“Each of the five proposals gave us pause for thought with innovative design responses,” commented LSE director of estates Julian Robinson, who was on the judging panel. “We intend this to be a seminal piece of university architecture so it was important we took time to get the decision right.”
The brief for the Global Centre for Social Sciences (GCSS) includes the demolition and redevelopment of several existing buildings on Houghton Street and Clare Market. Unlike the other entries, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners proposes adding a new public square in the heart of the campus.
“[Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners] have designed beautiful, dynamic buildings around the world and they offered an elegant, thoughtful submission to this competition,” said LSE director and fellow judge Craig Calhoun. “[They] grasped that this would be a building at once for the university and for the city, an enhancement to public as well as academic space.”
LSE staff and students were given an opportunity to vote for their favourite proposal in a public exhibition and the same scheme came out top by “an overwhelming margin”.
“We look forward to an open dialogue with the school, so that together we can create the best environment possible for the university and its students,” added architect Ivan Harbour. “Our new addition to the campus will enrich the urban context and reflect the essence of the LSE.”
Introducing a new feature on Dezeen! This former industrial warehouse in east London has been converted into open-plan apartments by English/Austrian design firm SIRS (+ interactive slideshow).
The building was originally converted into flats in the 1980s. SIRS renovated the building’s top floors and converted them into two penthouse apartments for private clients. Roll your mouse over the slideshow above, and click on the pop-up windows, to learn about the products featured in the apartment.
The designers retained the original cast-iron features and added industrial finishes to the interior.
“The client was looking for a flexible and open-plan main living space in combination with a series of compact bedrooms that reflect contemporary living standards,” said architect Manuel Irsara.
A lobby opens into a large open-plan lounge, kitchen and living room. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf separates a TV lounge in one corner while kitchen cupboards and a counter top double as a bench with bar stools.
The dining room has a small balcony off to one side and a hallway leads to the master bedroom and bathroom, a walk-in wardrobe and two extra bedrooms with ensuites.
Sash windows offer views out two sides of the apartment, which is located at the south west corner of the building.
Solid oak parquet lines the floor throughout and continues up onto wall in sections of the kitchen and TV lounge.
The project also involved the design of a large glazed roof extension. This terrace features a grassed area with a garden down one side, a deck and a glazed pavilion with a flat green roof.
Design brief was to convert and restore two floors of a sought-after former Victorian warehouse building within conservation area into separate large luxury penthouses.
Showpiece of each 252 m2 large apartment is a spectacular living room with open-plan layout and large sash-windows providing light and airy rooms.
Original cast iron features were retained and restored while industrial finishes were chosen to complement the former industrial character.
Each apartment contains three bedrooms with separate en-suites, two independent lobbied entrances, Guest-WC, plant and utility rooms.
The open-plan layout is designed generically allowing flexible occupant usage with variable allocation of different living, dining and working islands.
Project name: East London Penthouse Project location: London, UK Project type: Residential Refurbishment Scope of work: Full refurbishment, Fit-out and Interior Design Client: Private Client Floor Area: 252 m2 (2,713 ft2) per apartment Completion Date: Summer 2013 Architect: SIRS (Sir Solutions) Project Team: Manuel Irsara, Taneli Mansikkamaki Structural Engineer: Fluid Structures Services Engineer: Bob Costello Associates Main contractor: Murphy Building Services Quantity Surveyor: Alun Watkins (Eurotapes)
Lianne La Havas: Twice (Little Dragon cover) South London songstress Lianne La Havas is known for heartfelt songwriting as much as her soulful voice, but it turns out she can breathe new life into other artists’ work too—as evidenced by her cover of…
This golden public toilet in Wembley, London aims to evoke the days when lavatories were “civic buildings that aimed to inspire confidence and pride in a place”.
With a perforated diamond pattern on its metal facade the Wembley WC Pavilion, designed by architects Gort Scott, sits in a newly landscaped and pedestrianised area and is intended to be “a singular and figurative building”.
The project comes at a time when public toilet provision is declining. “The aim was, after all, for a special building that harks back to the days when public toilet buildings were types of civic buildings that aimed to inspire confidence and pride in a place,” architect Jay Gort told Dezeen.
It was commissioned by Brent Council to develop the public convenience for a busy street in Wembley in northwest London. It consists of four urinals, a separate WC, a caretakers store and landscaped surroundings.
The exterior of the structure is made from a shimmering golden aluminium, which is more perforated near the roof. During the day the perforations filter sunlight into the toilets, while at night the structure appears to light up from within.
