News

A ceremony to mark the topping-out of The Leadenhall Building was attended by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, on Tuesday 18 June. Owned by the 50:50 joint venture between British Land Company PLC ("British Land") and Oxford Properties ("Oxford"), the building, opposite Lloyd's of London in the heart of the City of London, has been under construction since early 2011. It is due to complete in summer 2014 and will comprise 610,000 sq ft of office space over 47 floors.
The striking architectural design of The Leadenhall Building incorporates 18,000 tonnes of steel and 70,000 sq metres of cladding.  In one of the most advanced forms of construction by main contractor, Laing O’Rourke, 85% by value of the construction has been pre-fabricated off-site ensuring the highest quality of specification. Steel components have been manufactured and assembled as far as afield as Northern Ireland, transported to the site and lifted into place. 
As well as being the newest addition to London’s skyline, The Leadenhall Building will be part of the City's fabric at ground level, creating a half acre, seven storey galleria which will include formal lawns, seating, mature trees, retail units and an actively managed events space, creating a vibrant and welcoming environment open to the public.
The Leadenhall Building was designed by Graham Stirk, partner at world-renowned architecture practice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. The building's distinctive tapered profile

has been designed to protect the sight line of St Paul's Cathedral. Unusually for a tall building, The Leadenhall building has no central core, with an external mega frame providing the lateral stability and the 26 passenger lifts housed in the building's Northern Core, painted bright yellow, at the rear of the building.
Graham Stirk, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners said “We’re very proud of this moment in the project’s history and contributing to what is the product of all the hard work from thousands of people. This effort is reflected in the very fabric of the building. All aspects of the construction are beautifully celebrated in the design to form a dramatic architectural expression which will become even more evident on completion in a year’s time.”

As part of the 2013 London Festival of Architecture, the Berkeley Group is offering the opportunity to visit Riverlight, the new residential development in Battersea on the south bank of the River Thames.
Gianmaria Givanni, project architect and associate at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, will be giving short tours and answering questions about the development on Tuesday 18 June at 18.30.

One Hyde Park has been awarded an RIBA Regional award, the UK’s foremost awards for architectural design.
In describing the project, the jurors said “The detailing is exquisite, the setting well considered and the material modern yet respectful of those surrounding.”
One Hyde Park was completed in 2011 in a prime location on London’s Knightsbridge, and with views of Hyde Park. The development delivers 86 residential apartments and three retail boutiques in four interlinked pavilions, in addition to extensive leisure and service space managed by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. In addition, on a separate site within the Borough, a susbstantial proportion of high-quality affordable housing - 66 apartments and 4 townhouses - has been created in an innovative restoration and renovation of Peel House, Pimlico.

With less than a year to go until the first exhibition opens in the new exhibitions gallery, the British Museum today reveals the extent of progress on the construction of its new capital project, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre (WCEC). Designed by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and constructed by Mace, the new Centre will cement the British Museum’s reputation as a world leader in the exhibition, conservation, examination and analysis of cultural objects from across the globe. The WCEC will enable the Museum to build on current successes, to store, conserve, study and display the collection for the future.

Located in the north-west corner of the Museum’s Bloomsbury estate, the WCEC is one of the largest redevelopment projects in the Museum’s 260 year history. The Centre will provide a new public exhibitions gallery, state-of-the-art laboratories and studios, world class stores for the collection, as well as facilities to support an extensive UK and international loan programme. This will rationalise and greatly improve the Museum’s operations on-site, and modernise facilities ‘behind the scenes’. These will allow the Museum to extend support to our UK and International partners in terms of increasing capacity for staff training and joint projects.

The building consists of five pavilions (one of which is sunk

 into the ground) and the design is sensitive to the British Museum’s existing architecture, connecting to the historic building whilst maintaining its own identity. The exhibitions gallery is due to open in early March 2014 with a new exhibition devoted to the Vikings (supported by BP). It is anticipated the conservation studios, science laboratories, loans hub and stores will be fitted out and occupied by summer 2014.

The total cost of the project is £135 million. The Linbury Trust, established by John Sainsbury (Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG), and the Monument Trust, established by Simon Sainsbury have together committed £25 million towards the project, one of the largest gifts to the arts in the UK in recent decades, which will be used to fund the exhibition gallery. The Heritage Lottery Fund has committed £10 million towards the project. Other significant benefactors include the Wolfson Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the family of Constantine Leventis, the Clothworkers’ Foundation, the Fidelity U.K. Foundation, Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, the Band Trust and others as well as continued support from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (worth £22.5 million over 4 years). A fundraising campaign from the British Museum Members is underway.

Announcing progress on the project, British Museum Director Neil MacGregor said “I am delighted that the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre has reached this exciting stage of construction. It will provide world class facilities that will allow the British Museum to ensure the care and understanding of its collections for future generations as well as present exhibitions that will continue the success of shows such as First Emperor and Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The new Collections Management Hub will also mean that the Museum is even better equipped to manage loans to and from the Museum continuing to share the collection with partners around the UK and the world.”

“We are immensely proud to be involved in the latest significant step in the 260 year development of the British Museum estate. The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre represents a vitally important combination of a purpose-built exhibition gallery and a celebration of the amazing behind-the-scenes activities. These facilities will be contained in a bespoke 21st century building that provides the next stage of the museum’s evolution.” Graham Stirk, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Paul Davey, Project Manager at Mace said “Mace has been involved in some of London’s most iconic developments including the Great Court at the British Museum and so we

 were excited to be appointed by the Museum again to construction manage this highly prestigious architectural scheme. With construction remaining on schedule, the WCEC will provide important new facilities for the Museum and is a development Mace is proud to be a key part of.”

For further information please contact the British Museum press office on 0207 323 8522 / 8394 or communications@britishmuseum.org
Images are available on request, in the press pack or register for free at www.picselect.com and find the British Museum under the Arts section.

Continuing its ongoing support of the architectural learning programme at the V&A, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have worked closely with the museum to develop their first ever architectural back-pack for families. The ‘Discovering Architecture Back-Pack’ continues the V&A’s line of award-winning family back-packs, which are all full of brilliant hands-on activities, including jigsaws, stories, puzzles, construction games and objects to handle.
This new addition to the series will be the first to go beyond exploration of the museum’s collection as it will also encourage children to think about the building and the variety of spaces they can discover. The bag has been developed with Mike Davies, Senior Partner at RSHP, who has been responsible for some of the practice’s most innovative projects such as the Millennium Dome and Heathrow Airport Terminal 5.
Mike Davies:
“The inspiration for the Discovering Architecture Back-Pack is the spectacular and varied architecture of the V&A itself. The museum provides an extraordinary range of spaces which can encourage children to think more about their built environment. The back-pack introduces children to important concepts which are part of the everyday world of architects and designers.”
The back-pack is designed for children aged 7+ and will take families on a journey to learn about the work of architects

through drawings, colour, connecting spaces, light and materials, and finally construct a model and design their own building. The Perspex model contained within each pack has been designed by RSHP’s Modelshop Manager, Mike Fairbrass, and represents an everyday interior comprised of the key component functions: bathroom, living area, kitchen, etc. Children can use this model to instantly rearrange the inside of a house to create their ideal
living spaces.
Given the subject-matter, the pack takes the form of a messenger bag rather than a more traditional rucksack and contains a folding ruler, pencils, a sketchpad and material samples. The guide with the back-pack has been designed by Harry Woodrow of Multistorey design studio.
Martin Roth, V&A Director, said:
“Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners have brought tremendous experience, knowledge and skill to this partnership with the V&A, and our new Discovering Architecture Back-Pack will be of great benefit to our young visitors. It’s a terrific opportunity for children and families to take inspiration from such a wonderful resource as the V&A building. Opening children’s eyes to the power of design and raising their aspirations for the future are core to the V&A learning programmes. I look forward to seeing families enjoying the back-pack in the museum.”
The ‘Discovering Architecture Back-Pack’ will be launched

on 8 April in the V&A’s Sackler Centre for arts education, with Mike Davies leading a special tour of the museum for families to understand more about the building from the perspective of an architect. Following the tour, families will be able to get their hands on the back-pack for the first time and go forth to reconsider one of Britain’s most treasured architectural landmarks.
Notes to Editors:
About Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) is an award-winning, international architectural practice based in London. Over three decades, RSHP has attracted critical acclaim with innovative projects across Europe, North America and Asia. RSHP employs around 180 people in offices across the world – London, Shanghai and Sydney. The practice is keen to promote the value of architecture to young people and supports the Architecture Foundation Urban Pioneers programme as well as the Mossbourne Community Academy Architecture Club.
The practice has recently led a series of events with the V&A, including model making workshops for families and young people and a talk by Ivan Harbour at a creative industry event for secondary school pupils. More model making workshops will take place this August.
About V&A Learning Department
The Learning Department runs a year-round programme of

events for a range of audiences, both in the galleries and in the state-of-the-art Sackler Centre for arts education. Over 200,000 people participate in these events annually.
There are programmes for schools, families, young people, adults, students and creative industry professionals, including digital and community events and activities. All of these activities are firmly rooted in, and inspired by, the V&A’s collections and exhibitions.
Back-packs are part of a wide offer for family audiences visiting the V&A. To find out more about the family programme at the V&A visit:
www.vam.ac.uk/families
For further press information, please contact Robert Fiehn at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners on tel: 020 7746 0237 or email robert.f@rsh-p.com

The Mood collection designed by Roger Stirk Harbour + Partner & Vidal and Architects for Noken has been recognised by Kbbreview magazine and awarded Bathroom Product Innovation of the Year in the 2013 Kbbreview Awards.

In the 19th edition of these yearly awards, the jury has assessed the proposal by the creators of Mood, on a design, material and application level.

The awards were given out on the 25th of March at a gala London, attended by the team.

A team from RSHP will again be donning their Lycra and joining 77 other riders in cycling to Cannes in time for the MIPIM property industry convention. Kevin Gray, whose seventh ride this will be, will be joined by architects John Dent and Misha Smith.The ride sets off on 7 March from Greenwich Park covering 1500km and arriving in Cannes on 12 March for the grand opening of MIPIM.

Richard Rogers is Patron of Cycle 2 Cannes charity and the ride aims to raise over £200,000 for charity. Two-thirds of the money raised in 2013 will go towards the work of Coram, with Article 25, Tom's Trust, The MSA Trust and the Emthonjeni Trust receiving smaller grants. Coram is the UK’s first children’s charity and works with some of the most vulnerable children in our communities to help give them a better future. 

The private house in Wimbledon, with separate studio/housekeeper’s flat, designed by Richard and Su Rogers, for his parents, has been listed by Heritage Minister Ed Vaizey.

The decision, on the advice of English Heritage, to list the house – 22 Parkside - at Grade II* puts it in the top eight per cent of all listed buildings in England.  Dating between 1968-1970, it is regarded by Richard Rogers himself as the best example of his practice’s earlier work, with a clear link to the Pompidou Centre, which was developed at the same time.

Ed Vaizey said: “This is an outstanding and innovative example of a high-tech steel frame house that has clearly stood the test of time.  Though many will always associate Lord Rogers with iconic works like the Lloyds Building in London, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the National Assembly of Wales in Cardiff, this much earlier building is highly significant too – a masterpiece from one of the most imaginative and exciting periods in private house building in this country.”

English Heritage designation team leader, Veronica Fiorato, added: "22 Parkside, built in 1969-70 by Richard and Su Rogers for Richard Rogers's parents, is an important early work by a highly significant architectural practice. It is an early example in Britain of a versatile

Richard Rogers said: “Overlooking Wimbledon Park, and yet invisible from the street, is a single-storey modern house built for my parents, a potter and a physician, and designed by Su Rogers and me.  I was born in Italy and spent my early life surrounded by beautiful, historic and modern architecture and this has had an effect on all my work.  My mother loved to cook and so the open plan kitchen is the heart of the house where family and friends could gather, very much in the Italian way.

“The approach used to design this building inspired much of my future work, including the Centre Pompidou, designed with Renzo Piano, and Lloyd’s of London, which has now been Grade I listed. The house is made up of prefabricated components, principally steel and glass, which can be adapted to changing requirements. Today, my son Ab Rogers and his family live and work in the house and have adapted it to suit their needs.”

The current Urban Pioneers programme focuses on Croydon. The programme will include ten creative workshops for local students, who will work with a variety of cutting-edge creative professionals to explore architecture and place in its widest sense. Each of the workshops will contribute to a publication documenting Croydon’s built environment and the students’ reflections on it, a new edition of cult magazine The Suburban Press.

On Thursday 21 February, the Pioneers visited Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners studio to see architects in action and create concept plans for the new Croydon
Westfield centre. Tracy Meller introduced the practice and its approach to a brief, and Rion Willard, who is himself from Croydon, led a workshop which focussed on the centre of Croydon and proposed options for improvements to the new Westfield.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners committed to a two year sponsorship of the Architecture Foundation Urban Pioneers programme starting in April 2012, and the Croydon group is the second group of four groups the practice will be involved in.Ivan Harbour launched the programme: “Programmes like the Urban Pioneers help make sure the next generation can be inspired to understand, reshape and improve their environments.”

Follow the Urban Pioneers on their blog.

The fourth in this lecture series organised by Ab Rogers and the RCA MA Interior Design programme features Richard Rogers in conversation with Alex de Rijke and Ab Rogers. 
28 February 2013 6.30pm,
Royal College of Art  Battersea site, Lecture Theatre 1.
Places are free but need to be booked in advance by emailing interior-design@rca.ac.uk

Richard Rogers writes in the Evening Standard:
London’s resurgence over the past 30 years has been remarkable. Far from playing second fiddle as a financial centre to Frankfurt, as was once predicted, our capital is now the most vital city in the world. Only New York can compete with its vibrant mix of business, culture and life. But London faces two serious challenges: the growing gulf between rich and poor, and the persistent shortage of housing. 

