Features

Here, FC&A looks at some of the responses from within the industry to the Prime Minister Theresa May’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

According to the Health and Safety Executive¹ (HSE), approximately 609,000 cases of reportable work-related accidents occur in the UK each year. Thankfully, fatal injuries at work are infrequent, but the most common cause is falling from height (28%). These accidents often involve ladders.

MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, has completed ‘Chaoyang Park Plaza’, which includes the Armani apartment complex. Positioned on the southern edge of Beijing’s Chaoyang Park – the largest remaining park in Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD) area – the 220,000m² complex includes 10 buildings which unfold as a classic Shan Shui painting on an urban scale.

The outer curved profiles and internal sweeping geometries of the prominent Oslo Airport extension may call to mind FC&A’s lighting feature from back in January. Those who checked in to our first issue of 2018 will recall the airport’s stunning illumination design which synchronises with Norway’s daylighting in a bid to save energy. Here, FC&A explores the Nordic – Office of Architecture-designed extension and finds out just how the scheme lives up to its appellation as ‘the world’s greenest airport’.

Billed as a ‘new London’, a ‘blank slate’ and an ‘almost island’ opportunity to create a completely different urban environment, the Greenwich Peninsula masterplan is possibly the most ambitious regeneration project the UK has ever seen.

Paul Lang, Chief Executive Officer at Caledonian, looks at how modular and off-site construction can help to alleviate the housing crisis in the UK.

Hudson Lambert, Director of Safeguard Europe, considers the issue of penetrating damp in new and converted properties, and how modern masonry treatments can solve the problem.

A major and ultra-prestigious application in the City of London could really put U.S. red oak on the European map.

Taking the concept of green roofs a considerable leap further, Milan-based architecture firm, Stefano Boeri Architetti, has announced the design of Trudo Vertical Forest of Eindhoven – a new social Urban Forestry project in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. This ‘Vertical Forest’ social housing project continues the Italian practice’s design activities in favour of sustainable architecture worldwide.

Beyond the traditional light gauge steel framing markets, the development of volumetric modular and pod products is becoming increasingly important. Steel framing systems provide many of the characteristics that the design and manufacture of these solutions require. Steve Thompson, Managing Director of EOS Facades, discusses future trends and applications.