just that for many, the main attraction is the motorway and metro, which run together to lead travelers away from town into a hot district of Helsinki. Back in World War II, however, Vuosaari saved Helsinki from destruction. By lighting a series of bonfires in what was then a wilderness, the Fins deceived Russian night bombardiers into dropping their loads well away from Helsinki's population center.
Heikkinin-Komonen Architects was given the task of commemorating the glorious deception and created a strip of 132 lightposts that line the road in honor of the fires. A crowd-pleasing special effect was also added: a low fiery glow, produced by the innovative use of perforated metal plates, is projected in a flickering moiré pattern that, to quick moving commuters, resembles actual fire. If they're just going to rush through, you may as well give them a bit of history to remember as they do.
—John Alderman

AJ from The Architects’ Journal. Architecture news and information. Companies, buildings, design, products, jobs Bolivia battles poverty with a competition call-up



Architecture chiefs in Bolivia are waging a war against poverty by launching an international design competition for an urban park with education and leisure spaces.

City leaders in La Paz said the huge park would replace a run-down area as part of a strategy to create "a green urban fabric in the city and its outskirts." The park should allow nature and culture to interact with technology, craftsmanship and industry.
"It must include educational spaces for children and youths and contribute to the promotion of strategies capable of fighting against poverty and encouraging creative aptitudes through leisure activities," said the organisers.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | What does green mean? What does green mean?

We talk about eco-friendly architecture - but is it just so much hot air? By Jonathan Glancey

Gabion: Kasbah meets Archigram: “Architects of Air” in Edinburgh. 1/2 Chill-out zones are undergoing something of a revival at the moment, along with all architectural things one vaguely associates with the 1960s. So it comes as no surprise to find the sixth “luminarium”, by the outfit collectively known as Architects of Air, arriving in the very heart of the Edinburgh Festival.

Architects storm
the Big House
Here's a question for you: Are architects the new mega-stars of the art world? This summer, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have noticed the unusually high number of architects preening, promoting and, well, producing. Just take a look at New York City, where Frank Gehry at the Guggenheim is squaring off against Mies van der Rohe at MOMA and the Whitney in a high-stakes throwdown for attendance records and street cred. Not the usual Pop Art or Abs Exp suspects...but actually two architects, in the very throne rooms of Olympia.ArtKrush - The Artist Run Website

Jeremy Cresswell Northern Business Editor
(jwcresswell@scotsman.com)
THE birthplace of three of the world’s greatest ocean liners - Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and QE2 - is destined to be swallowed up by a massive Clydeside business, leisure and housing complex being masterminded by Scottish Enterprise Dumbartonshire.

Never again will the former John Brown Shipyard echo to the rattle of riveting hammers or the crackle of welding torches as thousands of men crafted ships and, for the past 30 years, platforms and rigs for the North Sea oil and gas industry.

Curtain goes down on the end of an era as Clydeside yard puts up For Sale sign

Architects David Lea and Patrick Borer have followed in the footsteps of Foster and Partners by winning this year’s Gold Medal in Architecture from the Royal Society of Architects in Wales.

The architects clinched the prize, announced during this week’s National Eisteddfod of Wales in Denbigh, for a pioneering building which does not use cement.

The project comprises a number of innovative features including rammed earth construction, autonomous water treatment and renewable energy systems. The main innovations are: unstabilised, non-reinforced rammed earth elements as load bearing supports internally; sheep’s wool insulation within the timber framed external walls; the exclusion of cement from the whole development and solar water heating panels linked to a heat main which is also supplied by a biomass fuelled boiler.


Cement-free building clinches Welsh Gold Medal

London's first covered footbridge across the River Thames is to be called Jubilee Bridge, it was announced today.

The £14 million project, which will connect Bankside to the City, was granted planning permission last night following a council meeting, the Jubilee Bridge Trust said.

It is hoped it will be more successful than the nearby ill-fated Millennium Bridge which shut in June 2000 just days after its official opening when its wobbly state left people walking across it feeling sick.

Bill Higgins, founder of the Jubilee Bridge Trust, said: "It's going to be a lightweight glass and steel structure. We're taking a pretty ugly bridge and making it more modern."

He added that the bridge was unlikely to suffer from the same problems as the Millennium Bridge. "The big difference was that they were trying a new design and also they had to dig into the river," Higgins said.

"We have none of these problems because we're building of the side of an existing structure."


New £14m Jubilee Bridge to span Thames

Survey work to start on Newquay artificial reef plan

A survey of the seabed is to be carried out as part of a £1 million plan to build Europe's first artificial surfing reef, it emerged today.

Newquay artificial reef plan

£150m windfarm plan unveiled

Plans have been unveiled to build the UK's biggest windfarm, which will generate enough electricity to power 150,000 homes.

The new £150 million project, announced by ScottishPower, will be based at Whitelee Forest, 10 miles south of Glasgow, and comprise of 140 turbines with a capacity of 240mw of windpower.
It is the latest phase of a plan to install 400mw of windpower in Scotland over the next few years.


Whitelee Forest windfarm