More than 40,000 households are homeless or in temporary accommodation, a further 220,000 live in overcrowded conditions, and population growth is expected to add a further 850,000 households by 2031.  Meanwhile, the chronic housing shortage is pushing prices beyond the reach of many Londoners. The question is not whether we should build more housing, but how and where we do so.

We need to build around 33,000 new homes a year in London, but only 25,000 were completed in 2011/12. This is not enough to keep up with demand, let alone deal with the backlog, as spiralling house prices demonstrate. The solution, some argue, is radically to relax planning restrictions, and in particular to abandon the green belt that has formed a foundation of town planning for more than 60 years.

This would be an easy solution — and also a profoundly

wrong one. I do not say this as a rural nimby, though I treasure England’s natural landscape, but as a defender of cities. Allowing greenfield development to run riot would wreck our cities even more surely than it would despoil the countryside.

Cities depend on a healthy mix of uses and people for their vitality. As a pre-eminent world city, London is a magnet to people from across the globe. They come to be close to work, friends and entertainment, and it is this mix of uses — of living and working, of retail and restaurants, of parks and playgrounds, of theatres and nightclubs — that brings life to London’s centres.

Letting the city sprawl would undermine this mix and intensity, reversing the rebirth of city-centre living. Losing population density and mix undermines the viability of shops, transport and other services, leading to segregation between city centres that clear out when offices close and suburbs that are lifeless all day. Suburban sprawl leads to social atomisation and fragmentation and is environmentally disastrous, as carbon-intensive car journeys displace local shops and replace public transport.

Even now we can see the erosion of civic character created by empty brownfield sites, gaps in the urban fabric that can feel threatening and lead to a diminution of public safety. Our town centres and high streets already face challenges.

 As Mary Portas observed last year, many have so far simply failed to adapt to rapid changes in retail, making it all the more important that we defend and strengthen our city centres, rather than relinquishing them to dereliction.

Take Croydon as an example of what happens to city centres without mix and density. It is well served in terms of transport and has a busy office life. But it still lacks vitality, and empties out every evening, like many “hollowed out” US cities. Dense, well-connected, well-designed cities not only make good social sense; they also make good economic and environmental sense.

There may be challenges to delivering brownfield development, but a shortage of sites is not one of them. England has more than 66,000 hectares of brownfield land, more than any other industrial nation, and this increases every year. It is true that some sites are less easy to build on than the blank canvas of green fields, but architects, planners and developers need to show ingenuity in rising to this challenge rather than shrugging their shoulders. Why tolerate the huge environmental and social cost of greenfield development when clever adaptation of our urban centres can immediately link to existing infrastructure?

Making brownfield sites work does not require the abandonment of all town planning disciplines but does call for a more intelligent and design-led approach. The

 Government has, for example, proposed relaxing planning laws to allow developers to convert offices into housing. The proposal has some merit, but unleashing land from all planning restrictions could simply give developers a bonanza.

It is true that there is surplus office space: 18 per cent of commercial space in the London Borough of Hackney was empty before the recession hit and in the country overall there is capacity for some two million additional homes if empty commercial space was used. But simply converting offices is not sufficient. It will not create homes or communities unless intelligent urban design and planning also create the schools, shops and public transport hubs civilised life demands. And why should we rush to convert office blocks when we already have three-quarters of a million homes in England lying empty, and sites with planning permission for 400,000 more?

In addition, empty flats above shops — and the hundreds of thousands of small sites in London of less than one hectare — may not be counted in official statistics but they offer opportunities to shore up our urban centres and to provide desperately needed new housing in every neighbourhood. A more intelligent approach would be to encourage a mix of working and living in these underused properties.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. From an urban design and planning point of view, the well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity. A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces and reinforce the structures of urban life.

In 1999 I chaired the Urban Task Force, whose resulting report received cross-party support. The time feels ripe for the next government-sponsored investigation into how we can regenerate not just our high streets, but our cities themselves.

Burlington Gardens
Dates now confirmed: 18 July – 13 October 2013

An exhibition exploring the ideas and ethos of internationally renowned architect and urbanist Lord Rogers of Riverside will open in Burlington Gardens next summer.  Timed to coincide with Rogers’ 80th birthday, Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out will examine the far reaching effects that Rogers’ active interest in the politics of social justice have had on architecture and public policy for over half a century. 

The exhibition will introduce the public to Rogers’ pioneering ideas about architecture and his important, continuing contribution to the way we think about cities and how we live in them.  Radical, rational and beautifully crafted buildings together with public spirited urbanism and city planning have marked a career that continues to surprise and inspire. 

Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out will include previously unseen original material, drawings and personal items and form a unique look into the mind of a towering figure in contemporary creative life; someone described by the Prime Minister as ‘one of Britain’s greatest ever exporters of ideas’.

Las Arenas is one of six shortlisted projects in the inaugural World Architecture News Adaptive Re-use Award. The project places a retail and leisure development within the circular brick facade of an historic Bullring in Barclona.

The judges commented on the quality of the building and agreed that this large project had fabulous detailing. To Paul Williams, it was the ‘quality and immaculate steelwork’ combined with the existing facade as a ‘brick necklace’ that made it worthy of the shortlist.

The award was won by Opus 5 architectes for the Music School Louviers, Normandy, France.

Full shortlist

<p>RSHP London staff got in the Christmas spirit by wearing their Christmas jumpers to work and raised &pound;195 for Save the Children .</p>

Oscar Niemeyer was one of the last great modern masters alongside Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier.  He was an artist and poet and concrete was his natural material, allowing him to interpret his designs and free flowing ideas.  The last Niemeyer building I visited was his Serpentine pavilion in Hyde Park which although small, was a seminal building.  It communicated optimism, simplicity and beautiful proportions; it made one realise how over complex modern buildings are today.
His influence was felt around the world and nowhere more than his native Brazil, where his buildings represent the perfect marriage between architecture and the nature and culture of the country and its people. Oscar’s National Congress building has become a totem which represents democratic Brazil; it is an internationally well known image symbolising the country’s parliament. In a strikingly different manner, his Edificio Copan represents a great curving residential block in the centre of Sao Paulo, this sinuous and graceful building has inspired a generation of artists, writers and filmmakers.
Oscar had strong social beliefs and was involved in the leftwing politics of the time. Sadly, I never had the chance to meet this great master, it was always one of my ambitions. The architectural community has lost a creative and cultural man today but his legacy will live on.
Richard Rogers

‘Traces of Peter Rice’ celebrates the life and work of Peter Rice (1935-1992), one of Arup’s most pioneering structural engineers and a key member of the Centre Pompidou design team.

The exhibition reminds designers, engineers, and artists of today that Rice’s achievements relied equally on fierce ingenuity and devoted collaboration. The exhibition includes design stories from three of Rice’s projects: Centre Pompidou, the Menil Collection, Houston and the Full-Moon Theatre near Montpellier. It features prototypes, maquettes, drawings, paintings, photography and a new film of interviews with friends and past associates, including Richard Rogers, Lennart Grut, Laurie Abbot and Renzo Piano (also available online).

An accompanying book includes a foreword by Richard Rogers

The proposed Cancer Centre at Guy’s was awarded planning permission on 8 November. The 14-storey building which will consolidate all of the Trust’s oncology services on one site and is planned to start on site in March but is subject to approval by the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Ivan Harbour, Partner in charge of the project said ‘We are delighted by the news that the Cancer Centre at Guy’s has received planning permission. Architecture has the ability and responsibility to improve people’s lives; nowhere has this been more evident to us than at Maggie’s London.
‘We have been challenged by the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to develop these qualities for a large-scale centre of excellence and our competition proposal set out a concept to achieve this. The consented building is the result of 18 months design development to prove this concept and it has been a fascinating insight into a building typology often subserved by regulation and complexity.’

Architects Richard and Su Rogers have welcomed the listing at Grade II of their innovative building known as The Spender House near Maldon, Essex which was commissioned in 1968 by noted architectural photographer Humphrey Spender.

Richard and Su were inspired by the ideals and design approach of the housing experiments they visited in America, the Case Study houses, designed by architects such as Raphael Soriano and Craig Ellwood.  The Spender House was created using industrial materials and construction processes allowing for easy adaptation in the future. The house is essentially a steel-framed box, divided into a regular grid pattern to allow for a car port and a courtyard space in the middle of the project.

The design can be seen as an early marker in the evolution of Rogers’ work and directly followed their work on the Reliance Controls Factory, reinterpreting this simple and adaptable industrial aesthetic for a modern home. This concept would be further developed for the Rogers House in Wimbledon and also forms the basis for the Zip Up Prototype Housing Unit, a concept design that won the ‘House for Today’ competition in 1969. The listing follows the Grade I status granted to the Lloyd’s of London building in 2011.

English Heritage recommended to the Department for

Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) that the Spender House should be listed at Grade II because it represents one of the first steel-framed houses in England, inspired by the lightweight aesthetic for residences developed in California in the 1950s. The decision to use precision steel construction when designing a home is considered a milestone in the history of such houses. It is also one of very few projects by Richard and Su Rogers after the disbanding of Team 4, the architecture practice they ran with Norman Foster and his wife Wendy.

Richard Rogers says: “The design of buildings such as the Pompidou Centre with Renzo Piano, Lloyd’s of London, Fleetguard Factory in Quimper, Inmos and Leadenhall can all be traced back to these two houses.”

Su Rogers says: “The design was a direct outcome of our experiences in building three houses using traditional methods of construction – Creek Vean and the two houses in Murray Mews. All were subject to long delays, faulty workmanship and sometimes poor materials. It seemed a good moment to move on to the use of "hi tech" materials allowing for precision and speed of construction.”

English Heritage historian Elain Harwood said that she admired the Spender House “for its timeless minimalism, its innovation as an economical live-work environment and for the way that, despite its radical aesthetic, it sat so naturally in its orchard setting.”

For further press information please contact:
Robert Fiehn, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Robert.f@rsh-p.com Tel: 0207 746 0237

Notes to Editors:
Richard Rogers is the 2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, the recipient of the RIBA Gold Medal in 1985 and winner of the 1999 Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal among other awards. Richard Rogers was awarded the Légiond’Honneur in 1986, knighted in 1991 and made a life peer in 1996. In 1998 was appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister to chair the UK Government’s Urban Task Force on the state of our cities. He was Chief Advisor on Architecture and Urbanism to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone and has played an advisory role on design to the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Su Rogers founded Team 4 with Richard Rogers and Norman Foster undertaking notable projects. She became a partner in Piano + Rogers Architects in 1970, working on the preliminary designs for the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In 1986 she joined Colquhoun, Miller + Partners as a partner, which subsequently became John Miller + Partners Architects. Since this time she has taken a key role in the practice, with responsibility for the realisation of various large, complex and high profile projects such as the Tate Gallery Centenary Development, the Playfair Project for the National Galleries of Scotland, and the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.

- END -

The Royal Academy’s new architectural space in Burlington Gardens will launch in July 2013 with an exhibition exploring the ethos and ideas of internationally renowned architect and urbanist Lord Rogers of Riverside RA. This exhibition will open a new chapter in the Royal Academy’s presentation of architecture.

Richard Rogers, whose eightieth birthday coincides with the exhibition’s launch, has created new attitudes in architecture and urban thinking for nearly half a century.

The exhibition will introduce the public to Rogers’ pioneering ideas about architecture and his important, continuing contribution to the way we think about cities and how we live in them. Rogers’ work as an architect has always gone beyond the buildings and his advocacy of the importance of public space, urban regeneration and better planning have been driven by his belief in the need to create vibrant cities for all people, poor and rich, to enjoy. His influence has inspired leaders across the world.

Rogers is best known as the co-architect with Renzo Piano of one of the most radical of 20th century buildings – the Centre Pompidou which opened in 1977. He is also the creator of Lloyds of London HQ in 1986 and the National Assembly of Wales in 2005. With his current practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Rogers is working on

projects worldwide including a major extension to the British Museum and a masterplan for Sydney’s western waterfront, Barangaroo.

Radical, rational and beautifully crafted buildings together with public spirited urbanism and city planning have marked a career that continues to surprise and inspire.

This will not be a traditional architectural exhibition or a major retrospective, but rather an exploration of Richard Rogers’ approach to architecture and the credo he has developed. The credo which has informed all areas of his career from his design, writings, the approach of his practices, his many collaborations and his political advocacy and civic engagement.

Richard Rogers RA: Ideas in Progress will include previously unseen original material, drawings and personal items and form a unique look into the mind of a towering figure in contemporary creative life; someone described by the Prime Minister as ‘one of Britain’s greatest ever exporters of ideas.’

A series of debates and discussions on the major urban design issues facing us today will accompany the exhibition with contributions from innovative and influential artists, designers, philosophers and writers.

The exhibition will also be supported by an innovative education programme that will engage the wider public, appropriately, from 8 to 80.

Richard Rogers has added his voice to senior arts figures, including Nicholas Serota, Grayson Perry, Sir David Hare, and Lord Hall, to express concern over the lack of cultural subjects in the new English Baccalaureate (EBacc). The new qualification will replace GCSE’s and stipulates that students must achieve grade C or above in better in English, maths, a language, two sciences and history or geography, but does not include any arts or design subjects in the core curriculum.

Rogers said: “Our writers, artists, designers, dancers, actors and architects are the envy of the world. Arts education should definitely not be marginalised or censored”

Read the full article in the Guardian

RSHP have sponsored a £500 prize for the best student entry to Designing Buildings Wiki between now and 14 December.

RSHP is one of the founding sponsors of Designing Buildings Wiki:the new wiki site for building design and development.The site covers everything from high-brow design theory through to the nuts and bolts of construction. The idea is that if people from every discipline of the construction industry each share what they know, we will make the whole industry better.

