Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Wire: in an article for Domus magazine, design critic Justin McGuirk examines the social and physical decline of London’s social housing, discussing the part played by luxury real-estate developers and how architects have been held accountable.

Council housing blocks in Hackney, Newham, and Southwark are cited as examples, as McGuirk calls for the British government to accept responsibility for the city’s housing crisis and to work with architects to protect residents from the ruthlessness of the property market.

Read the full article here »

See also: our interview with McGuirk on the future of design criticism.

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– Justin McGuirk appeared first on Dezeen.

The 2012 Olympic games begin today and this latticed timber hut on stilts by Hackney architects Studio Weave now marks the direct route from the City of London to the Olympic Park.

The temporary installation is positioned at the start of High Street 2012, a ribbon of streets that lead directly from Aldgate, east London, to the main site of the games in Stratford.

Named Paleys upon Pilers, or palace on pillars, the wooden folly was inspired by the dream-like temples described in two poems written by historic Aldgate resident Geoffrey Chaucer.

The structure will remain in place throughout the summer.

Studio Weave’s project was constructed in place of the 100 metre-tall glass elevator that won a competition for the site back in 2010 but was abandoned when funding couldn’t be raised.

See more stories about Studio Weave »
See more stories about London 2012 »

Photography is by Studio Weave.

Here’s some information from the architects:

Paleys upon Pilers celebrates Aldgate’s distinguished resident Geoffrey Chaucer

To mark the location of the historic Aldgate – where Chaucer lived from 1374-1386 – an intricate timber ‘paleys upon pilers’ (palace on pillars) has been commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects as its contribution to the games celebrations.

The installation secured temporary Planning Permission on Friday May 4th, will officially open on Friday the 27th July 2012 and will remain in place throughout the summer.

Created by the young, award-winning architects, Studio Weave, the construction will also mark the start of High Street 2012, the direct route from the City of London to the games site at Stratford.


The New Aldgate is supported by the City Property Advisory Team (CPAT) and eight other Worshipful livery Companies and will be built from sustainable British Larch supplied by BSW Timber and is sponsored by 4C Hotels Ltd.

Sir Michael Bear, former Lord Mayor of London and President of the London Festival of Architecture says “As a ward member for the area I am delighted that this elegant structure will provide a focus and identity for this area which is undergoing major regeneration.”

Peter Murray, founder director of the London Festival of Architecture and Court assistant to the Worshipful company of Chartered Architects says “This is a delightfully evocative design that brings a contemporary clarity to the eastern fringe of the Square Mile. The old Aldgate was designed to keep people out; Studio Weave’s design welcomes visitors from around the world who will be visiting London this summer.”

Studio Weave: Project description

A gate stood at Aldgate from the Roman Period until 1761. From 1374 to 1386 Chaucer (1343-1400) lived in the rooms above the Aldgate.

Our design is inspired by the two dream poems written by Chaucer while resident in the rooms above the gate from 1374 to 1386. ‘The House of Fame’ and ‘The Parliament of Fowls’ both include images of fantastic dream-like temples of impossible materials and scale, elevated on precarious, precious structures above vast, bizarre landscapes conceivable as analogies for the City.

Paleys upon Pilers is an abstraction of the uppermost room of the old gate and an invocation of Chaucer’s luxurious dreamed temples. The structure consists of a kind of timber embroidery and will sit in the air above the busy Aldgate High Street, supported on pillars decorated with images from Chaucer’s illuminated manuscripts.

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by Studio Weave appeared first on Dezeen.

A theatre in Belfast with a faceted timber interior is another of the six buildings shortlisted for the 2012 Stirling Prize and was designed by Irish architects O’Donnell + Tuomey (+ slideshow).

The Lyric Theatre is located on the edge of the River Lagan in the south of the city and is constructed from the same red brick as the surrounding residential terraces.

The building replaces a 1960′s theatre that occupied the site previously and the new plan follows the outline of the irregularly shaped site.

A multi-level atrium connects the entrance with the 389-seat auditorium, where the faceted iroko wood lining integrates stage lighting and improves acoustics.

The building also contains a performance studio for up to 170 spectators and a rehearsal room that matches the size of the auditorium stage.

