All articles by Martin Spring – Page 15
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FeaturesDesigner politics
The home of the Cabinet Office, a medley of poorly connected buildings cobbled together over two centuries, was long overdue a makeover. Now, despite the building's listed status, our civil servants are striding crisp glass and steel corridors of power
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FeaturesThe Deptford Rainbow
What Herzog & de Meuron did for Southwark with the Tate Modern it is about to repeat at another deprived south London borough, this time with a dance centre in glorious technicolour plastic. Martin Spring pays a visit to a unique building.
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FeaturesCob satisfaction
The Eden Centre has just got another extraordinary structure, a combination of Taunton and Timbuktu vernacular, it's sustainable and biodegradable, it's got breasts and you can even catch buses from it
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FeaturesSoho fabulous
Lifschutz Davidson's swanky revamp of 20 Soho Square should appeal to the area's media types – and, like the Ab Fab girls, it has squeezed a lot into a small space …
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FeaturesConcrete recast
With prefabrication coming back into style, a radically revised production system could finally free precast concrete housing of its negative associations.
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FeaturesAn urban renaissance has arrived at paddington and it's wearing bicycle clips
For centuries Paddington has been paralysed by high-speed transport, and many are the developers who've looked at it and despaired. Now adroit planning, distinguished architecture and the humble bicycle are delivering a model regeneration.
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FeaturesUp and walking
Opened three years ago in north-west London, the Ambulatory Care and Diagnostic Centre was hailed as a revolutionary healthcare concept: a walk-through day hospital run like a production line. Martin Spring returned and found the stunning building easily adapting to rapid changes in medical practice. Shame it's only working at ...
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FeaturesYoung man in a hurry
The dynamic new head of English Heritage is out to blow the dust off the conservation quango. Martin Spring meets charismatic super-curator Simon Thurley.
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News
SMC Group buys architect in aggressive growth drive
Bullish architecture group makes the top 10 after finalising purchase of Corstorphine & Wright.
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FeaturesGreat expectation
After years of abortive planning, a realistic scheme is finally emerging for the redevelopment of King's Cross, and it's billed as the most exciting regeneration project in central London for a century and a half. In the first of three articles in the run-up to Prescott's urban summit, Martin Spring ...
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FeaturesSense and sensuality
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma synthesises Japanese traditionalism and European modernism in the form of a bamboo house in the forests of China. Sounds about right for this year's winner of Finland's Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award …
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Comment
What's wrong with hospitals?
What is the final great architectural frontier waiting to be crossed? Mobile prefab pods? Space stations? Walking cities? I nominate here-and-now hospitals and health clinics. Of all building types, none has the complexity of a major hospital. And none is such a matter of life and death for its customers. ...
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FeaturesDead on arrival?
With the government investing billions in healthcare facilities, the NHS is finally getting its chance to join the 21st century. But experts are already warning that essential design is being squeezed out of this vision. With technology and medical procedures advancing at the pace they are, our shiny new hospitals, ...
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FeaturesSchool show-off
Boys returning this week to a north London school will find it has thrown off its fusty image and smartened up with a glamorous extension
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FeaturesPulling the leavers
The dearth of construction industry professionals is becoming as serious as the skills shortage on sites. And so few school leavers are enrolling on built environment courses, some universities are scrapping them. So, asks Martin Spring, where will the talent come from to carry through all those urban regeneration programmes?
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FeaturesVodafone's mobile home
One of Britain's biggest firms had to use its commercial muscle to get its new HQ built. But, says Martin Spring, Vodafone's Newbury base is not the colossus you might expect
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FeaturesTowering innuendo
Foster and Partner's 'erotic gherkin' tower is rising fast in the City of London
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FeaturesThe new hedonists
Far from succumbing to Islamic fundamentalism, wealthy Gulf clients are throwing up iconic hotels, casinos and paradise islands like there's no tomorrow. Victoria Madine and Martin Spring found out how British firms can slide into construction's new fast lane
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FeaturesThe wasteland
With 4000 ha of brownfield land, the Thames Gateway could be the answer to London's housing crisis. But in the absence of a strategic masterplan, the area's potential is being squandered.
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FeaturesA taste of its own medicine
HM Treasury has given the PFI the ultimate endorsement – by using it to transform its own Whitehall property. And by awarding the job to a premier league project team, it has proved that a public–private partnership doesn't have to mean cheapskate design