The competition is open to all architecture students. The best article posted will be awarded £500 by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and the author will be asked to write a blog for the Designing Buildings Wiki home page. Five runners up will receive a commendation from RSHP and will be featured on the Designing Buildings Wiki home page. In addition, all suitable articles will be added to the wiki.

For full details of this competition and a similar one for engineering articles click here

An exhibition of all the artwork from this year’s10x10 Drawing the City London will run for two weeks from the 1st-13th November at Somerset House. The annual event brings together Ivan Harbour and 99 more of the world’s best artists, architects and designers in the most famous city in the world.

The project focuses on a different area of the city each year, with a grid of 100 squares laid over the chosen area. The resulting squares are then allocated to the participants who create an original artwork based on the buildings and public space within it. These pieces of artwork form a collective snapshot of London from one-hundred personal view points, forming a unique showcase of British architectural heritage.

The resulting works highlight some of the most beautiful aspects of the city as well as the hidden and forgotten details that are regularly overlooked. This project is a unique concept, with the designers of the City collaborating during the summer, turning their gaze back to the built environment they helped to create as well as providing a commentary and critique on the constantly changing landscape of central London.

All work will be auctioned by Sotheby’s at an exclusive closing event, with all proceeds of the sale going to Article 25, the charity that builds solutions to global problems. To browse all the items click here 

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has endorsed the event, saying: “Article 25′s work to design and build shelter for people affected by natural disasters is a very welcome initiative. This latest project is a fascinating idea with some of the biggest names in architecture creating a unique snapshot of London’s landscape. I hope its focus on … London will encourage those working there to dig deep to raise as much money as possible in support of hard hit communities around the world.”

Ivan Harbour will give a keynote presentation at the Victoria & Albert Museum as part of this year’s Creative Quarter. The event gives secondary school students aged 13-19 a chance to meet designers, scientists and artists and find out more about different education and career pathways in the creative industries.

The day includes free workshops, talks and performances at eight different locations along and around Exhibition Road.

Find out more

Wine tourism is a growing market in Spain and, with 25,000 visitors last year, Bodegas Protos has become the most popular destination for wine lovers in the Ribera del Duero region. RSHP were commissioned to design the new building for Bodegas Protos – completed in 2009 – and then invited back to design the fit-out of the main reception of the building at the end of 2011 due to the demands of increased visitor numbers. This space had to accommodate a general reception, a waiting area, a space for the end of visitor tours, a tasting area with a bar, a shop with large displays, and toilets.

The main concept was to create a central piece of intelligent and adaptable furniture that could compliment the cathedral-like scale of the space. The result is even more flexible than the initial brief and Bodegas Protos are able to host large events in the reception, which overlooks the main production floor under the open space of the vaulted roof. This will hopefully support the Bodega in remaining the most visited winery in the Ribera del Duero area.

At the opening, Graham Stirk compared the new design to an altar as “a cathedral of wine should be treated as such.”

The project was developed with the collaboration of the interior designers Diagonal (Valladolid) and the engineers LKS (Madrid).

NEO Bankside has been awarded awards for best Landscape Architecture in both London and the UK in the 2012 International Property Awards.

RSHP worked with Gillespies to design landscaped groves which define two clear public routes through the site which extend the existing landscape from the riverside gardens outside Tate Modern through to Southwark Street. The landscaped grounds feature an orchard of seasonal fruit trees, a collection of active beehives, bat and sparrow boxes and a large and well stocked herb garden; they will act as a catalyst for creating a lively and vibrant environment around the base of the buildings throughout the year.

NEO Bankside was also awarded International Winner in the Best Development(Multiple Units)Category in the 2011 International Property Awards.

A two day exhibition will show designs by the finalists for the 425 Park Avenue, New York, competition, run by L&L Holdings. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners were one of four finalists alongside OMA, Zaha Hadid Architects and the competition winner Foster + Partners. 

Mr Levinson, Chair of L&L Holding Company stated “Each of the four firms exhibited an incredible degree of creativity and inventiveness throughout the process.”

Richard Rogers described the RSHP design:
“We have created a contemporary homage to the quintessential New York skyscraper, by designing a tower that will define the next chapter in their illustrious story. Our solution acknowledges the design attributes of its neighbours on Park Avenue, but brings new qualities: honest expression; generosity; efficiency and humanity. The clear expression of the process of construction is evident from the huge 43 storey steel frame down to the smallest detail, this gives the building a human scale.
“In designing sky gardens, we are reconnecting workers and the city with nature, by using different American landscape ecologies, from forest to alpine, to suit the different altitudes of each garden. These spaces also offer great views of the park and the metropolis.
“A generous open space at ground level gives users and passing public a retreat from the urban bustle. The exterior glass elevators create both a dynamism and an extremely flexible interior.

“It is a tower that works both at the skyline and the street line, has a unique rhythm, and sets a new architectural bench mark for both Park Avenue and the great American skyscraper.”

The exhibit is running as part of the Municipal Art Society’s 2012 MAS Summit for New York City being held at Jazz at Lincoln Center on October 18 and 19.

An original sketch by Richard Rogers is on show in the current exhibition at the Royal Academy:  RA Now, a major exhibition and sale which will see the work of current Royal Academicians including Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley and Grayson Perry exhibited alongside work by Honorary Royal Academicians Frank Gehry, Cindy Sherman and Anselm Kiefer among others. Showcasing the rich diversity of the current membership, RA Now offers a revealing snapshot of the Royal Academy today.

Each item in the exhibition is for sale via auction offering a unique opportunity to buy work donated by some of today's most influential artists and architects. The works are for sale to raise funds for the Burlington Project which will see the RA almost double in size by 2018, and provide new space for contemporary art and architecture.

Richard Rogers has submitted an original pen and ink sketch for a Chateau La Coste Gallery.

The auction ends on Sunday11 November.

As he celebrates 30 years in the industry “starchitect” Graham Stirk talks skylines, scale and style with Property Week’s Hardeep Sandher

Graham Stirk is looking for the person that named his latest masterpiece, the £480m Leadenhall Building in the City of London, after a kitchen tool. “I hate it being called ‘the Cheesegrater’,” complains Stirk when Property Week meets him at Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners’ Hammersmith offices on a Friday afternoon. “Everyone said we named it that and I said: ‘You have got to be joking’. Why would I name it the Cheesegrater? We never use metaphors in that way.”
Stirk is the “starchitect” behind the 610,000 sq ft tower that is being developed by British Land. The property will be home to insurer Aon, which agreed last summer to occupy almost one-third of it. Stirk has been working on the scheme for 12 years, from its inception in 2000 to its brief hiatus when the credit crunch hit, to today, less than two years away from completion.
Read the rest of the article in Property Week

Richard Rogers has been honoured by the Design Futures Council as Senior Fellow for significant contributions toward the understanding of changing trends, new research, and applied knowledge that improve the built environment and the human condition.

The Design Futures Council is an interdisciplinary network of design, product, and construction leaders exploring global trends, challenges, and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of the industry and environment. Members include leading architecture and design firms, dynamic manufacturers, service providers, and forward-thinking AEC firms of all sizes that take an active interest in their future. This year’s honours include16 people including Bjarke Ingels, Debra Lehman-Smith, William Sharples and Frank Duffy.

The topping out of the penultimate building at Chiswick Park was celebrated on 19 September.

RSHP started work on the site in 1999 developing a Masterplan for the site, and has continued to build it out in phases responding to market conditions over the past 10 years. Building 6, which is the tallest building to date at Chiswick Park, represents the 11th building on the site with the final building, 7, currently under development. This final phase will add 548,000sqft of high quality office space to the site. 

Norwegian oil and energy company Aker Solutions will lease the building when it completes in May 2013.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is again opening the doors to its studio for London Open House.

Open House London is the annual opportunity to discover over 750 buildings, major construction and engineering achievements, neighbourhood and landscape walks, architect’s talks, boat tours and more taking place on 22-23 September 2012.

Thames Wharf Studio will be open on Saturday from 10.00am – 4.00pm for tours of the practice by those who work here. Tours take approximately 45 minutes, with the final tour starting at 3.30pm.

In addition, a number of buildings designed by the practice will be open, including Maggie’s London, Channel 4 Headquarters, Lloyds of London and the O2. Liam O’Conner, artist in residence at the British Museum will also be showing his work which has been documenting the construction of the new World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre in Room 66 of the Museum.

Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners will be putting their walking boots on for London Maggie’s Night Hike again this year. Overnight on 21 September, teams from the practice (with their friends and family) will walk 10 or 20 miles to raise money for Maggie’s .

Ivan Harbour, Partner in charge of Maggie’s London Centre has done the hike three times before: “Working on Maggie’s London was a huge privilege for the practice. It’s great to work on something so vital and it served as a reminder that a project doesn’t need to be big or complicated with a huge budget to be successful.

“We’ve always believed that great buildings are reliant on great clients and Maggie’s is no exception. RSHP built up a fantastic relationship with the Maggie’s team while working on the project and winning the Stirling Prize felt like the perfect ending to such a close collaboration. The practice is proud to be taking part in the Maggie’s night hike once again this year.

“This is the 4th year that RSHP have taken part in the night hike, and many people have done it several times. It is a great opportunity to do something truly challenging as well as get inside some of London’s most exclusive buildings. Teamwork and charitable donations are written into the constitution of the practice and the hike gives us the opportunity to do both.”

Pritzker Prize-winning British Architect Richard Rogers and his practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), are presenting over 40 years of their best works in a major exhibition, “Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City” at the Beijing Capital Museum, 21 September to 18 November 2012. The exhibition is a flagship design project within UK Now – A Festival of the UK Arts and Creative Industries – and an important part of the Beijing International Design Week.

About the Exhibition

The “Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City” exhibition premiered in Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 2007 and has since travelled to London, Barcelona, Madrid, Taipei, Singapore and Hong Kong attracting more than half a million visitors to date.

Starting with Richard’s early collaborations with Norman Foster in the 1960s and Renzo Piano in the 1970s, the exhibition covers iconic projects such as Centre Pompidou, Lloyd’s of London and Terminal 4 at Barajas Airport, Madrid, as well as exhibiting current ongoing projects such as the World Conservation and Exhibition Centre at the British Museum, the Leadenhall Building in the City of London and Tower 3 at the World Trade Center site in New York. The exhibition offers an enlightening and insightful journey into

how architecture has shaped cities and it covers key issues and challenges of our times, from environmental sustainability, to creating compact, 24-hour cities, and innovation in architectural production processes.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and the Beijing Capital Museum will run family workshops during the exhibition. The workshops are designed to introduce young people to architecture by giving them an overview of the processes of design – understanding a brief, designing a building and create a model within the context of a city. Using a map of Beijing, participants will allocate different building types and land uses, gaining knowledge of the relationship between buildings and public spaces. RSHP architectural modelmakers will give a demonstration on how to build a model and give hands-on advice and guidance on how to realise the participant’s model design using recycled and professional modelmaking materials. At the end of the workshop, all participants will present their designs to the group and their models will be displayed on the map to create a new city.

Some of the exhibition highlights include:

• A bright pink 1:2 scale model of a key structural node used at Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport, London

• Original film footage from the 1970s showing the construction of the Centre Pompidou, Paris

• New projects being shown for the first time in Beijing

• An exclusive video interview with Richard Rogers discussing his early works, inspiration and influences

• An interactive model of the Shanghai Pudong Masterplan

• A 35-metre-long timeline incorporating all key works of Richard Rogers and his partners covering more than four decades

• A KONE lift installation

We are very grateful to the KONE Corporation for all their support with this exhibition.

Thirteen years ago I chaired the government’s Urban Task Force, which was asked to advise on how to build 4m dwellings in England to tackle its long-standing housing shortage. One of our recommendations was that previously developed “brownfield” land could accommodate the vast majority of new housing needed. That, we argued, would allow us to protect the countryside, build homes in a more sustainable way and strengthen and revitalise existing towns and cities, rather than allowing them to spill into sprawl.

Sprawl fails us on every count. The soulless tracts of bland development cannot maintain the vitality and intensity of use needed to support transport infrastructure, local shops or community cohesion. It drains the lifeblood from city centres and undermines energy efficient lifestyles.

Richard Rogers

To read the rest of this article, please click here

This article appeared in the Financial Times, 10 September 2012

The Shard is a truly beautiful addition to the London skyline. I have long been an advocate of more tall buildings for this great city and, personally, I think the Shard could have been 10 storeys higher. It's the human scale of buildings that makes them work, not the height or width. Renzo is a master craftsman and every project he works on is handled with great delicacy, skyscrapers no exception. The future of the well-designed city has to be compact and dense. We have to protect our countryside and so in the urban environment we must intensify on existing brownfield sites and build upwards. It is, after all, much more sustainable to take a lift instead of driving a car.

I believe in both continuity and change but what’s different now is that things have become global. We have to think of London as a world-class city because it is. We lead the way in many respects and architecture is part of this. Renzo has designed a building that draws attention back to London and signals the city as progressive in terms of technology, construction, development and architecture.

This article appeared in the Architectural Review, August 2012

Lambeth Planning Committee members voted unanimously to grant permission for the application of Eastbury House.

Located on the Albert Embankment, opposite the Tate Britain and within sight of the Houses of Parliament, this redevelopment of a 1960s office building will offer a high quality, mixed-use development, including apartments, offices and a cafe. The building is formed of three stepped bays, providing a dynamic skyline of varying heights in contrast to the existing ‘wall’ of monotonous and dilapidated developments that occupy this area. Eastbury House represents a desire to improve the environment of the riverfront that is so close to the heart of central London.

At the base of the building, a four-storey public space will be created offering a café and access through to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens via Tinworth Street. The height of this public space is on par with the neighbouring Rose pub which is part of the Albert Embankment conservation area. This project will create a strong visual presence along the riverfront and act as a gateway to east Lambeth as well as a natural gathering space, overlooking Albert Embankment Gardens. This space will become a focus for both the general public and building occupants, whether they are residents, workers or simply passersby stopping to use the cafe.