“We wanted a material that would allow the building to change depending on the weather and time of day,” said Gort. “On a sunny day, the reflectivity and shade of panels make the most of the faceted form, and then at night the perforations allow the building to glow.”
The architects used a traditional stamping machine to create the angular perforations. “A custom-made diamond-shaped cutting tool was produced after many prototype test sheets that were cut in our office to gauge the scale, shape and spacing of the holes,” he added.
Interior walls are lined with white ceramic tiles. There’s also a rainwater collection tank concealed behind a mirror, which uses recycled water for flushing the toilets.
The building has a four-sided concrete base, but looks like a star when viewed from above. Photography is by David Grandorge.
Here’s some project information from Gort Scott:
Wembley WC Pavilion
Gort Scott won the commission to design some new public conveniences on Empire Way in Wembley after an invited competition by Brent Council. The proposal is a modest, freestanding pavilion that will sit within a new garden and pedestrianised area that has been reclaimed from recent road realignments.
This is an unusual commission given the decline in provision of such services by local authorities. The brief called for a public toilet building, containing 4 urinals, a separate WC and caretakers store and landscaping to the immediate area. Gort Scott won the commission via an invited competition by Brent Council. The client required a building that could underpin the aspirations of the borough in terms of quality design and sustainability and form a key part in the regeneration of the pocket park and mixed area in which the pavilion sits.
The design intention was to produce a singular and figurative building that also related to its context and helps to define a sense of place. Standing over five meters tall the WC pavilion commands a presence at the high point of the surrounding topography and can be seen as walking up the gentle slope of Empire Way towards the Town Centre. Each of the building’s sides is subtly differentiated in response to the specific contexts, whether a busy road or public space. The design was conceived developed through a number of physical models.
The ground floor plan was developed to satisfy the brief requirements in a compact and efficient arrangement. It is based on a simple geometry, derived from a square, which suggests movement or rotation and allowing for a simple repeated construction, to minimise costs while ensuring quality.
The base of the building is constructed from concrete and will stand up to the anticipated knocks and scrapes of heavy use. Above head-height the structure becomes a filigree, shiny metal screen, allowing for light and ventilation without letting views in. The perforated water-cut screen further creates the effect of a glowing lantern during the evening.
The interior of the WC and urinals is robust and elegant: Up to 2.1m above ground, the walls are concrete, and tiled in utilitarian white ceramic tiles. A rainwater collection tank sits above the service room, clad in mirror, disappearing in its reflections of the surrounding perforated screen.
Although a small building the project acts as a showpiece for green technologies including rain water collection for flushing, natural ventilation, and PVs that power the lights, hand dryers and insulated D.W.C.
Client: LB Brent Location: Wembley, London Start date: December 2012 Completion date: May 2013 Construction cost: £245,000 including landscaping Architects: Gort Scott Contractor: Brac Contracts Structure: Price & Myers M&E: Skelly and Couch Planting: Brent Council CDM: MLM
French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created a meeting room in a London hotel where guests can relax beneath a canopy with an image of trees projected onto its surface (+ slideshow).
Mathieu Lehanneur designed the space for the Pullman London St Pancras hotel, where it provides a meeting room for business clients who want a creative environment suitable for work and relaxation.
Poker tables inspired the leather edge surrounding the large meeting table, which encourages people to lean forward as they would when playing cards.
“By bringing comfort and a certain suppleness to the table itself, I wanted to instil in each person the desire to participate and be at the heart of the debate, to go from passive to active, from spectator to participant,” Lehanneur explained.
A breakout space features comfortable armchairs and tables arranged underneath the faceted canopy, which is illuminated by a digital projection to create the impression of being “somewhere else, outside, under the trees.”
A series of illuminated boxes with reflective interiors contain unusual books and objects “inspired by the living spaces of scientists, aesthetes or collectors,” and were added to offer guests a source of inspiration.
Lehanneur also designed faceted pebble-shaped containers for storing meeting supplies such as notepads and pens.
The unique furniture designs and interventions will be applied throughout Pullman’s hotels in the future.
