The new Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Rick Mather Architects
I visited the newly refurbished Ashmolean Museum in Oxford the other day, which has recently been refurbished turning it from a stodgy, stuffy space into a light, coherent, and contemporary museum. I then discovered this Dezeen post with more photos and plans.
(I think the Dezeen community must like the project since the it yields just one, positive comment, instead of the usual hundreds of YouTube-esque comments that often plague Dezeen posts!)
The Highline
On my recent trip to New York City, we stayed at The Standard hotel, which straddles the Highline park in the Meatpacking District. It is a brilliant piece of urban regeneration, and I wish it inspired projects in London.
It reminded me to dig out this terrifically inspiring Coolhunting video from this year's 99% Conference, where Robert Hammond - the founder of The Friends of the Highline - talks about the project's history and how it came to be.
Ab Rogers, interior design
Emperor Moth
I had the pleasure of visiting a residence designed by interior designer, Ab Rogers last night, and it was the most extraordinary place I have ever experienced. He’s known for his boldly colourful yet minimal design, which can lead to bizarre but usually brilliant results. Take a look at his website for some more examples of his work. (It includes a somewhat sparse blog which I hope will be updated soon.)
Ab is the son of architect Richard Rogers, and recently gained public notority with his redesign of Little Chef, as part of Heston Blumenthal’s “Big Chef takes on Little Chef” (the results of which can be seen below).
Little Chef
Tate Modern
Architecture for Humanity, celebrating 10 years
Core77 reminded me that the charity, Architecture for Humanity is 10 years old. It has built up a network of 40,000 construction and architecture professionals offer their skills and time for construction projects in communities that desperately need it.
The guy behind the charity is Cameron Sinclair, who won the TED prize back in 2006 for the brilliant concept of open-source architecture through the Open Architecture Network. Here, architects, designers and engineers can share, collaborate, and improve upon their designs through an accessible network, dedicated to solving the problems of shelter needs after disaster and accommodation in informal settlements. The video is well worth watching…
When the Urban Pioneers came to visit…
Just discovered that Sian - one of the Bankside Urban Pioneers - just wrote a very touching blog post about the time they visited the YCN offices. Read it in full here. Sarah and I are really happy that they found the workshop useful. My favourite line was this: “...the office which, from the outside could be just a squat, once inside was a cosy, modern, office space…”. Ha ha! Couldn’t agree more (hopefully the office will look less of a squat once we have finished all the building work downstairs).
The Urban Pioneers is a brilliant project organised by The Architecture Foundation, that aimed to engage and empower a team of 16 – 19 year olds who live or study in Southwark to explore the area and the changes that are underfoot in Bankside. YCN helped out by developing the work in progress website, which we’ll soon be adding the finishing touches to in time for the project’s end towards the latter part of the month.