All apartments will greatly benefit from the east-west orientation of the site. The vertical circulation core is placed on the eastern elevation, allowing most living spaces to be positioned on the western side of the building where they can enjoy views out to the river and sunsets in the evening. Bedrooms and winter gardens are therefore placed on the eastern side so that they can appreciate the morning sun. The different uses of space within the building are arranged vertically, with commercial office spaces occupying the three floors above the café and public piazza and 46 dwellings on top of this, with a mixture of private and affordable units which accommodate a range of apartment types.

The structure of the building is a simple concrete frame with steel bracing used to provide stability. This allows for the east and west facades to be primarily glass – creating a lightweight, transparent envelope – and enables open and flexible floor plates. Balconies and winter gardens are formed of a lightweight steel structure with colour applied to the undersides, to brighten the exterior in contrast to the building’s monochromatic surroundings.

Cultural placemaking is at the heart of St James developments and as such a culture and placemaking strategy has evolved through the design of the scheme. A consultation exercise will be led by an artist (to be appointed) in order to develop a set of community focused ideas that will feed into two schemes for the public realm: the Connecting Communities Commission and the Green Links Programme as well as providing art work on site.

Graham Stirk, Partner in charge of Eastbury House, said:“We are very happy with Lambeth’s decision. We have designed a highly flexible residential building that is tailored to its fantastic riverside setting and look forward to making further improvements in the next stage of detailed design developments.”

ideas that will feed into two schemes for the public realm: the Connecting Communities Commission and the Green Links Programme as well as providing art work on site.

Graham Stirk, Partner in charge of Eastbury House, said:“We are very happy with Lambeth’s decision. We have designed a highly flexible residential building that is tailored to its fantastic riverside setting and look forward to making further improvements in the next stage of detailed design developments.”

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners have teamed up with the V&A museum to promote architecture and the architectural collections of the museum.

RSHP Modelmakers are working with children from five to twelve years old to design and create a model city, taking inspiration from the museum building and models within the collection.

Workshops take place on 14 August and 21 August and places can be booked here

The Global Business Summit on Creative Services held on 30 July 2012 aimed top address the challenges of and develop new partnerships for growth in Advertising, Media, Design and Architecture.

Richard Rogers used examples of his own practice’s work and others to discuss the importance of good design, regeneration and the legacy of the London Olympics.

He gave a similar speech to the China Day on 27 July.

Watch Richard Rogers speech

More from the Creative Services Summit

Mossbourne Community Academy, supported by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), has set up an Architecture Club for 12- to 14-year-olds. The British Council invited the school to join the Cultural Olympiad and pupils were encouraged to create designs for buildings and installations for their local area. Using mood boards, drawings, computer-aided design and by building models the students created imaginative and detailed projects that would look at home in a professional architectural studio. As part of the project, the students visited the RSHP studio to meet Ivan Harbour and Richard Rogers and learn about how the design of their school was developed. The entire project has been captured in a new short (8 minute) photofilm by photographer Mark Burton. The film is available to watch here

“The student’s work surpassed my expectations...and mine are very high! Older students would go off and do research but I wasn’t expecting the younger students to do this. They were taking their work home and when we came in on Tuesday lunchtimes they would be there waiting for help.” - Rob Griffin, Head of Learning: Art & Technology

“I’ve been considering art but never considered becoming an architect. Now I’m definitely considering it.” – Joe, student at Mossbourne Community Academy

To coincide with the London2012 Olympics, UK Trade & Investment has organised a series of business summits to welcome international business leaders.

On 27 July, Richard will be addressing a diverse group of Chinese business leaders as well as UK and international politicians at the China Business Day.

His second key note will be to an audience made up international business leaders and politicians with an interest in the Creative Industries on 30 July. Also speaking at the event will be Martin Sorrell (Advertising), Christopher Bailey (Burberry) and Jonathan Ive (Apple).

His role underlines the comment that David Cameron made at a No10 event earlier this year that Richard is “one of the greatest exporters of ideas in the UK”. He will talk about how British architecture in general, and his own practice in particular achieves this.

Over two weeks, over 40,000 people visited the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City Exhibition in Hong Kong’s ifc mall.

The exhibition, which closed on Sunday 8 July, covered forty years of the practice’s work, organising projects into colour coded themes of ‘Early Work’, ‘Transparent’, ‘Lightweight’, ‘Legible, Green’, ‘Public, Systems’, ‘Urban’ and ‘Work-in-Progress’.

Alongside the exhibition, a full education programme was running, including a daily tour of the exhibition for local school children and the general public, a lecture by Ivan Harbour and Richard Rogers at the British Council  and four family workshops for children aged 5 to 10 years old.  It was the first time the venue had ever held workshops for the public within the mall.

Chu Chai, Design and Technology Teacher from HKICC School of Creativity said after his class’ visit:  "This exhibition inspired my students to broaden their thinking on how the process of design evolves and the use of technology in the process. The exhibition is interesting and the students found the colour and multimedia very engaging."

A student stated:  "This exhibition makes me want to be an architect"

NEO Bankside has been given a commendation in the 2012 Structural Steel Design Awards.

The Awards, now into their 44th year, recognise the excellence achievable in structural and architectural design with the use of steel.  Judges selected the six Award winning entries from a shortlist of 29, all of which scored highly in efficiency, cost effectiveness, aesthetics, sustainability and innovation.

Although NEO Bankside has a concrete core, the project is recognisable through its distinctive steel bracing system and red painted wintergardens. The bracing system, which was manufactured off-site, provides lateral stability under wind load thus reducing the requirement for sheer walls and thus allowing greater flexibility of internal planning and servicing arrangements.

Waterman Structures were the engineers on the project.

The walkway over the O2, Up at the O2, has been highly commended in the Sport and Play category of the New London Architecture Awards 2012. Realised by Bblur, the walkway over the O2 was conceived by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners and Buro Happold for AEG.

A distinct feature, elegant and simple in its own right, the walkway is made from tensile cable and fabric, with a viewing platform above the corona of the dome. Capable of holding 90 people at one time, the attraction is a 200m long way, some 60m above the ground at its highest point, suspended from two of the former Millennium Dome’s yellow masts.

The NLA exists to promote positive change in the capital’s built environment, to bring together the wide range of professionals involved in delivering projects; these awards recognise the role of the whole team, not one sector. Also, the buildings are assessed in terms of their relationship with the surrounding area and community and the impact they have on the city, not just as stand-alone objects.

The Designing Buildings Wiki has launched and has been sponsored by RSHP. The project represents a collaborative wiki site that aims to provide simple, accessible and free guidance for every stage of the building design and development process.

Representatives from the British construction industry are working together to establish a compendium of knowledge and skills to help create a more efficient industry. The Wiki is a knowledge-bank of information about building design and development founded by various property and construction professionals and headed by leading project manager David Trench. “We have spent a long time talking about the problems with the industry,” he said, “but we can all help improve it just by sharing what we know. There is no need to start every project with a blank piece of paper when the industry has expertise in every aspect of building design and development. Designing Buildings Wiki is not dictating best practice; it is providing the industry with the tools it needs to get through this time of unprecedented change.”

Andrew Morris, Partner, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, added: “The site will provide an invaluable way for architects, engineers, and professionals from across the construction industry to work together. This site is the first to address the interdisciplinary nature of the industry and will hopefully contribute to the design and construction of buildings.”

It was announced this week that Las Arenas is one of fifty nine RIBA Award winners and only nine European winners.

The judges said “This is a radical transformation of a redundant bull-fighting arena into an enormous leisure and entertainment complex. The brick elevations are clasped by concrete beams, supported by raking legs. Inside, concrete columns support radial cantilevered steel cinema pods. More characteristic tallow steel legs support a 100m – diameter dish with a laminated timber gridshell roof. Skirting this structure is a cantilevered public ‘plaza in the sky’ with bars and restaurants enjoying wonderful panoramic views of Barcelona. A veritable tour de force.”

RIBA award winners make up the Stirling Prize longlist. The Stirling Prize shortlist will be announced in September.

Graham Stirk of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Grant Brooker of Fosters + Partners will be leading a tour of the City of London, as designed by the two practices.

The two architects will discuss their own, and each others, buildings on a walk starting at Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, discussing the architectural legacy and future plans of these two architectural practices in the City of London.

The tour is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2012

RSHP is part of Architecture for Humanity’s spring fundraising campaign - The "I Love Architecture" Charity Auction.

A limited edition print of the Centre Pompidou, signed by Richard Rogers, is just one of over 70 contributions from 50 of the world's top architects and designers being auctioned. Other contributors include Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Steven Holl, Kengo Kuma, Snohetta, Jeanne Gang, and more, who showed HUGE architecture love by donating original and one-of-a kind hand sketches, renderings, prints, paintings etc. These are all being auctioned at ebay.com/architectureforhumanity, from June 19 - June 29, with all proceeds going to support Architecture for Humanity in humanitarian projects in over 20 countries

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), are presenting over 40 years of their best works in an exclusive exhibition, in collaboration with Henderson Land Group, New World Development and Peterson Group, entitled “Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City” at the ifc mall, Hong Kong, 22 June to 8 July 2012.

The exhibition depicts the key themes that have evolved throughout Richard Rogers’ and his partners’ work including transparent, lightweight, legible, green, public, system and urban. Each theme is arranged in colour-coded sections: ‘Early Work’, ‘Transparent’, ‘Lightweight’, ‘Legible, Green’, ‘Public, Systems’, ‘Urban’ and ‘Work-in-Progress’.

About the exhibition 
The “Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City” exhibition premiered in Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 2007 and has since travelled to London, Barcelona, Madrid, Taipei and Singapore attracting more than half a million visitors to date.

Starting with Richard’s early projects with Norman Foster (together with Wendy Foster and Su Rogers) in the 1960s and the Centre Pompidou, Paris with Italian architect Renzo Piano in the 1970s, and covering significant projects from the Lloyd’s of London building and  Terminal 4 at Barajas Airport, Madrid, to the innovative Zip-Up House of 1968 and his proposals for Shanghai’s Lu Jia Zui urban development, the exhibition offers an enlightening and insightful journey into how architecture has shaped cities and transformed lives around the world. It covers key issues and challenges of our times, from environmental sustainability, to creating compact, 24-hour cities, and innovation in architectural production processes.

Some of the exhibition highlights include: a bright pink 1:2 scale model of a key structural node used at Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport, London; original film footage from the 1970s showing the construction of the Centre Pompidou, Paris; new projects being shown for the first time in Hong Kong; an exclusive video interview with Richard Rogers discussing his early works, inspiration and influences; a new film of Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour discussing their influences, experience and work; an interactive model of the Shanghai Pudong Masterplan; and a 35-metre-long timeline incorporating all key works of Richard Rogers and his partners covering more than four decades.

First Hong Kong project
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is proud to have Double Cove as its first project in Hong Kong. Lying on Hong Kong’s one and only twin-bayed peninsula – to the left is the vibrant Wu Kai Sha Beach, to the right the placid waters of Starfish Bay – Double Cove overlooks the sweeping waterside of Tolo Harbour and the Saikung Country Park. Woodland conservation is given a high priority at the site and lush landscaping together make possible extensive cycling track and jogging path in the premise which is such a rarity in the city. RSHP is also engaged with a number of major residential projects in Asian cities including Taipei, Ningbo and Shanghai.

Family workshop
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and the British Council will run a family workshop during the exhibition.  The workshops are designed to introduce young people to architecture by giving them an overview of the processes of design – understanding a brief, designing a building and create a model within the context of a city. Using a map of Hong Kong, participants will allocate different building types and land uses, gaining knowledge of the relationship between buildings and public spaces.  RSHP architectural modelmakers will give a demonstration on how to build a model and give hands-on advice and guidance on how to realise the participant’s model design using recycled and professional modelmaking materials.  At the end of the workshop, all participants will present their designs to the group and their models will be displayed on the map to create a new city.

The “Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City” exhibition premiered in Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 2007 and has since travelled to London, Barcelona, Madrid, Taipei and Singapore attracting more than half a million visitors to date.

“Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners: From the House to the City” will be exhibited at the ifc mall from 22 June to 8th July 2012. The exhibition will be open from 10am to 10pm and admission is free. The exhibition is generously supported by Henderson Land Development Company Limited, New World Development Company Limited, Peterson Group (“The Consortium”) and the British Council. The Consortium is currently collaborating with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to develop a 2,843,000 sq. ft. residential site in Hong Kong, the Double Cove.

Four City of London projects are represented in the London Festival of Architecture Developing City Exhibition, looking at how the physical fabric of the City of London has defined it over the centuries and responded to changes in how we live and work.

The exhibition will include two models of Lloyd’s of London, two of The Leadenhall Building, currently under construction opposite Lloyd’s of London, as well as drawings, photographs and film of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping and 88 Wood Street.

The exhibition runs throughout the summer, marking the opening of the London Festival of Architecture and continuing during the Olympics and Paralympics

21 Jun, 11:00 – 09 Sep

The Wallbrook Building, London, EC2

Vincent Dowd talks to Richard Rogers and Architectural Historian Kester Rattenbury about the impact the building has had on Paris.

Witness was first broadcast on BBC World Service on 6 June 2012.

A gallery in France, Residential in Hong Kong and a waterfront development make up our entry to this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. 

The gallery at Chateau la Coste, France is represented by a section model showing a cantilevered space projecting dramatically over the Provence landscape. A model explains the masterplan for Double Cove, a large scale residential development in Hong Kong and a study for a mixed use waterfront development is explored through two sketches and three rendered drawings.

Chris Wilkinson RA and Eva Jiricna RA have curated the architecture gallery of the Summer Exhibition. Their curatorial direction seeks to blur the boundaries between architecture and the fine arts. Aleksandrina Rizova and Manuel Jimenez have also had work selected for the architecture room.

