Features

Updating heritage buildings to create a legacy for the future is about much more than protecting our history and the aesthetics of traditional architecture. Heritage refurbishment also delivers sustainability goals for reducing waste and extending the service life of existing property assets.

Ben McKenna started out studying interior architecture at Brighton. From there, he joined a small practice that worked in sensitive locations in rural Kent and Sussex. Ben’s work here was focused on listed building alterations and rural housing. With a desire to expand on what he’d learnt working at a small practice, Ben joined Conran and Partners to work largely on estate regeneration and residential projects in London and the South East. Having recently joined DMWR Architects, Ben talks to us about his time at Conran and Partners and runs through a few of his favourite designs.

In this article, James Gosling of Sto examines the importance of the acoustic environment in our buildings and looks at some of the associated issues.

XAPO (pronounced ‘sapo’) provides online banking services for cryptocurrencies. The company’s Director, Wences Casares, commissioned Lagranja to create its flagship headquarters; the first physical HQ for XAPO, and the first transformation of a historical building for Lagranja..

Several years after 3deluxe transformed the downtown Noor Island into a green, urban paradise, the German architecture office is designing a vibrant, attractive urban beach with a marina as part of more comprehensive tourist infrastructure measures in Sharjah City – a metropolis that is home to millions.

It’s been more than 18 months since the majority of office workers have been in the office full time. While it’s too soon to say exactly what lasting impact the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have had on the UK’s office culture, it’s clear to see that for the time being at least there is likely to be a significant shift towards a more flexible, less regimented approach to workplace-based work, with staff splitting time between home and the office, which has led to a boom in refurbishments as landlords refresh their facilities.

Modern construction projects are more complex than ever, as the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry integrates state-of-the-art materials and technologies into designs to increase usability, maximise resource efficiencies and promote sustainability.

Niralee Casson came to architecture slightly later than most, having already achieved a degree in law before deciding to make the switch. With her student loan already used up, she undertook all of her architectural education on a part-time basis whilst working full-time at Assael Architecture; in 2018, she was finishing her Part 2, starting her Part 3 and working all simultaneously. Here, we talk to Niralee about her switch from law to architecture.

The Global Flora Conservatory, an internationally-renowned botanical collection at Wellesley College, was designed by the American architecture firm Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA Matx) in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team at Wellesley College.

Designed by CLOU architects, Sanya Farm Lab is a 4000m2 four-storey exhibition space, located in the Nanfan High Tech District of Sanya, the southernmost city on tropical Hainan Island. The design focus of this project was to combine the climate characteristics of Sanya, integrate the regional scientific and technological agricultural elements and create a multi-functional research compound and commercial display space.