Here are some more details about the meeting room:
Pullman and Mathieu Lehanneur invent “Business Playground”: a place to work and a playing field for ideas
Pullman reinvents meetings with the “Business Playground” room created by designer Mathieu Lehanneur. This room reflects the brand’s “Work hard, Play hard” motto as well as its guests’ lifestyle. It combines performance and pleasure with a fresh take on the traditional aspects of a meeting: a meeting table designed like a poker table, a private area for informal conversations or breaks, and a cabinet of curiosities. All these features are designed to stimulate creativity and reinvent international hospitality codes. The Pullman London St Pancras will premier the “Business Playground” room from November 2013, before it is gradually rolled out across the network starting in 2014.
“Blurring” as a source of inspiration for meetings
The Pullman Hotels & Resorts cater for the new lifestyles and expectations of the brand’s clientele of cosmopolitan, mobile, hyper-connected travelers. These accomplished professionals, who travel for business or with their clans on holiday, are curious about the world around them. The “blurring” of private and professional life is part and parcel of their daily routine. As a result, whether they are travelling for business or for pleasure, they want to be able to work and live intensely during their stays.
Pullman is an event organization expert, with over 30,000 events organized in its hotels. It aims to offer a unique meeting experience and remove the increasingly artificial barrier between work and relaxation. To do so, it invited designer Mathieu Lehanneur to create a new approach to workspaces and design a boardroom that reflects its “Work hard, play hard” motto.
Xavier Louyot, SVP Pullman Global Marketing explains, “Our business guests travel a lot. Hotel guestrooms and meeting rooms are part of their daily routine. Quality of service and efficient facilities are intrinsic to all upscale international hotels. So, it’s the experience that makes the difference. It takes inspiration for big ideas to make the leap forward. With “Business Playground” we aim to create unforgettable meetings for our guests, so that their gatherings in our establishments in London, Paris, or elsewhere are unlike any others.”
The “Business Playground” room is a far cry from very formal conventional meeting rooms and disrupts the codes of business with style by focusing on defining elements and unique furniture create specially for Pullman.
In this exclusive interview, British fashion designer Paul Smith shows Dezeen his new exhibition at London’s Design Museum, which contains a room “nicknamed the paracetamol room, because by the time you come out you’ll probably need an aspirin” (+ movie).
Paul Smith
Called Hello, My Name Is Paul Smith the show, which opened today, celebrates Paul Smith‘s career to date and reveals insights into his creative processes.
Recreation of Paul Smith’s office
“The whole point of the exhibition is really about encouragement,” he tells Dezeen while sat in a recreation of his cluttered Covent Garden office that has been created at the show. “It hopefully gives you the encouragement to think, well, I can move on from a humble beginning’,” he says.
Entrance to the exhibition
Visitors enter the exhibition through a three-metre-square cube that simulates Smith’s tiny first shop on Byard Lane in Nottingham, which was only open for two days a week. Smith’s Covent Garden design studio has also be recreated, with material and pattern samples strewn amongst sketchbooks and colour swatches.
Inside Paul’s Head
In a room called Inside Paul’s Head, images of flowers swirl around screens before morphing into prints covering Smith’s garments and accessories. “It’s nicknamed the paracetamol room, because by the time you come out you’ll probably need an aspirin,” Smith jokes.
The next space is a hand-painted wooden mock-up of the Paris hotel room that Smith used as his first showroom during Paris fashion week in 1976.
Hand-painted recreation of the Paris hotel room Smith showed his first collection in
“I think it was six shirts, two jackets, two jumpers and nobody came,” he recalls. “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, nobody. I was leaving on Thursday and one person came at 4 o’clock, and I was in business.”
There’s also a section dedicated to Smith’s photography: “I’ve been taking photographs since I was 11. My Dad was an amateur photographer and his original camera is there on the wall. I shoot all our advertising and promotional material but also work for lots of magazines as a photographer.”
Paul Smith’s stripy MINI and skis
Smith’s collaborations over the years including a MINI car and a pair of skis painted with his signature colourful stripes are displayed together, along with cycling jerseys and a giant rabbit-shaped bin he has worked on.
“It’s really interesting for me to see,” he reveals. “They’re usually all hidden away somewhere. Seeing them all together is like ‘Oh wow! We’ve done quite a lot over the years’.”
A wall covered in 70,000 buttons is used to demonstrate the unique elements found in each of the brand’s stores worldwide, such as a room decorated with 26,000 dominoes at his recently extended Albemarle Street store in London’s Mayfair district. “It shows my passion to make sure all out shops are different,” he says.
Archive garments
Garments from Smith’s archive flank both sides of a long white corridor and are grouped into themes rather than age, while a movie documenting Smith’s most recent menswear show is played in the final room.