The exhibition runs from 4 June—12 August 2012

For further information please visit www.royalacademy.org.uk

AEG, owner and operator of The O2,today announced that London is to be home to a breathtaking and thrilling new attraction – Up at The O2 – which will combine an exhilarating outdoor challenge with a completely unique perspective on the Capital.  Designed by the original architects of the iconic venue, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Up at The O2 officially opens on 21 June 2012. Tickets go on sale to the general public on 30 May 2012.

The unforgettable 90-minute experience will take visitors on a guided expedition across the roof of The O2 via a tensile fabric walkway suspended 53m above ground level. An observation platform at the summit will enable climbers to take in spectacular 360° views of the Capital and its many landmarks, including the Olympic Park, Thames Barrier, The Shard, Historic Royal Greenwich and Canary Wharf, before descending back to base. The challenge is not easy but open to wheelchair users.

Louise Palomba, project architect for the concept, said: “The experience would be as if you were actually allowed on to the surface of The O2 fabric. Added to that, we wanted to make it a challenge and not just easy going. Something that you’d have to be up for – not just a walk down the park.”

"Sacrificing design is not an option, we should be collectively asking why England, in my opinion, has consistently produced the poorest design in housing in western Europe.”

Richard Rogers was part of a high profile panel discussing 'The Future of Housing Design' in the second annual Alan Cherry Debate. Alongside David Lunts, Keith Bradley and Nick Raynsford, and joined by secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles, the paneleists debated the importance of design quality and how it could be delivered in an age of austerity.

Rogers  surprised delegates by lending support to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), something he admits he has been “horrified” by in the past. “The good news on this was that government accepted it had to be improved,” he said. “Did you know that 35 criticisms were made of it and 30 have since been addressed, which I find very interesting.”

He moved the debate on by adding that innovation needs to be a key part of successful homes design: “there is very little innovation in housing design at the moment. There are a number of dwellings in London, for example, that look back from the Thames which I find amazing.”

“You have to really work at it, but I would say that I think we have done rather well generally. Apart from housing which, as I said at the start of this debate, I think is all very poor in this country. And that’s what we really need to change.”

In celebration of its 150th anniversary, Peabody launched an architectural competition to develop a proposal for an exemplar housing development of approximately 150 affordable and market homes on a four-acre site in Plaistow, Newham.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners will be showing their shortlisted competition scheme an exhibition at New London Architecture as one of the 20 shortlisted and five winning schemes.

Working in collaboration with landscape architects Farrer Huxley Associates, our proposal was inspired by George Peabody’s determination to provide dignified spaces that foster a feeling of belonging and a sense of purpose. The development is designed in a way that will encourage a dynamic, healthy and outward looking community that will make a real and valuable contribution to the wider urban realm.

The exhibition runs from 10 May – 9 June at NLA, The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, WC1E 7BT

The 2012 RESI Award winners were announced this week with NEO Bankside being awarded Development of the Year: and award which recognises a scheme that has incorporated elements beyond the norm.

Located next to the iconic Tate Modern on the banks of the River Thames, the award-winning NEO Bankside, a joint venture between Native Land and Grosvenor and designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, is one of the most prestigious new addresses in London. The 217-apartment development is divided into four separate pavilions, providing new public routes from Southwark to the riverfront. The pavilions themselves are characterized by an elegant structural steel bracing system and provide stunning views across the city. This development has transformed this unique South Bank site into a vibrant community with shops, restaurants and public spaces.

The client for the project, Native Land, was also awarded Small Development of the year.

Richard Rogers on Fame, Politics & Moving to the Middle East. 

Lord Rogers is fast approaching 80 but that doesn’t stop him having ambitions to expand into the Middle East, attacking Boris Johnson’s record as London mayor or taking pleasure in a few glasses of red wine, as Emily Wright found out.

Read the article: Building Magazine 4 May 2012

The Architecture Club at Mossbourne Academy is exploring what impact the Olympics are having on East London and will be designing their own projects for sites in Hackney. As part of this, on May 1, eleven students from years 8, 9 and 10 came to see architecture in action at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and grill Ivan Harbour and Richard Rogers on why their school is designed as it is. If they could change one thing about the school, the students said they would have more trees and green space.

Lorna Edwards explained how a project develops from first designs to going on site – using the new wing of the British Museum as a case study. A whistlestop tour of the office followed before a visit to the RSHP modelshop, where the modelmakers showed different techniques of modelmaking and made a series of bespoke models of Mossbourne Academy for the students to take away using the laser cutting machine.

The choice of who is to run the city has never been more critical. We need a Mayor who is visionary and decisive, who has a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of ordinary Londoners. We want a Mayor who understands the need for a better distribution of wealth and who will help protect the more vulnerable from the government’s slash and burn economics.

I worked for some ten years with both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson as the Chief Adviser to City Hall on urbanism and regeneration - and I am convinced that Ken best meets the needs of Londoners.

We’ve already seen that Ken understands the job of Mayor of London, he can think strategically and is deeply interested in the detail. He established the autonomous role of the mayor at a time when there was far less appetite for devolved power than there is now.

Under his leadership London became a model city – culturally, socially and economically. It was visited by leaders from around the world studying how such urban vitality had been achieved. Ken maintained the green belt and increased public space. He set a target for developers to build 50 per cent affordable housing adjacent to all new private developments. Ken focused on the regeneration of East London, and when with his support the Olympics were won for London, he chose a site in the East End knowing it would strengthen one of the poorest parts of the city.

Ken secured the go ahead for Crossrail, he cut congestion, revived the bus service, licensed mini-cabs and doubled the number of cycling trips in the city. He has the ambition to achieve much more in the future. 

Some people, including too many from the liberal left, say the choosing Ken would be disappointing. I agree Ken’s inability to apologise over gaffes is unattractive and although he has done nothing illegal greater transparency over his tax affairs would have been wise and welcome. But, to echo American author Jake Lamar on Obama, I would not be disappointed If he offered grants of up to £700 to low-income families, interest-free loans to families earning up to £40,000 a year and campaigned for better childcare services. I would not be disappointed if Ken reinstated the Educational Maintenance Allowance.

I would not be disappointed if Ken took full responsibility for Londoners’ safety by heading the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and by reversing the cuts Boris Johnson made to police including Safer Neighbourhood Teams on the streets.I would not be disappointed if Ken made cutting Londoners’ fuel bills and reducing carbon emissions a priority.I would not be disappointed if he introduced a city-wide empty homes strategy, ending the scandal of decent homes lying empty while waiting lists lengthen.

I am passionate about the benefits that compact, sustainable cities can provide. I would not be disappointed if Ken were given the chance to make London a model for the world once more.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, who will be sponsoring the next two years of the Architecture Foundation's education programme, The Urban Pioneers.

The Urban Pioneers education programme engages teams of 16-19 year olds in areas undergoing significant change, empowering them to critically explore the transformations happening around them, develop new skills, and engage with mentors. These skills are developed through a series of workshops with built environment experts including architects, engineers, filmmakers, artists, designers, planners and writers.

By engaging intensively with small groups of young people at an age when they are making crucial decisions about what to do next in their lives, the programme provides unrivalled access to skills, experience and opportunities within the built environment sectors. Not only will the direct participants benefit, but also a wider network of well informed residents, who are active in demanding better quality buildings and spaces, will benefit their neighbourhoods, and professional fields will benefit from a more diverse intake of practitioners.

Since its conception in 2008 the programme has focused on the areas of Bankside, London Bridge, King’s Cross, Deptford, Battersea, the Upper Lee Valley, Barking, Canada Water, South Kilburn, and most recently Willesden Green. The programme has enjoyed great success with previous

participants now studying for their A-levels, BTECS and Degrees in a wide range of subjects including sciences, animation, civil engineering and architecture.

Previous Urban Pioneers have said of their experience of the programme:
“I’ve learnt that architecture isn’t just design and bricks, but about people.”

“Engaging young people at the crossroad of their life with architects, engineers or even people who you never thought you would meet, is a great idea. It builds your confidence and makes the very hard decision of what to do in the future clearer.”

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is an international architectural practice based in London whose aim is to create architecture that contributes to improving peoples’ daily lives, and is strongly focused on sustainability, urban regeneration and social awareness. The practice has earned wide respect for their mentoring systems, close ties to local and international universities, nurturing young architects and the promotion of a collegiate approach.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners will also take a hands-on role in the Urban Pioneers programme by hosting workshops and studio tours over the term of their sponsorship.

Ivan Harbour of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners said:

“I am very pleased that RSHP is supporting such a valuable initiative. Programmes like the Urban Pioneers help make sure the next generation can be inspired to understand, reshape and improve their environments. We are happy to work directly with young people to give them an insight into the complex processes that architecture involves.”

Sarah Ichioka, Director of The Architecture Foundation said:

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners on our Urban Pioneers education programme, as we both share the passionate belief that architecture enriches lives. We are incredibly excited about what the next two years will bring, as we seek out and nurture the next generation of built environment practitioners and clients.”

The next Urban Pioneers programme will focus on the Heathrow area and will engage young people who live or study in the London Borough of Hillingdon. The group will take part in a series of creative workshops exploring the area’s architecture in its widest sense, with a specific focus on Heathrow Airport’s role in meeting local desires compared with national infrastructure demands.

The V&A's ‘British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age’ exhibition, celebrates the best of British post-war art and design from the 1948 ‘Austerity Games' to the summer of 2012. Over 300 British design objects highlight significant moments in the history of British design and how the country continues to nurture artistic talent and be a world leader in creativity and design. The exhibition traces the changes in culture and context by exploring buildings, objects, images and ideas produced by designers and artists born, trained or based in Britain.

Lloyds of London have lent a model of the 1986 Richard Rogers Partnership building to be included in the Architecture section of the exhibition alongside projects by Foster + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architecture.

Richard Rogers talked at the opening of the exhibition, saying "Design is still flourishing... There is great hope for the future."

As part of the events programme, Richard Rogers will be discussing his ideas and career with David Adjaye on Tues 17 April. Tickets are available from the V&A.

Ivan Harbour: My Kind of Town
(From Architecture Today April 2012)

It’s trip number 53 to Australia in seven years, a forest full of offsets failing to ease my carbon conscience and a nagging feeling of opportunities missed on terra firma as I while away three months in the air. I dutifully fill in my landing card as the sun rises over the Pacific, my destination silhouetted against the intense light reflected from the ocean below. ‘McLeod Street, Mosman, NSW’. Your postal district is optional in London; here in the self-proclaimed agglomeration of villages, your city doesn’t figure.

As the superjumbo locks on to the glide slope, picture-postcard Sydney comes into view. This city is blessed with extraordinary geology, the long finger ridges of sandstone extending to the harbour, remnants of a long-drowned river and its tributaries. The harbour is Sydney’s central park, its boulevard with its Grande Arche, its emblematic face to the world.

It is Sunday in Mosman Bay and I engage in the Aussie lifestyle expected of me: the beach, the pool, the BBQ. The rule is to stay awake as long as possible, work through the nausea of the jetlag, drink some beer. The kookaburras lead the dawn cacophony. On my first visit an engineer told me, ‘Remember, in Australia an overcast sky is twice as bright as in the UK’. Nature is twice as loud too, and the smaller it is, the louder.

Short sleeves and a short stroll to the ferry stop takes me past the red pan tiles of federation cottages and ‘federation style’ apartment buildings jostling for space on the steep sandstone inclines leading to the water. The footpath leaves the road, cuts through the rock and descends. I grab a coffee on the jetty and look back. The built form towers above, layer upon layer of dwelling stretching for a water view. The urbanisation is insufficiently compact to contrast with the natural habitat but dense enough to overpower it. The visual impact of suburbia is normally tempered by its low scale. Here it is stacked up and I ponder, is it poorer quality than elsewhere in the world or is it just that I can see it all at once?

In the quest for unencumbered waterfront access, the final infilling tackles opportunistic sites of staggering topography, utopian in their implausibility. Here is where architects should prove their worth. There are two contemporary schools of thought evident from the ferry in Mosman Bay: first, the perched object touching lightly – Ian and Rosanna Collins’ mid-1970s house, a meticulously executed white fibreglass container whose vertiginous site is narrower than it is tall. In contrast, the site-sensitive ‘Sydney school’ slope-hugging form of John and Hilary James’ mid-1960s house, built with natural materials, makes space around and between the trees and is all but invisible from the water.

The ferry to Circular Quay makes a few more stops and whisks us in beautiful silence across smooth harbour water and past the opera house in 20 minutes or so. It is hard not to be envious of the lifestyle it represents but this is an experience reserved for a privileged few. Sydney is a city of 4.5 million inhabitants but the metropolitan area is similar to London. The aspiration of direct access to the playground is beyond the reach of the vast majority who inhabit the sprawling western suburbs.

A Sydneysider friend summarises Sydney as a ‘developer’s town’. It is an environment where architecture has played second fiddle to opportunism and maximised returns. In the dense core, as in New York, this tension gives the city a buzz. Outside, it has had a detrimental effect on both the built and natural landscapes.

The car that enabled the suburbanisation reinforces the city of villages and represses desire for better public transport. Sydney is one of few major world cities without a light rail infrastructure. The downtown city centre, physically constrained by the harbour and botanic gardens, has many of the ingredients required for the compact sustainable city. It is spearheading a quality of life renaissance, shifting the balance from car power to pedal power and encouraging more people to live in its core. It is dense, compact and walkable

Much of the post-war built fabric feels as if you’ve seen it before. Harry Seidler, most significantly, developed an architecture at a large scale that is of this place, with the strong daylight articulated across precast concrete facades and with outdoor places that are peculiarly suited to the environment. In a similar vein, Woods Bagot’s Ivy hotel explores the outdoor room to good effect (driven perhaps by the impact of smoking bans). McConnel Smith & Johnson’s NSW Supreme Court plays Seidler’s facade game, the precast panels aping the colouration of sandstone.

