This week a redesign of the Lloyd's building by Richard Rogers was announced

This week on Dezeen, insurance company Lloyd's of London revealed it would overhaul the iconic Underwriting Room at the heart of its high-tech Lloyd's building in London designed by Richard Rogers.

The company will carry out the "once in a generation" overhaul of the central space to better accommodate its flexible working practices, following the coronavirus pandemic. However, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is not currently involved in the redesign of the Underwriting Room and has declined to comment on the plans.

Students to sue The Glasgow School of Art for "underprovided education" during pandemic

Also in the UK, students at The Glasgow School of Art are planning to sue the school over its alleged failure to provide adequate education during the coronavirus pandemic.

The student group, which calls itself Art School Racket, has hired law firm Harper Macleod and launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund a legal challenge against the art university.

Minecraft library provides gamers with "a safe haven for press freedom"

In technology news, non-profit organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and creative advertising agency DDB have teamed up to build a virtual library called The Uncensored Library inside video game Minecraft.

The virtual library, which holds articles that are banned in countries including Russia and Egypt, was created so that gamers in countries with stringent press censorship rules are able to access the material.

Anupama Kundoo awarded 2021 RIBA Charles Jencks Award

Indian architect Anupama Kundoo was named the winner of the 2021 RIBA Charles Jencks Award, which is given to architects who have "made a major contribution simultaneously to the theory and practice of architecture".

Judges said she has "refined a strong political and conceptual theory for her practice" and "built bridges between academia in Europe and South Asia".

Snøhetta reimagines long-closed 1930s Norwegian harbour bath Knubben

Norwegian studio Snøhetta unveiled two new projects this week. Its design for the long-closed harbour bath Knubben in Arendal, Norway, will have an appearance that mimics the area's natural rock formations.

In Denmark, the studio added a reflective extension to the Ordupgaard museum that was informed by the French impressionist paintings on show in its galleries.

Tubular holiday home cantilevers over hill in Russian art park

Popular projects this week include a pipe-shaped cabin in Russia's Nikola-Lenivets Art Park, a restaurant with a green granite interior and a bright-red steel bridge in London's King's Cross area.

Our lookbooks this week focused on interiors with Mediterranean-style statement tiling and rustic interiors.

This week on Dezeen is our regular roundup of the week's top news stories. Subscribe to our newsletters to be sure you don't miss anything.

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Garrison Architects completes modernist Catskills retreat with 24 elevated cabins

Prefabricated wooden cabins perched on stilts surround a central lodge at this 50-acre resort in the Catskill Mountains designed by Brooklyn firm Garrison Architects.

Called Piaule, the boutique hotel and spa is the brainchild of Nolan McHugh and Trevor Briggs, the NYC-based creatives behind the homeware brand of the same name.

The Piaule resort is situated in New York's Catskill Mountains

Located between the Upstate New York town of Hudson and Hunter Mountain, alongside Kaaterskill Creek, the retreat is set on 50 acres of woodland that was formerly an active bluestone quarry.

The site features state-protected wetlands, including a seasonal stream that crosses the property, and has unobstructed views of the Catskill Mountains and Kaaterskill Clove – a deep gorge.

Interiors of the hotel's main house are designed to blend with the outdoors

The property comprises a communal lodge with a lounge and restaurant, a sunken spa and wellness space, and 24 cabins built as standalone modules.

The hotel's owners wanted the development to focus on encouraging and preserving what was native and natural to the land. As a result, the main house and guest cabins only take up five acres of the property's 50-acre terrain.

The restaurant features handcrafted hardwood furniture

Accessed via a quiet, tree-lined road, the modernist lodge features cedar cladding, a butterfly roof and floor-to-ceiling windows that provide vistas of the Catskills from within the check-in area, retail gallery and all-day restaurant.

The interior of the main house is designed to echo the exterior palette.

"Interiors are made of local materials to enhance the feeling of bringing the outdoors inside," said Garrison Architects. "Walls and ceilings are panelled with white oak and cedar, and flooring made of bluestone, benefitting a property that stands on a former bluestone quarry."

In the restaurant, the furniture is a mix of lounge and dining room seating. The tables, designed by Piaule studio, are locally handcrafted using storm-felled hardwood and the chairs are handmade in Denmark. A dual-sided, wood-burning fireplace heads up the space.

The hotel's 24 cabins are built as standalone modules around the wooded property

The open-plan interior looks out onto an outdoor hardscape and green roof that appears to float among the trees.

Directly below, a spa and wellness space is sunken into and concealed within the hillside. It includes a relaxation area and tea room that sits alongside private treatment rooms for facials and massages, and a movement studio.