Gallery of pictures from Smith’s personal collection
The exhibition is laid out around a central space lined with a pictures from Smith’s personal collection, encompassing photographs by Mario Testino to framed drawings sent by fans.
Giant Post-it note at the exit
On the way out, a giant Post-it note on the wall reads “Everyday is a new beginning”. Smith finishes by saying: “The idea is you come here, you get inspired, then the next day is the rest of your life.”
Paul Smith plays around with a magnifying glass
The exhibition was curated by Donna Loveday and runs until 9 March 2014 at the Design Museum.
Designer Philippe Malouin and his team wanted the space to reference the building’s industrial history, so they retained the existing concrete floor and left pipes and wiring exposed across the ceilings.
The company directors’ rooms are modelled on the offices of foremen in industrial warehouses, which are typically surrounded by glazing so occupants can supervise activities going on outside.
“The most important thing the client requested was a meeting space and a kitchen to fit eight people,” Malouin told Dezeen. ” It was quite a difficult brief because we only had one wall of light to work with. This was the reason why we made the foreman’s offices – if we’d built regular offices the whole space would have been shut out of natural daylight.”
Steel beams with a dark red coating conceal light fittings, while mesh screens and green-painted partitions separate the offices from the corridor.
“The olive green colour would have been used in the building’s original era. It’s a neutral yet masculine colour, which suits the space as all of the company’s staff are men,” Malouin added.
The designers reproduced the company’s circular logo using CNC-cut MDF and inserted it into a gap in the kitchen wall so it sits flush with the surface.
Desks and cupboards throughout the interior are constructed from bare plywood.
Here’s a short description from Post-Office:
The Operators
We were approached by the directors of “The Operators”, a digital agency in Shoreditch, to transform a site in an old photographic storage unit into a creative studio to house their ever-growing team.
The space needed to be flexible, provide both private and communal spaces, while allowing for daylight to travel throughout the space.
Photographic storage unit before renovation
Given the restricted size of the site, it was important to make the most of the space available. The design of the space borrows from the aesthetics of the building’s victorian industrial history.
The offices of the directors were based on industrial ‘foreman’s offices’, while many of the materials used were reminiscent of the era.
Photographic storage unit before renovation
Red oxide was used to finish the metal beams concealing the indirect soffit lighting, and mesh screens were used to facilitate the flow of light through the space while separating the corridors from the works spaces. Bare plywood was also used throughout for the work desks, tables, storage and kitchen.
Working with a small budget and tight deadlines, the space was successfully transformed form an old storage unit to a fully functional work space.
Heatherwick Studio is working alongside engineers Arup and landscape designer Dan Pearson on the £150 million plans, proposing a pedestrian bridge covered in trees and shrubs to span the river between South Bank and Covent Garden. A public consultation on the latest designs was launched on Friday, ahead of an expected planning application in early 2014.
The 367-metre bridge will feature two fluted piers, supporting a promenade that splits into two and is interspersed with benches and indigenous plants.
View from the north bank showing entrance to Temple station
“London is where it is because of the river Thames. But over many years the human experience of this amazing piece of nature has been marginalised by successive transport moves,” said Heatherwick, who also redesigned the city’s iconic routemaster bus.
“The city on the north bank and the historic district of Temple is almost completely isolated from the river by the dual carriageway of the Victoria Embankment that slices it’s way along the north bank and other than its wonderful view, Waterloo Bridge is surprisingly unfriendly for pedestrians.”
“There is now an opportunity to connect London together better, to give Londoners a huge improvement in the quality of pedestrian river crossing in this area, to allow us all to get closer to the river and at the same time to stimulate new regeneration possibilities at both ends where it lands,” he added.
“This is the first major milestone for the project and marks a very clear intent to create a new landmark for London,” said Davies. “The scheme has been shaped and developed into a proposal that will contribute significantly to the future of London’s development and we are committed to ensuring The Garden Bridge will be something that London can be proud of.”
Heatherwick was awarded a tender by government body Transport for London earlier this year to develop ideas for improving pedestrian links across the river. The design derives from a concept by actress Joanna Lumley for a new park in central London.
“I believe that the combination of Transport for London’s brief for a new river crossing and Joanna Lumley’s inspiration for a new kind of garden will offer Londoners an extraordinary new experience in the heart of this incredible city,” said Heatherwick.
Construction of the bridge is anticipated to begin in 2015.