More recently, the city has adopted postmodern planning rules – ‘tops on buildings’ and street wall setbacks – but none have matched the grace of Seidler’s best. More meaningfully, the city has impressive plans to improve the public realm including a new civic square at the town hall. The indigenous sandstone has provided Sydney with a beautiful building material which abounds. It is prominently displayed in the convict-hewn cliff face that forms the dramatic interior of the Bond building on the city’s west side. Vernon and McRae’s Central Station is all carriage ramps and catacombs, infrastructure and architecture, topped with a federation classical clock tower, all in this warm and lively material.

Richard Rogers is the only architect on the jury for the first AJ Women in Architecture Awards.  Editor Christine Murray and Chair of the awards said “Why Richard Rogers? He gives 12 months full pay to employees on maternity leave, four weeks full pay for paternity”

Joining him on the jury will be: Open-City director Victoria Thornton; Maggie’s chief executive Laura Lee; Corporation of London City planning officer Peter Rees; Stephen Lawrence Trust director Doreen Lawrence; V&A design director Moira Gemmill; Land Securities’ head of development for London portfolio Colette O’Shea; and Pritzker Prize executive director Martha Thorne

Awards will be given to ‘Woman Architect of the Year’ and ‘Emerging Woman Architect of the year as well as the Jane Drew Prize. The winners will be announced on 20 April.

In a recent speech David Cameron highlighted Richard Rogers as a “Great British architect” working internationally.

Speaking from the Institute of Civil Engineers he said: “This summer the eyes of the world will be on the Olympics - an amazing new city created out of nothing in London's east in five years. Javelin trains will fly there from St Pancras in just eight minutes - from Europe's finest station and biggest transport hub to the best games in history. From east London to the west, Crossrail is the largest engineering project in Europe. Our engineering firms like Arup work miracles in steel and glass. Great British architects like Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid design airports in China, viaducts in France, and factories in Germany. So let's not accept the idea that our glories were all in the past…that these days we can't deliver great infrastructure…”

On 8 March, The London Borough of Lewisham resolved to grant planning consent for The Deptford Project in a unanimous vote.

The project, in collaboration with Ash Sakula Architects, will revitalise the Deptford station area with the emphasis on good public space, quality housing and placemaking. RSHP is responsible for a new eight-storey residential block that will sit to the west of the Grade II listed carriage ramp  and Ash Sakula Architects is working on the refurbishment of the ramp (which connects street level to the station) a market, new social housing, small enterprise units and conservation of existing buildings.

Mark Darbon, Partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners said “Previously this large site had no public access thereby forcing people to take major detours in order travel to and from the High Street. Our scheme will open up the site and reconnect it to the surrounding area, creating new public spaces, homes and workspaces that will help reinforce the area as a civic destination. We are delighted the project has been granted planning consent”

Cathedral chief executive Richard Upton said: “Since we signed our development agreement with Lewisham Council in 2008 we have been working hard on site in Deptford to create a wonderful, vibrant place. We are really looking forward to seeing a beautiful new building light up this part of Deptford bringing much needed investment into the town.”

The scheme is to start on site later this year and complete in mid 2014

Richard Rogers was approached to speak at the Qatar Pavilion by representatives of the Qatari Royal Family. In a keynote speech at the Qatar Urban Forum on 6 March 2012, Richard gave his views on development in London.

“If you have high buildings, they might as well be as high as possible,” he said. “If a building is above 10 storeys, its lost contact with the ground and 40 or 60 storey buildings are more or less the same at that height. If the Shard had 10 storeys more, who would it disturb?

It’s the human scale of buildings that make them work, not the height or width. Height is a crude way of measuring buildings.”

“Towers are better than low buildings because they’ve been scrutinised more,” he argued. “It doesn’t mean you can put towers anywhere you like but I think towers have added to the city. ”

He also said “west and east London could switch sides’ due to the intelligent masterplanning, transport infrastructure and investment as a result of the 2012 Olympics East London could be like East Berlin, which is now the place to live. No one wanted to live there before the wall came down.”

Rogers said “development in East London needs to speed up in order to capitalise on the potential of the Olympics.”

As a result of the visit to Mipim an invitation has also been extended to Richard Rogers and Andrew Morris to visit royalty and property developers in Doha. Richard’s comments at the keynote received widespread national and international coverage.

Las Arenas has been awarded the ‘Hays Engineered in London’ award in the 2012 ICE London Civil Engineering Awards.

The judges said, “Through the will to adapt an obsolete yet iconic structure in one of Europe’s most important cities, the adoption of ingenious temporary works and construction sequences it has been turned into a multipurpose commercial centre and a huge social amenity.”

The winning projects will be exhibited at the Building Centre.

Las Arenas in Barcelona has been awarded a 2012 Civic Trust Award.

Civic Trust awards are given to projects that make an outstanding contribution to the quality and appearance of the environment. Award level schemes must demonstrate excellence in architecture or design, sustainability, inclusive design and make a positive social, cultural, environmental or economic benefit to the local community.

Las Arenas is a 19th century historic bullring which had fallen into disuse during the 1970s. Having played such a strong civic and cultural role in the life of Barcelona for almost a century the decision was taken for the redevelopment to retain and refurbish the striking neo-mude´jar fac¸ade and create a major new mixed-use leisure and entertainment complex, in addition to retail, restaurants and offices in the ‘Eforum’, adjacent to the bullring. The most spectacular aspect of the intervention is the 100m habitable dish with a 76m domed roof, floating over the fac¸ade providing flexible, column-free spaces beneath the dome. This “plaza in the sky” incorporates large terraces around the perimeter with space for cafe´s and restaurants, providing stunning views across the city. New, open public realm around the building now provides level access and landscaped areas. Using the most advanced technologies, while respecting and celebrating the fabric of the historical bullring has re-established the building as a visually striking landmark for the city.

To celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, BBC Radio 4 is searching for the 60 greatest figures of the Queen’s reign.

Architect Amanda Levete nominated Richard Rogers on Radio 4’s Front Row.

“My new Elizabethan is a man whose work in the most enduring and powerful of the arts spans over six decades. His buildings embody cultural and social meaning. He has literally turned the world of architecture inside out and forever changed the way we see and use our museums and galleries. In case that wasn’t enough he has even put architecture on the political agenda

In the decade that saw unprecedented questioning of social norms, Richard Rogers first building, Reliance Controls - a radical metal shed, reflected his early interest in technology but also social issues because it abolished the barrier between management and the workforce. It gave them shared entrances and shared canteens. It sounds extraordinary but it was radical then.

He was the first architect to meld architecture with social concerns. Then in the 1970s, in partnership with Renzo Piano, he designed the Centre Pompidou - the most debate shifting building of the 20^th century. Images of it pervaded our culture and even now it still speaks of democracy, accessibility and shared ownership: issues that are pertinent then as they are now as they were then.

He was the first architect to meld architecture with social concerns. Then in the 1970s, in partnership with Renzo Piano, he designed the Centre Pompidou - the most debate shifting building of the 20^th century. Images of it pervaded our culture and even now it still speaks of democracy, accessibility and shared ownership: issues that are pertinent then as they are now as they were then.

I worked for Richard for four and a half years, and he was a wonderful patriarch of a boss and an incredibly generous spirited mentor.

In the 1990s, Rogers was the first architect to be invited to give the Reith lectures. He used those talks to put architecture on the political agenda and to establish that you cannot detach architecture form social and political issues. He published a white paper which is still talked about: inner city density; brownfield land; shared spaces; and public spaces large and small. This is all common parlance now in urban planning and policy, but it is all thanks to his advocacy.

He is an extraordinary generous persona: generous in the way he thinks and the way he runs his office. His legacy and largess aren’t just articulated in his buildings but also the way he has articulated the twentieth century city”

'The New Elizabethans’, written and presented by James Naughtie, can be heard on BBC Radio 4, across the summer from June 11

Following on from the RIBA  Lecture given on January 31 2012, Richard talks to Section D of Monocle 24 about the politics of architecture, the Grand Paris scheme, the joys of public spaces and the importance of preserving the countryside through the densification of cities.

This lecture was given by Graham Stirk, Ivan Harbour & Richard Rogers on 31 January 2012 as part of the RIBA's Cities for Tomorrow lecture series.

What defines the city context within which buildings are placed? Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is comprised of many individuals with varying skills and interests. This lecture presents some of the different aspects of our work through buildings and masterplanning and to share our understanding of the wider debate about cities at a more strategic level. Generally, architectural and urban design is limited to site ownership and programmes defined by those who commission the work. These sites can be products of centuries of land acquisition and the attitudes to new projects are shaped by the ever evolving environments of politics, culture, technology and economics.

Graham presents a number of buildings both public and private and their contribution to urban spaces and street context. This is not simply confined to ground level but also recognises that the scale and language of a building has a profound effect on the public realm.

Ivan talks about the wider structure of urban design and strategic place making which can be cohesively developed as a new urban quarter, as it has been for Barangaroo in Sydney. Here, the primary political and human aim is to reclaim the city's waterfront and is achieved through a new series of streets and spaces of varying character to which many architects can respond and contribute.

Richard Rogers was a key speaker at the Future Cities Forum at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday 21st February. Other speakers at the event included Bjarke Ingels of Danish practice BIG, Thomas Heatherwick, David Saxby of 00:/, Mitchell Joachim of Brooklyn-based Planetary One and Italian architect Carlo Ratti.

The forum was chaired by cities minister Greg Clark and audience members included Michael Heseltine, Ricky Burdett, Tony Travers, Simon Jenkins, senior civil servants and council leaders from major UK cities.

Richard Rogers said of the event, “Cities are the engines of economic and cultural growth. I am delighted that the government considers the built environment as critical. I am pleased too that there is a push for city mayors and the greater devolving of power to individual cities. What I, and the other architects, scientists, designers and urban innovators speaking at the forum at No10 this week were able to contribute was a focus on the importance of quality of design in seeing through any vision for a city.”

After the talks a group of delegates joined Richard on a tour of the Southbank, ending at the RSHP residential development NEO Bankside.

form follows function egg follows chicken function follows form chicken follows egg

The Big Egg Hunt has placed over 200 giant Easter eggs around London, including one designed by Simon Tonks, architect at Rogers Stirk Habour + Partners.

Launched on Shrove Tuesday, the eggs have been created by leading artists, designers, jewellers and architects and will be on display around London for the 40 days of Lent.

The eggs are to be auctioned off online to raise money for charities: Elephant Family and Action for Children

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Adamson Associates’ competition winning scheme for St. Lawrence Market North in Toronto has been given the go-ahead.

St. Lawrence Market North will combine courtrooms, offices and a large market hall as part of the St. Lawrence Market complex. Home to a successful farmer's market and Sunday antiques market, the design aims to create a unified piece of the urban fabric. St. Lawrence Market North will be a bustling civic building within Toronto’s historic St. Lawrence neighbourhood.

"With this new design, the St. Lawrence North Market Building will become an even more exciting destination in the City of Toronto's most historic neighbourhood. It will further establish the St. Lawrence neighbourhood as one of the most vibrant places in the city and create a stronger, thriving hub to attract tourists, retail activity and other business," said Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Commenting on the design, Councillor Pam McConnell (Ward 28 Toronto Centre-Rosedale) said "The design successfully combines a market with a court house and is an excellent example of green architecture in a city that strives to be one of the greenest on the planet. This design created a market for all seasons and a facility that will strengthen the St. Lawrence Market's position as an anchor and central part of life in the community."

"I'm very pleased with the new St. Lawrence North Market Building that will be built. It will be a great addition to the neighbourhood, and to the city," said Councillor Peter Milczyn, Chair, Planning and Growth Management Committee. "I'm especially pleased that such an exciting design came about as part of an international competition; it reinforces the city's efforts to promote excellence in architecture and design."

Ivan Harbour said “The scheme brings back to the site a multiplicity of function and activity, to reinvigorate the space between the South Market and St. Lawrence hall, which is a great historic civic building. The combination of justice with retail has a history on this site, as well as referencing the medieval moot halls in English market towns. Toronto is a city which has developed a great street life, and in our design for the new market and law courts we want to continue this ethos: St. Lawrence Market needs to be both a landmark and a backdrop to local life. We are delighted that this project is going ahead.”

One the 1st March 2012, Annabel Rootes, Douglas Paul and Kevin Gray will be begin the 2012 Cycle to Cannes charity bike ride, covering 1500km from Greenwich Park to Cannes. This will be the 6th year running that Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners been represented on the ride, contributing a significant amount to the £1million given to Charity since the ride first took place 7 years ago. Richard Rogers is a patron of the charity.

This year the ride will benefit Coram, which was founded in 1739. From its original site in Bloomsbury the charity today supports vulnerable children across the UK. Cycle to Cannes 2012 will support two of Coram’s key services, Adoption and Coram Life Education. The charity’s adoption service is one of the most successful in the UK, helping children find safe, loving and permanent new homes. Coram Life Education is the UK’s largest children’s health education and drug prevention programme, helping children in primary schools nationwide.

With two-thirds of Aedas Cycle to Cannes funding going to Coram in 2012, the ride hopes to improve the chances of over 10,000 children nationwide and help some of the most vulnerable children in the UK to transform their lives. Article 25, Emthonjeni Trust, Multiple System Atrophy Trust and Tom’s Trust, are among the other organisations being supported.