This year O’Donnell + Tuomey also completed a photography gallery in London.

Other architects nominated for the Stirling Prize include OMA and David Chipperfield. See all the nominations here »

Photography is by Dennis Gilbert.

Here’s a little more from O’Donnell + Tuomey’s website:

The Lyric Theatre stands on a sloping site at triangular junction between the grid pattern of Belfast’s brick streetscape and the serpentine parkland of the River Lagan.

The architectural design was developed in response to the urban and landscape conditions of the site.

The building site was tightly restricted and irregular in shape. The budget was strictly limited. All the building materials are selected to endure and crafted to weather with age.

The new building replaces a substandard structure built in the 1960s.

The building is the result of an open architectural competition held in May 2003, and eight years immersion in the complex process of briefing, design, fund-raising, demolition and construction.

Area: 5,500 sqm
Completion Date: May 2011

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O’Donnell + Tuomey appeared first on Dezeen.

These hand-drawn illustrations by Hackney design studio Something & Son explain the designs for a temporary spa that opens tomorrow in Barking, east London.

Above: bar and cucumber plants
Top: relaxation room

The Barking Bathhouse will be open for seven weeks in the heart of Barking’s town centre and will feature a series of treatment rooms, a cocktail bar and a makeshift beach made from piles of pebbles.

Above: pebble bays

Homegrown cucumbers will spout from a canopy of plants above the bar and will be used to make drinks, as well as for spa treatments.

Above: sauna room

One room will provide a wooden sauna, while another will contain a cool room chilled with dry ice.

Above: massage room

The structure is being assembled from a series of prefabricated wooden huts and is one of twelve projects taking place this summer as part of arts festival CREATE.

Other projects with imaginative illustrations on Dezeen include a tiny theatre and a row of houses for London’s east end.

Something & Son are based on Dalston Lane in the London Borough of Hackney. Scroll down to see their location on our Designed in Hackney map.

Here’s some information from CREATE and Something & Son:

The Barking Bathhouse, Something & Son
27 July – 16 September

CREATE has commissioned Something & Son to design and build The Barking Bathhouse. Focusing on wellbeing, The Barking Bathhouse will experiment in the latest design, health and beauty ideas to help people feel happy and relaxed this summer during perhaps the most hectic period in London’s history. The Bathhouse will open on 24 July in Barking town centre and provide affordable spa treatments as well as a free social space for people to meet. Something & Son are the design practice behind the hugely successful FARM:shop in Dalston which saw the practice create a fully functioning farm within a disused shop. This new project is one of the Mayor’s Outer London Fund projects being delivered for Barking and Dagenham Council.

The Barking Bathhouse will combine a spa with a bar, where visitors will be able to sip healthy cocktails under a canopy of growing cucumbers and sunbathe in seaside-inspired pebble bays. After soaking up vitamins and being pampered with a variety of treatments – using produce grown by local allotment gardeners – visitors will be able to sweat it out or cool down in a traditional wooden sauna or a cold room with a pioneering ‘dry ice’ chiller. The purpose-built design of the Bathhouse is inspired by 20th century working men’s bathhouses, ultra modern spas and Barking’s industrial heritage.

Andrew Merritt of Something & Son said: “Ideally relaxation should be an everyday experience and we wanted to design a space that can increase happiness and explore ideas of relaxation in an urban context. The juxtaposition of traditional spa techniques and the industrial setting will create a raw but very human space.”

Paul Smyth of Something & Son said: “When you travel the world, some of the best, most memorable experiences can happen in a simple massage hut or bathhouse. And many other cultures see visits to a bathhouse as an essential way to de-stress or spend time with others. We hope to recreate that unpretentious but effective philosophy at the Barking Bathhouse.”

The building design

Drawing on the industrial heritage of Barking, as well as the aesthetic of darkened timber farm buildings found in nearby Essex and the wooden beach huts of Kent, Something & Son will combine functional design and new spa technologies to create the Bathhouse building. The clear roofed structure of the bar area will allow high levels of sunlight into the communal space. In the treatment area, strong spotlights will pinpoint areas such as the nail bar, creating some drama in an otherwise low lit, tranquil space. A raw aesthetic throughout will challenge traditional notions of ‘luxury’ while creating a blissful space to relax.