Some of the cabins have separate living rooms

The spa also features a natural bluestone-lined steam room and an oversized cedar-lined sauna with a forest view, as well as a cold plunge and a temperature-regulated outdoor swimming pool.

The 24 cedar-clad guest cabins are a short walk from the main lodge. Also designed by Garrison Architects, the elevated standalone modules vary in size from 375 to 975 square feet (39 to 91 square metres).

The cabins are built around existing trees

Each one features floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall glass doors so that guests can feel fully immersed in the landscape.

"The cabins were prefabricated and placed by crane onto foundational stilts that elevate them four feet above ground level, allowing water and critters to pass underneath," explained Garrison Architects. "The western wall of each cabin is a 10-foot by 13-foot window that can slide open to let in the sights, sounds and sensations of their surroundings."

A spa includes a temperature-regulated outdoor swimming pool

"These windows are framed with an overhang that blocks rain and snow from entering so visitors can keep the windows open in any weather and experience nature with protection and privacy as if they were admiring a plein-air painting that has come alive," the team added.

All rooms have en-suite bathrooms with heated stone floors, and some of the cabins offer separate living room areas and private balconies that have been built around existing boulders and trees.

Glass doors and large windows make the most of landscape views

The hotel said that technology is designed to be invisible throughout the hotel to help "immerse guests in the landscape experience". The only tech devices in the rooms are Sonos Roam portable waterproof speakers while cars are not allowed beyond the entrance lot to minimise traffic and noise.

In 2019, a 1920s lodge for outdoorsmen in New York's Catskill Mountains was transformed into a boutique Scandinavian-influenced hotel and bar, which also offers tiny triangular cabins for guests. Also nearby, a former motor lodge was renovated to create cosy contemporary accommodation.

The photography is by Sean Davidson.

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Antechamber by Studio Nima Sardar "could be the last" Antepavilion as planning inquiry looms

This year's Antepavilion installation opens in London tomorrow, with the charity that organises the annual competition warning that it could be forced to close.

The Antechamber by Studio Nima Sardar will be unveiled at Hoxton Docks on the Regents Canal in east London this Saturday, just a few weeks ahead of a four-day planning inquiry that could determine the fate of the popular programme.

Top and above: concept image of Antechamber

The enquiry, which begins at Hackney Town Hall on 7 September, will conclude an ongoing legal battle between the local council and architecture charity Antepavilion over alleged breaches of planning regulations.

"Should Hackney Council get their way in the upcoming planning inquiry, this may be the last Antepavilion," Antepavilion said in a statement.

The council blocked last year's installation of floating fibreglass sharks by architect Jaimie Shorten with a court injunction and has previously issued a demolition notice for several Antepavilions, none of which have planning permission.

Planning inquiry outcome "not just win-lose"

"There's a wide range of outcomes," organiser Russell Gray told Dezeen. "It's not just win-lose, because there are so many different aspects to the actual inquiry issues. There's a lot of things in dispute, and we could win on some and lose on others, or we could win all or lose all."

A ruling against the pop-up installations could make it impossible to hold the competition in the future, Gray said.

"It is possible to imagine a scenario in which we're told we have to get planning permission for any installations, and that then becomes impossible," he explained. "This is just too much an impromptu temporary installation."

The Antechamber is currently being installed. Photo is by Antepavilion

Gray added that the charity's "central activity is the annual Antepavilion competition and if that were killed off by the wrong decision at the inquiry, then the heart is ripped out of it and therefore it very likely would not survive."

"It certainly would not survive in its current form," he added. "We're urging people to come and have their say at the public inquiry on 7 September."

This year's pavilion is "fully collapsible"

The Antechamber installation, which is the fifth to be built at the canalside building, was informed by Victorian fairgrounds and the area's history.

It is shaped like a large camera-obscura – a 17th-century optical device that is typically used to plan and arrange compositions – and was constructed using recycled timber from Antepavilion's dismantled 2019 installation, the Potemkin Theatre.

It was designed to be fully collapsible and transportable, a requirement for the 2021 submissions. "We had to respond to the threats from the council," Gray said.

"It wouldn't be much good if we selected a winner and put it up and immediately an injunction gets slapped on it. So we had to have a defensible position as to the transience and the temporary nature of the structure."

The 2020 installation of floating sharks by Jaimie Shorten was removed following a court injunction

Gray also spoke about the recent incident in which police stormed the building and arrested staff over concerns the venue was being used by Extinction Rebellion to plan protests.

This followed the construction of a tensegrity structure on the roof of the Antepavilion headquarters and a series of workshops showing how to build the structures, which have in the past been used by protesters to block roads.

Gray and others spent the night in jail but were released without charge the next day. Footage of the police raid caused widespread concern and accusations of "sinister" tactics.