This mixed use project redevelops the site currently occupied by the Sporting d’Hiver – located in the very heart of Monte Carlo. Bounded by the Hotel de Paris, the Hotel de L’Hermitage and a neighbouring park the present Art Deco block offers little public access through the site and dominates the streetscape. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have designed a series of mixed-use pavilions that will provide cultural, retail, residential, office and conference facilities, as well as increased permeability. This key location within Monte Carlo will reassert its historical role in the economic, social and cultural development of the Principality. The curved shape of each pavilion enables the front facade to be maximised, providing the extraordinary views out as well as an abundance of natural light in. Lightwells between each pair act to mitigate the impact of the buildings from a massing point of view and allow light into the new pedestrianised spaces.

The design of the redevelopment is centred around the public access provided at ground level that will enhance central Montecarlo and create an enhanced sense of place. The re-landscaped design will create an extra 30% more public space, breathing new life into the district. The proposed streets provide new connectivity and will be framed by green spaces, with water features and sculptures, and green walls on the pavilion facades.

One of the key aspects of the current building is the sumptuous Art Deco Salle des Arts, used as a major exhibition space. To preserve the architectural heritage of this building, RSHP have proposed the recreation of this cultural centre within a contemporary setting, much like the Adams Room in Lloyd’s of London. The masterplan of the site has also been designed to accommodate the possibility of a new exhibition hall in a second phase of development.

“We have been working for a number of years on this mixed-use development after being invited by SBM to look at the feasibility of developing the Sporting d’Hiver, right in the heart of Monte Carlo. The current building had become very underused and we explored options that ranged from complete retention of the existing structure to demolition and new build. We settled on a scheme that incorporated a broad mix of activities to reinvigorate central Monte Carlo. The principle urban move was to create a major new pedestrianised street lined with shops, restaurants and a public art gallery. Above the shops, the adjacent Hotel de Paris is extended with serviced apartments and offices.”

Ivan Harbour
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

The Guardian Saturday interview 28 January 2012

Richard Rogers, Ivan Harbour and Graham Stirk discuss £140million penthouses, the future for our cities and - inevitably - Prince Charles's 'strange' ideas about architecture.

Richard Rogers, at 78, is not about to slow down. "I am enjoying myself, so why would I retire?" says the architect of the Pompidou Centre and the Lloyd's of London building. "I'd like to think I'll be learning a new language or something when I die."

But even a master builder can't go on for ever, which is why Richard Rogers Partnership discreetly changed its name, some five years ago, to Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. "We wanted," explains Rogers, "to avoid the situation where the name of the practice is someone who died 100 years ago. Architecture is a living thing. If I want to leave something to the future, it has to be able to change – but retain something of the ethos that we built up over 50 years."

Read the rest of the interview.

On 31 January 2012, Richard Rogers, Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour will give their first joint lecture in the UK as part of the RIBA Cities of Tomorrow lecture series.

Cities drive cultures and economies. They are a framework for living and working together. Richard, Graham and Ivan will be discussing the role of the sustainable city in the 21st century and how design affects the way we live. They will then describe the process, narrative and language of their architecture in the Far East, Australia, Europe and London.

Rory Olcayto, Deputy Editor of the Architects’ Journal will chair the discussion, and the Architects’ Journal is inviting questions via Twitter (@architectsjrnl). The event is to be filmed and will be available to watch on our website.

We must get England’s planning framework right, writes Richard Rogers in the Financial Times

The UK government is poised to make its most important decision for more than a decade on the future of our cities and our countryside. The national planning policy framework will either lead to economic prosperity through a continuing urban renaissance or let loose the damaging forces of sprawl...

The National Assembly for Wales, which opened on St David’s Day 2006, welcomed its millionth visitor on 17 January 2012.

Samantha Hailes from Cardiff was greeted by Rosemary Butler AM, Presiding Officer for the National Assembly for Wales and presented with a certificate and given a tour of the building.

Ivan Harbour said “The Senedd remains very close to us; the most public of our commissions, it is the most environmentally-ambitious building we have built. It was conceived to engage and be respectful of its visitors, to promote a transparent democracy for a new century.

We are delighted to have seen so many spend time in its grand public living room, beneath the undulating timber canopy overlooking the Cardiff Bay. In the few years since it was built, the people of Wales have taken it to their hearts and made it their own.”

Ricardo and I met over 30 years ago in San Diego when we were lecturing and we have been close friends ever since.

Ruthie and I have spent many holidays with Ricardo and our families in Mexico and have visited and explored lots of beautiful cities along with many of Legorreta +Legorreta buildings. We ate, drank and talked our way around Mexico, discussing architecture and life.

Ricardo is one of a handful of great modern architects, an architect whose buildings are not only beautiful but have a real sense of place. The marriage of landscape and form enlivened by brilliant colours especially pink, which also happens to be my favourite colour, is unforgettable.

Over three years ago we entered and won a competition for an office tower on Paseo de La Reforma in the centre of Mexico City for BBVA Bancomer, now under construction. Since that time, our two offices have worked closely together and Ricardo’s son, Victor, is leading the project in Mexico. I remember well how excited Ricardo was when Victor joined his company and became his partner.

Every year Ruthie and I visit Mexico and immerse ourselves in its great culture. Mexican arts and artefacts are unique and have continuously developed over thousands of years and you can certainly trace pre-Colombian forms in Ricardo’s work.

Ricardo was a wonderful person, sophisticated and kind, who we shall never forget. Ruthie and I will miss him dearly.

Richard Rogers

English Heritage have announced that Lloyd's of London, completed in 1986, is to be given Grade I listing.

We are delighted that Lloyd’s of London is to be honoured with Grade I Listing status.  It is important to conserve buildings of architectural and historical significance and the work of English Heritage is central to that. It is also of vital importance for buildings to remain flexible spaces which meet the changing needs of those who live or work in them. English Heritage have recognised this, ensuring the spirit of the original design is retained while the building remains adaptable in the future.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

NEO Bankside has been awarded the International Winner in the Best Development (Multiple Units) category at the International Property Awards. This award follows a similar achievement in both the London and UK categories of the International Property Awards. NEO Bankside fought off competition from winning developments in the regional categories: Africa, Americas, Arabia, Asia Pacific and Europe.

 Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) has opened an office in Shanghai in response to the growing demand for work and reflecting the expansion of RSHP’s presence in the China market, as well as in other markets in the Asia region such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore.

Lennart Grut, Senior Partner, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners said: “This office gives us a strong focus for managing our growing activity in China and the wider region.  It also demonstrates our long-term commitment to working in this dynamic and exciting part of the world.”

The address of the new RSHP office is: Unit 321, 2nd floor, Building 3, No. 570 YongJia Road, Shanghai 200031, China

RSHP’s design for the construction of a roof walkway across The O2 - the world’s most successful music and entertainment venue, owned and operated by AEG - has been granted planning consent by the London Borough of Greenwich.

The proposed structure, temporary in nature and suspended from The O2's distinctive yellow masts, will be capable of accommodating up to 90 people at any one time. Visitors will walk to the central viewing platform from a base-station situated at the entrance to The O2. The walkway will be 190 metres in length and will be 60 metres above the ground at its highest point. The brief was to create a walkway which preserved the integrity of The O2 structure whilst manifesting itself as a distinct feature which does not overwhelm or detract from The O2.

Mike Davies, project director of the proposed walkway - and also of the original Millennium Dome - said: “The rooftop walkway will be a new and distinctive addition to The O2, whilst preserving the integrity of the original structure as well as respecting its geometry and sculptural qualities. It will offer an exciting and challenging London attraction that is highly accessible to visitors.”

The eastern pair of mega column foundations have been installed at the Chifley Square site.

Due to popular demand the 'Richard Rogers + Architects: From the House to the City' exhibition dates will be extended to 20 August at the URA in Singapore.

“Richard Rogers + Architects: From the House to the City” presents Richard Rogers’ best works with his collaborators over 40 years and including some of those schemes which the practice is currently working on.  From early projects like the 1960s Zip-Up House, to the groundbreaking Centre Pompidou in the 1970s, the Lloyd’s of London Building in the 1980s, the Millennium Dome in the 1990s and more recent projects such as Terminal 4, Barajas Airport, Madrid, the exhibition offers an enlightening and insightful journey into how architecture has shaped cities and transformed lives.

Some 57 exciting projects around the world are shown in vibrant colours, with more than 500 models, films and photographs at the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore.  The exhibition is generously supported by UOL Group Limited, Singapore Land Limited and Como Holdings Inc. UOL Group, with Singapore Land and Kheng Leong Co, is in collaboration with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to develop a 40,000 sq m residential site in Changfeng, Shanghai.

Find out more about the URA here

Find out more about UOL here

Las Arenas, a refurbished former bullring in Barcelona formally reopened to the public on 25 March 2011 as a major new mixed-use leisure, entertainment and office complex. The historic bullring, built at the very end of the 19th century, has long been a visual landmark and gateway to the city but fell largely into disuse during the 1970s due to the declining popularity of bull fighting in Catalonia. The new development - using the most advanced architectural and engineering technologies - has preserved the striking neo-mudéjar façade of the original bullring, whilst providing a major new leisure and entertainment complex within the façade as well as an adjacent office building and telecommunications tower. New public spaces have been created around the base of the development, with connections to the existing metro station and neighbouring Parc Joan Miró.  The design has also added a 100-metre-diameter habitable ‘dish’ with a 76-metre-diameter domed roof. This ‘plaza in the sky’ incorporates large terraces around the perimeter with space for cafés and restaurants offering stunning views over the city.

Richard Rogers commented: “We set out to re-establish Las Arenas – a late 19th century bullring – as a 21st century landmark for the city.  This involved retaining the entire existing façade as well as re-integrating what had become an isolated traffic island into the city fabric.  Our design includes a new leisure and retail development within this façade, as well as a completely new, adjacent office building which responds to the city’s historic street pattern.  The project has also created significant areas of public realm both in the new dome structure – with its 360-degree roof terrace rising above the existing wall – and at the surrounding street level, which will help to revitalise this part of Barcelona.”

Architect
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Co-architect
Alonso Balaguer y Arquitectos Asociados

Dear Sir

I am confused by recent statements from Michael Gove.

Last week he told a Free Schools conference that “...we won’t be getting Richard Rogers to design your school; we won’t be getting any award-winning architects to design it, because no-one in this room is here to make architects richer.”  Yet the previous day he had told BBC Radio 4's the World at One that “The truth about Free Schools is that they will introduce the sort of innovation and dynamism that we’ve already seen in schools like Mossbourne.”

He neglected to add that this former failing school in a deprived area of London – which is now achieving spectacular academic success – was designed by my practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP).

Given how many times Mr Gove, and the prime minister David Cameron, have held up Mossbourne as the model for what they wish to achieve in their education policy it seems odd that he now ignores the positive impact the building has had on the achievements of the school.

The design was recognised with an RIBA Award in 2005 and a Civic Trust Award in 2006. As its architects, we are extremely proud of the considerable positive impact which the Academy has had on the lives of the local community. Mossbourne (the only school RSHP has designed in the UK) was delivered outside the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Surely it would be more appropriate to interrogate the BSF programme to see if it has been able to deliver the quality and value which it was supposed to do?

Ultimately, school design is about creating a vibrant, stimulating and motivating environment – for staff as well as students – so that the highest standards of educational excellence can be achieved without compromising the needs of individuals. If we want schools which really reflect the commitment which this and future Governments should be making to young people and their teachers, those schools should be designed by architects who really understand and care about the communities who will use them.

Good design quality, improved educational performance and value for money go hand in hand; Mossbourne Community Academy clearly demonstrates how all of these can be achieved.

Yours sincerely

RICHARD ROGERS

The New South Wales Government has announced the approval of the proposed amendments to the Barangaroo Concept Plan. This represents a major milestone in the project. The announcement follows widespread public consultation over the past 12 months which has led to a number of refinements to the designs. More than 20,000 people have engaged in the Barangaroo consultation process through public displays, online information, community forums and meetings with local residents.

Ivan Harbour commented: “The approval confirms that a framework is now established that will allow Sydney to extend the Central Business District to the waterfront and provide a significant quantity of new public realm. We have started to develop some of the buildings that will frame this new city quarter.”

For more details see: Barangaroo South's website

On December 7 2010, a newly designed entrance at Knightsbridge Underground station, adjacent to the One Hyde Park development, was opened to the public. The concept for the entrance is by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, and provides access to the Piccadilly line.

The canopy design is simple and elegant and responds to the new pedestrian connection ‘Serpentine Walk’, a newly created walkway through the development that links the city to Hyde Park (and is adjacent to the new tube entrance). Serpentine Walk’ has been created as part of the One Hyde Park project and will open to the public in the coming weeks. The new tube entrance is formed from a palette of materials similar to those used in One Hyde Park – glass, steel and concrete – creating a structure, with a glazed roof and walls that is both open and solid.

Graham Stirk, Project Director, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners said:
“The concept design for the new Underground station entrance creates a prominent structure signalling its presence, whilst reinforcing the permeability of the residential development to the park beyond.”

Jonathan Schofield – a Part 2 architect at RSHP – has won two key awards in this year’s RIBA President’s Medal Student Awards, due to be presented on 1 December.

Jonathan – who studied at the University of Westminster– was awarded the Silver Medal for the best project at Part 2 worth £2,000 in prize money.

‘Creative Evolution – Silvertown Ship Breaking Yard’ – develops a series of architectural devices which enable the gradual deconstruction of ships, the reassembly of their parts into new forms within a vast jig and the distribution of these reconstituted forms as new, large-scale elements along the quayside. William Firebrace and Gabby Shawcross, noted: ‘This project is clearly a form of engineering architecture, inspired by the marine engineering which one finds in traditional docks and the automated container docks of today. The representation skills Jonathan has shown in the project are remarkable. The drawings are obsessively worked, showing in plan section and perspectives every detail of the architecture…’

Some 270 architecture schools from 60 countries were invited to each submit two projects for Part 1 and Part 2.  Jonathan also netted £250 worth of publications from RIBA bookshops by winning the Serjeant award for Excellence in Drawing.