The pod-based structure, to be prefabricated and docked together on site, has been planned with the future in mind, and when the Bathhouse closes at the end of the summer the different pods will be separated with the aim of relocating them locally for continued use by the community, including local allotment owners, playgrounds and youth centres.

The spa

The spa area will consist of a series of massage and treatment rooms in addition to a traditional sauna and a cold room lined with ice blocks will bring traditional bathhouse rituals to the experience. There will also be a relaxation area with loungers. Massages, body treatments, manicures and pedicures will all be offered, and Something & Son are working with local beauticians and local allotment gardeners to develop natural and refreshing treatments. To reduce excessive water use the Bathhouse will not have communal pools or energy-wasting hot tubs.

The bar

In the bar cocktails, smoothies, snacks and spa treatments will all be offered on the bar menu, the cucumber canopy above the bar providing fresh produce for use in beauty treatments. Next door a beach-inspired pebble bay is set aside for socialising and sun bathing under a partially open roof. Shingle dunes will provide the perfect space to relax and unwind between treatments, or just to come and catch some rays over lunchtime.

Events programme

The Bathhouse will also run a rich and varied events programme with workshops, talks and discussions with happiness and wellbeing as the central ethos. From talks on whether money can make you happy to chocolate making and meditation workshops, the programme will focus on establishing personal happiness. A workshop on the beauty myth will offer photoshop makeovers showing how media images of beauty are unattainable, while laughter yoga, clowning workshops and comedy nights will all bring an extra bit of happiness to the day.

Anna Doyle, Producer, CREATE, said: “We have developed a relationship with Something & Son over the past two years and are thrilled to have commissioned The Barking Bathhouse. Working with Barking and Dagenham we hope that the project will reinvigorate Barking town centre, bringing back a social space for local people, as well as providing a place for visitors to escape the crowds in central London during the Olympic period. CREATE is a great place to nurture new design talents like Something & Son, and The Barking Bathhouse is very exciting project for east London.”

Councillor Collins, Cabinet Member for Culture, Leisure and Sport, said: “I am thrilled that Barking and Dagenham is taking part in the CREATE festival this year, and in such a big way too. The Barking Bathhouse sounds like a fantastic concept and I am looking forward to seeing it operational. I am sure it will have something of interest to everyone and would like to encourage everyone to visit and take advantage of the facilities on offer.”

Entry

Public areas are free. Treatments can be reserved in advance or ordered on site. Spa: £8, £2 for Barking and Dagenham residents
Events: £4

CREATE in partnership with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the Mayor of London. Part of the London 2012 Festival.

The history of bathhouses

While the practice of travelling to hot or cold springs in hopes of curing ailments dates back to pre-historic times, the earliest structured baths are found in the ruins in of the Indus Valley Civilization (present-day Pakistan). These were large communal baths reminiscent of modern day swimming pools. It was in ancient Greece and Rome that public baths became a centre of social and recreational activity. The bathing ritual was developed past immersion or sweating with the development of separate areas for massage and relaxation. Gardens, exercise spaces and even libraries and theatres were added. Meanwhile, in Japan, the historical origins of bathing are based in ritual purification with water, with many early Buddhist temples including saunas for free public use. Bathing in these ancient times was a necessity and socialising and relaxing in these spaces was central to daily life. Roman style public baths were introduced to England in the medieval period but these gained a bad reputation as a front for brothels and many closed during the 15th and 16th centuries. It was not until the mid-19th century that Britain’s first true public bath houses were opened, and by 1915 most towns in Britain had at least one.

Designed in Hackney map:

.

Key:

Blue = designers
Red = architects
Yellow = brands
Green = street art

See a larger version of this map

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which is one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices. We’ll publish buildings, interiors and objects that have been designed in Hackney each day until the games this summer.

More information and details of how to get involved can be found at www.designedinhackney.com.

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by Something & Son appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio David Kohn Architects has created an arts venue in a former sweet factory on the edge of the Olympic park.

The White Building is situated amongst a community of artists on Fish Island in Hackney Wick and accommodates a gallery, an events space, a cafe and a series of artists’ studios.

Lambswool hangs in nets to cover the underside of an existing asbestos roof that is supported by red steel trusses.