This spiral staircase conceived by London designer Paul Cocksedge will feature balustrades overflowing with plants and circular spaces where employees can take time out from their work.
Paul Cocksedge designed The Living Staircase for Ampersand, a new office building in London’s Soho dedicated to creative businesses.
The design concept is for a staircase that is about “more than a means of moving from floor to floor”. By widening the diameter of the spiral and excluding the central column, there will be enough space to create three circular platforms that can be used as social spaces.
“The Living Staircase is actually a combination of staircase and room, of movement and stillness, vertical and horizontal”, said Cocksedge.
“At every turn there is an opportunity to stop and look, smell, read, write, talk, meet, think, and rest. If a staircase is essentially about going from A to B, there is now a whole world living and breathing in the space between the two,” he added.
Plants and herbs will be sown into the tops of the balustrade. The hope is that employees will turn the greenery into a working garden, adding ingredients to their lunches and making fresh mint tea.
Here’s a project description from Paul Cocksedge Studio:
The Living Staircase
Paul Cocksedge has been commissioned by Resolution Property to design a central feature for Ampersand, the state-of-the-art creative office development in Soho, London.
At the project’s heart are the people who make up the Ampersand community and so the question was: how can a staircase become something more than a means of moving from floor to floor?
Concept diagram
By examining the structure of a staircase, it was discovered that by expanding the diameter and by removing the traditional central, load-bearing pillar, a new hidden space was revealed at its centre. As you emerge onto each floor, you can now enter the centre of the spiral and into social spaces devoted to a specific activity: a place to draw, to read a novel, to pick fresh mint for tea.
Everything about ‘The Living Staircase’ relates directly to the people using it, including the plants along the balustrade, which are not intended as merely decoration, but envisaged as a working garden, each plant cared for by individual members of the community.
The Magazine is a new restaurant venture, taking up residence in the new addition to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery with the interior, kitchen area, bar and structure itself all designed by Zaha Hadid.
Chef Oliver Lange’s Japanese cuisine is served beneath the undulating fabric roof, which curves down to meet the ground at three points around the periphery.
The entrance to the extension is located on one side of the adjacent 200-year-old brick building formerly used as a gunpowder store, which houses the gallery.
Tables are positioned around the sculptural columns extending down from oval skylights. Diners can enjoy views of the surrounding landscaped gardens through the glass walls that curve around the space.
Photography is by Ed Reeve unless otherwise stated.
The Magazine
Chef Oliver Lange opens The Magazine restaurant at the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery.
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid’s first designed restaurant space in her first building in central London, will open on 1 November 2013 at the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Kensington Gardens operated by celebrated hospitality company K&K London Ltd. At the helm of The Magazine restaurant and bar is Berlin-born chef Oliver Lange, one of the most exciting contemporary chefs in the industry, and a past guest chef for Kofler & Kompanie’s notable Pret A Diner events in London.
The Magazine bar will be serving a small selection of light bar snacks, 10am until 7pm daily, catering for the visitors to the gallery.
The Serpentine Sackler Gallery gives new life to the Magazine, a former 1805 gunpowder store, located five minutes walk from the Serpentine Gallery on the north side of the Serpentine Bridge. With 900 square metres of new gallery, restaurant and social space, the gallery will be a new cultural destination in the heart of London and will present an unrivalled programme of exhibitions and events.
Oliver Lange was brought up in a family passionate about food and so began to cook at an early age. While studying art he realised it was cooking that was his real passion, and so he travelled to learn about the different cuisines of the world. His first great love was Japan: he dedicated his young talent to immersing himself in the tastes, techniques and textures of the Japanese kitchen. He was so successful at incorporating the precision and dedication of Japanese cooking into his own European heritage, that his masters awarded him the name Ollysan.
There is an organic flow to the newly designed structure – the continued movement stems from the membrane roof that playfully undulates and is penetrated only by columns filtering natural light into the room – while clear glass walls give the impression of dining within the surrounding garden, landscaped by Arabella Lennox-Boyd.
Ollysan’s experimental cooking, combined with Zaha Hadid’s inspirational and contemporary architecture, creates an overall distinctive and innovative dining narrative – whilst the marriage of the original building instils The Magazine restaurant’s rich and vibrant history. His vision for the food compliments the two contrasting linked buildings – where the traditional meets the modern. Ollysan brings the philosophy of Japanese cooking into his kitchen – its dedication, respect for the purity of ingredients, balancing of tastes and most importantly kokoro (heart and soul) to British and European cooking.
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