Date: Monday 29 November 2010, 18:30-20:00
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

Richard will look at ideas shaping the development of compact, multi-centred cities as the most environmentally sustainable form of urban development for future generations, including specific examples in London, Paris, Shanghai and Sydney. He will also consider the design language of a number of his practice’s key projects ranging from the Pompidou Centre, Paris and Lloyd’s of London to the National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff, Terminal 4 Barajas Airport, Madrid, the Leadenhall Building and One Hyde Park, London.  This lecture is part of the LSE’s ‘Urban Age’ series.

Tickets are available through the LSE.

A design for a dwelling in Costa Rica by RSHP’s Benjamin Garcia Saxe has won the ‘World’s Best Private House’ award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards 2010. The bamboo house sits within the Costa Rican rainforest and its cone-like surface is designed to open up at night to give the occupier - who is the architect’s mother - a direct view of the moon, hence its title: ‘A Forest for a Moon Dazzler’.

The design was conceived while Ben was at university and constructed during two consecutive winter breaks.

Ben joined RSHP in 2007 and is currently working on a major luxury residential development in Hong Kong.

For more information:
World Architecture Festival

A design for a dwelling in Costa Rica by RSHP’s Benjamin Garcia Saxe has won the ‘World’s Best Private House’ award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards 2010. The bamboo house sits within the Costa Rican rainforest and its cone-like surface is designed to open up at night to give the occupier - who is the architect’s mother - a direct view of the moon, hence its title: ‘A Forest for a Moon Dazzler’.

The design was conceived while Ben was at university and constructed during two consecutive winter breaks.

Ben joined RSHP in 2007 and is currently working on a major luxury residential development in Hong Kong.

For more information:
World Architecture Festival

Bongani Muchemwa has been awarded the Bronze Medal by RIBA Yorkshire for his Part I architecture work undertaken at Leeds Metropolitan University.

His project 'Honey Emporium' is a response to Colony Collapse Disorder (C.C.D), a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive colony abruptly disappear.  'Honey Emporium' is a whimsical contraption that forms the gateway to a meadow, designed to celebrate sustainable living with an emphasis on the advantages of urban beekeeping. Several hundred hives are to be set-up in and around Leeds city centre, including 20 within the new proposed meadow park. Visitors to the Honey Emporium can get involved with various activities from beekeeping demonstrations to decorative candle making and mead (honey wine) tasting.

On winning the award Bongani – currently working in London on a year-out placement with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners – commented: "I am truly honoured. This award is a big boost to my CV and has opened up a wide range of new opportunities for me.”

The RIBA Yorkshire Student Awards celebrate and reward the talent and excellence of the region's architecture students.  The Awards are open to schools with RIBA validated courses in the Yorkshire and Humber region, each short-listing projects from the students' end of year shows.

The low carbon concrete mix used in the design of Chiswick Park Building 8 has been recognised with the 2010 ‘CONSTRUCT’ award for Innovation and Best Practice.

The development will achieve a significant reduction in embedded carbon levels in the post-tensioned concrete floor slabs, following a review of the concrete mixes in another recently-completed building on the site. This review – commissioned by Arup and undertaken in association with Kingston University – determined the strength development of six different concrete mix compositions under simulated summer and winter conditions. The results showed that embedded carbon levels could be reduced by using alternative materials in the concrete mix whilst still achieving the required strength and quality targets within given timescales and temperature conditions.

As a result, 27 per cent of the cementitious content of the concrete mix for the post-tensioned  floor slabs has been replaced with Pulverised Fly Ash (PFA). PFA is  waste product from power stations which behaves in a similar way to cement but is far less energy intensive to produce. This has resulted in an overall reduction of embodied carbon of approximately 30 per cent in Building 8.  It is hoped that a similar approach will be adopted for the two final buildings to be delivered as part of the overall Chiswick Park masterplan.

Campus Palmas Altas, the new headquarters for Abengoa in Seville, has been awarded first prize in the 2010 Prime Property Awards as the best sustainable real estate project in Europe.

Competing against 142 entries from 19 European countries, the judges commented that the scheme is “a prime example of sustainable architecture and technology.”

The business park was completed in late 2009 and has been certified LEED Platinum – the first project in Europe to receive the highest LEED rating. Jury member Garrie Renucci, partner at Gardiner & Theobald, said: “Deploying renewable energy sources and innovative technologies in Seville has led to an unusual yet exemplary building concept in terms of energy efficiency that sets benchmarks and has already inspired others.”

RSHP is part of the winning team to design a new Cancer Treatment centre for St Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. The competition – launched in February – sought designs for a world-class facility that would provide an outstanding working environment and patient experience. The new building will be the first in a phased development for the hospital that will ultimately produce an Integrated Cancer Centre, combining clinical care with research. The winning design breaks the building down into five three-storey ‘villages’, each responding to a different type of patient journey.

Ivan Harbour of RSHP said: "Our approach is centred on the patient experience. We have brought together the spatial qualities of the caring environment which we explored at Maggie’s London with the most up-to-date approaches to clinical care, all wrapped up in a building that is presented at a welcoming human scale but that has an inherent adaptability to respond to changes in the delivery of cancer treatment in the future."

RSHP worked on the winning design in association with a team led by, Laing O’Rourke and including specialist healthcare architects Anshen + Allen Associates and healthcare planners, HCP. The competition allowed teams to engage with the client team, clinical staff and end-users of the building during the design phase. The judges commented that the design ‘…looks to a single ‘big idea’ that is big enough, clever enough and robust enough to survive the negotiation with client, stakeholders, planners and time.’ They went on to note that the ‘villages’ are ‘…welcoming, light and airy spaces (that can be adjusted over time), and concluded: ‘This was an intelligent and well-considered idea for a building that responds clearly to organisational structure and allows for short, mid and long-term change... (We) thought this scheme had an architectural honesty, an appropriateness, a well thought through strategy, a lightness of touch and feels to be the most unique response to the brief.’

Richard Rogers commented: "We are delighted to be part of a team to design a new cancer treatment centre for one of the UK’s leading hospitals. Our approach to the CTC for Guy’s and St Thomas’ goes beyond conventional thinking on hospital design and makes the experience of dealing with cancer as relaxed as possible for both patients and staff."

On Monday, September 20 2010, Richard Rogers of international architectural practice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners will talk at Sydney University to an audience of AIA architects. The presentation, entitled ‘Architecture and the Compact City’ will look at ideas shaping the development of compact, multi-centred cities as the most environmentally sustainable form of urban development for future generations.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has considerable experience of undertaking major masterplanning projects in cities across the world including London, Paris, Berlin, Shanghai and New York.

The talk will consider approaches to masterplanning and the implementation of schemes which seek to use derelict land, discourage the use of cars in favour of walking and public transport, and create communities shaped by environmental responsibility, accessibility and the overlapping of activities in a flexible and socially inclusive framework.

Richard will also look at the design of buildings and focus on some of the projects which the practice has delivered over nearly 50 years, from the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Lloyd’s of London to the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff and Terminal 4 Barajas Airport in Madrid. In addition, he will discuss some of the practice’s current projects.

Tickets are available to AIA members via AIA Sydney
www.architecture.com.au

More Information
UNSW Built Environment Event: Lord Richard Rogers

Andrew Tyley, Associate at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, is to undertake a four venue lecture tour of South Africa. 

Each year, the South African Institution of Steel Construction and the Department of Architecture, University of the Free State bring a well-known architect to South Africa. This year, Andrew will visit universities across the country to talk about his experiences as an architect and the work of the practice, where he has worked for over 20 years, as well as participating in student crits and design workshops at the universities.

25 August 2010 – Pretoria:
Lecture hosted by the Pretoria Institute for Architecture.

27 August 2010 – Bloemfontein:
This lecture is part of the annual Sophia Gray lecture and mini-congress,
hosted by the Department of Architecture, University of the Free State.

30 August 2010 – Cape Town:
Lecture hosted by the Cape Institute for Architecture.

31 August 2010 – Durban:
Lecture hosted by the KZN Institute for Architects.

For information on how to book tickets, visit SAISC website
For the Sophia Gray lecture, email pretoriusY@ufs.ac.za

RSHP's Open House Event - Saturday 18 September 2010

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is offering the general public guided tours of its offices at Thames Wharf, Hammersmith to mark this year’s London Open House. Tours will take place on Saturday 20 September on the hour between 10.00 am and 4.00 pm, and each will last for approximately 40 minutes. Tours are free of charge and tickets are not required in advance. However, tours are offered on a first-come-first-served basis.

A number of buildings designed by the practice will also be open, including Channel4 Headquarters, Lloyd’s of London, the O2 and Maggie’s London.
 

For further information please visit Open House or email enquiries@rsh-p.com

Ivan Harbour, director in charge of the 2009 Stirling Prize winning Maggie's Centre, will be one of a five strong jury judging this year's Stirling Prize. Alongside RIBA President Ruth Reed; Edward Jones, architect, Dixon Jones; Professor Lisa Jardine and Mark Lawson, broadcaster, Ivan will visit each of the six shortlisted buildings during August and September and the winner will be announced on Saturday 2 October. The prize will be broadcast live from the Roundhouse, London, on BBC2's The Culture Show.

The shortlisted buildings are:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Rick Mather Architects
Bateman's Row, London by Theis and Khan
Christ's College School, Guildford by dRMM
MAXXI, National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects
Neues Museum, Berlin by David Chipperfield Architects with Julian Harrap Architects

For more information:
RIBA Stirling Prize

June 24 Graham Stirk lecture: NEO Bankside, from Concept to Construction

In an event staged as part of the London Festival of Architecture, Graham Stirk delivered a lecture to invited guests, describing the design process of NEO Bankside from concept to construction.

Graham described how the project has developed since its inception, from the evolution of the brief with Native Land through the planning and design development process to the building currently under construction.

The urban context played a key part in informing the design. Graham showed diagrams illustrating the historical evolution of the site to the present day, and describing the topography of the surrounding architecture. In response to the predominant urban grain a site strategy was developed which maintained North South permeability through the development whilst bringing daylight into the heart of the scheme. The massing of the development responds to the scale of the neighbouring buildings creating a transition from the monumental Tate Modern to the two-storey almshouses on Holland Street.

Each of the five buildings is made up of a number of key elements, whose legibility provides the basis of the architectural expression. The structure provides a strong architectural and visual framework for the scheme. The external bracing removes the need for internal sheer walls and therefore increases the flexibility of the internal planning and servicing arrangement. Working with the ‘served and servant’ concept, each building is composed of simple flexible floors- the served areas- that can accommodate a variety of residential layouts, and a servant core which provides the necessary vertical connections between floors for the efficient functioning of the apartments- the lifts, stairs and service risers. These service towers punctuate the form of the main floor plates, with the lifts pulled away, creating a dynamic foil to the simple mass of the building

Pavilions A and B are currently progressing on site, and Phase 1 of NEO Bankside will be completed in Autumn 2010.

Graham Stirk is a senior director at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, currently leading the design of a number of high profile projects in London including the British Museum World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre, the Leadenhall Building and NEO Bankside.

RSHP has won a competition to masterplan Bercy Charenton, one of the last major potential brownfield development sites in Paris, giving a rare opportunity to create a new urban quarter in the capital.
The complex 63 hectare site- which adjoins the River Seine - is currently characterised by major transport interchanges: Rail junctions for three major Paris train stations, the junction of the Peripherique with Autoroute 4, all of which will need to be integrated into a more permeable city quarter.
The RSHP masterplan for Bercy Charenton will provide 5,000 new homes alongside business and retail premises to create a mixed quarter for live, work and leisure. The challenge is to integrate the district into the wider city plan whilst retaining the area’s existing character, making the most of the waterfront and views of the city. An emphasis will be placed on permeability and pedestrian access, repairing the urban fabric that is currently bisected by transport infrastructure and linking together existing and new green spaces. The design will aim to be exemplary in environmental terms, building green energy and low-energy strategies into the infrastructure and creating a dense, well-serviced district which lends itself to good pedestrian, cycling and public transport links.

The scheme builds on the ideas presented by the RSHP Team for the Grand Paris consultation, and will be conducted in the same spirit of collaboration, consultation, research and analysis. The Bercy Charenton team is expected to start work in September on a first phase 2-year study.

The London Festival of Architecture is a city-wide celebration of architecture in the capital which runs from 19 June to 4 July 2010. Focusing on three hubs over three weekends, the final weekend celebrates the South of London, based around the Bankside Urban Forest. The RSHP-designed NEO Bankside residential development, currently under construction, is at the heart of the hub and a number of events will be taking place around this project as well as in other parts of the capital.

Monday 28 June

What Makes Cities Sing? Architectural debate with Will Alsop, Mike Davies, Dan Ringelstein and Stephen Bayley
Mike Davies, Director at RSHP will participate in a debate at Clifford Chance Auditorium, Canary Wharf.
Admission free, booking required in advance: Email

Saturday 3 July 9.30am - 12noon

Visit NEO Bankside. Hard hat tours of the residential development – currently under construction - led by members of the project team are taking place on Saturday morning with one tour every half hour. Places are limited and booking is essential. Please email Neobankside@camronpr.com to book.
Sugar Cube Construction. Artist Brendan Jamison has constructed a scale model of Tate Modern and NEO Bankside, on display this weekend at the NEO Bankside Pavilion. Family workshops showing children how to build models from sugar cubes will be led by sculptor Brendan Jamison on Saturday 3 July. These will run from 10am to 12noon and from 2pm – 4pm. To register a place on one of the family workshops please contact: Neobankside@camronpr.com
19 - 27 June

50 Years of London Architecture. The Mall Galleries, Pall Mall
Photographic exhibition illustrating a cross section of new architecture in London over the past five decades. RSHP is showing 12 projects documenting the practice’s work in London from the 1960s to the present.
 
For more information about these and other events: www.lfa2010.org