Five new entrances lead into the building, allowing the different rooms to be used in flexible configurations.

The project is one of a number of “Olympic Fringe” projects instigated by Design for London for sites bordering the Olympic park. Others include public realm improvements by architects Muf and the London Pleasure Gardens.

See more stories about London 2012 »

Photography is by Will Pryce.

Here’s some more information from David Kohn Architects:

‘The White Building’ is a new cultural venue in Hackney Wick commissioned by the London Legacy Development Corporation.

Situated across the Lea Navigation Channel from the Olympic site, the project overlooks the Olympic stadium. The refurbished building, a former print works and previously a sweet factory, will house artists’ studios, a gallery, hire space, café and micro-brewery.

The project was won through invited competition by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, specialists in environmentally sustainable design.

The competition was organised by Design for London, part of the Greater London Authority, as part of the ‘Olympic Fringe’ a string of small-scale projects aimed at stitching the Olympic Park into the surrounding city fabric.

Hackney Wick Fish Island, a former industrial area, is currently celebrated for being home to the highest concentration of artists studios in Europe.

The end user is Space Studios who contributed to the project brief to create a cultural venue in Hackney Wick that would serve the existing community as well as provide a public face to visitors. Space Studios is a charity that has been providing platforms for artists since 1968.

In response to the competition brief, David Kohn Architects proposed that the White Building would:

» be built by local people for local people;
» foreground the pleasures of making;
» resonate with the history of the area;
» work with the existing building fabric;
» demonstrate innovative sustainable design;
» be realised affordably and quickly;
» show a past and future London at the Olympics.

The eventual built project used local businesses extensively for supplying materials and skills from glazing to sign-painting, steelwork to joinery. The project was delivered on time and budget.

New interventions complimented the existing building fabric, such as blockwork walls on the ground floor that incorporated steel-framed windows. The ground floor was opened up to the canalside and Queen’s Yard to create a light-filled interior with the feel of an urban courtyard.

On the first floor, existing red-painted steel trusses supported an asbestos sheet roof with no insulation. In order to improve the environmental performance of the building and the appearance of the interiors without interfering with the asbestos, lambswool was suspended in red string nets to create soft vaults between the trusses.

Throughout, there was a design approach that sought to use conventional construction materials, but in a playful way. Material junctions were detailed in such a way as to give even the most industrial construction a lightness of touch.

Five new entrances were created that allow the building to be used in a variety of different configurations. The ground floor houses a café, pizzeria, microbrewery and group studio space. The first floor offers four artists’ studios, a gallery and hire space overlooking the Olympic stadium. External works included wide steps from street level down to the canalside.

Space Studios currently have a ten year lease on the property. The hope is that during that time, The White Building can become a significant local asset, well-used by the creative community and public alike. If it proves to be successful, then the project could become key to the retention of cultural activities in the area during future urban change and development.

Address: Unit 7 Queens Yard, White Post Lane London E9 5EN
Client: London Legacy Development Company
Tenant: Space Studios & Crate Café
Planning Department: LB Tower Hamlets
Project Period: December 2010 – July 2012
Construction Period: 12 weeks
Gross External Floor Area: 760m2
Gross Internal Floor Area: 695m2
Construction Value: £550k

Design Team
Architects: David Kohn Architects, Liz Betterton, Saya Hakamata, David Kohn, Tom McGlynn (Project Architect), Ulla Tervo
in collaboration with Michael Pawlyn, Exploration Architecture
Landscape: Muf architecture/ art
Structural Engineer: Alan Baxter Associates
Civils Engineer: Stockley
Services Engineer: Capita Symonds
Project Manager: Capita Symonds
CDM Co-ordinator: Capita Symonds
Cost Consultant: Sweett Group
Graphic Designer: Modern Activity

Contractors
Main Contractor: BRAC Contracts
Blockwork: Plasmor
Glazing: Caplin Glass
Sheep’s Wool: Black Mountain Insulation Ltd
Metal Windows: Monk Metal Windows
Steel Doors: Dove Steel Doors
Steel Sign: PJ Signs
Outdoor steps steelwork: Lemon Steel
Hand-Painted Signage: Ornamental Conifer and Mark Bayley

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David Kohn Architects appeared first on Dezeen.