"It's made me very angry and it's made me resolve to seek redress from the police, which incidentally we already have," Gray said. "We're looking to get permission from the court, as is required, to claim for judicial review, which would decide the lawfulness of that raid."

"We say it's unlawful and we haven't had a reply from the police yet," he added. "If they won't admit it's unlawful, we're likely to proceed to a claim for judicial review."

All Along the Watchtower was named joint winner of the 2021 competition. Photo is by Luke O'Donovan

Designed by Project Bunny Rabbit, the reusable bamboo-and-cable structure is called All Along the Watchtower and was constructed as an additional winner of this year's Antepavilion competition.

Founded in 2017, Antepavilion is an arts and architecture charity that holds an annual competition inviting architects, designers and craftspeople to create a pavilion that demonstrates its recurring theme of "anti-authoritarian impulse."

Earlier this year, its former partner Architecture Foundation withdrew its support for the competition following the legal battles.

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Antechamber by Studio Nima Sardar opens at Hoxton Docks, London on 21 August. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Superlimão converts single-family home for São Paulo couple's multiple uses

Brazilian architecture firm Superlimão has overhauled a large home in São Paulo, relocating the staircase to the facade and painting the front a deep shade of red.

The Yoga House project was completed for an enterprising couple that wanted to convert a portion of their home into a yoga studio, a co-working space and a rental bedroom, all on the same property.

Superlimão relocated the staircase during the renovation of the house

The original building was constructed in the 1990s and is located in Vila Madalena, a trendy area of São Paulo.

"[The] project had to accommodate a large room for classes, a reception area on the ground floor, a studio and co-working area on the top floor, and a room for rental in the old smaller house in the back," the team explained. On completion, the project encompasses an area of 310 square metres.

The red front of the house contrasts with a more muted palette behind

In order to create more room inside the house, the Superlimão team relocated the staircase to the front of the building, facing the street.

This allows separate access to visitors using the ground floor spaces and those going upstairs.

The new yoga studio features sliding screen doors

The steel structure was painted red, along with the rest of the exterior of the house.

By removing walls within the home as well as the staircase, Superlimão was able to bring much more light to the interiors.

The yoga studio and its associated functions occupy the ground floor, while the co-working area is found upstairs.

A formerly tiled area between the main home and the guest house was converted into a garden, giving yogis a view of the outdoors as they practice.

Yogis have a garden view while they practice

"The ceramic tiles of the outdoor area were replaced by a garden with relaxation areas, featuring an architectural style that conveys a calm and soothing environment, with a more neutral and cosy colour palette and natural elements," explained Superlimão.

The outside area is designed to be relaxing

"The light-colored walls and curved corners helped heighten the warm and welcoming feel of the environment," the team added.

A much more muted palette indoors contrasts the bright red facade, lending the spaces a bright and welcoming feeling.

The building accommodates a co-working space upstairs

Superlimão is based in São Paulo and has completed several other projects in the city, including the conversion of an old warehouse into a minimalist dental studio and a historic apartment in which vivid colors were combined with traditional building elements.

The photography is by Israel Gollino.

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Project credits:

Team: Thiago Rodrigues, Lula Gouveia, Antonio Carlos Figueira de Mello, Inaiá Botura, Viviane Camilli

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National Design Academy spotlights ten student interior design projects

A restaurant repurposed from old shipping containers and a Japandi-style coffee shop are included in Dezeen's latest school show by the National Design Academy.

Also included is a French restaurant inspired by 1920's art-deco design and a townhouse interior in central Moscow that references the 1960s.

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National Design Academy

School: National Design Academy
Courses: BA (Hons) Interior Design and MA Interior Design
Tutors: Amy Payler-Carpenter, Andreia Vidas, Vicky McClymont, Odette Maine, Ruth Skrytek, Sarah-Jane Wilkinson, Simone Haley and Stephen Matthewman-Knowles

School statement:

"Established for almost 35 years with alumni of over 35,000 designers in over 80 countries, the National Design Academy continues to lead the way in flexible online design education. All degrees are awarded in partnership with De Montfort University.

"The NDA offers a unique portfolio of online interior design and garden design qualifications, from practical short courses and Diplomas to Bachelors and Masters degrees.

"These include the world's only specialist degrees in Heritage Interior Design, Retail Interior Design and Design for Outdoor Living alongside the more traditional Interior Design and Garden Design qualifications.

"The NDA's degree courses offer the ability to upskill or retrain without having to put your career on pause or disrupt your home life. Many of the NDA's students are practising designers; some are new to the industry but all form part of our thriving online campus community."

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Alexa Cher-Alizee Wilson

"The brief was to design a sustainable concept restaurant. It was challenging to repurpose a storage facility constructed from old shipping containers into a sustainable restaurant near the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

"I wanted to demonstrate a sustainable interior can be more than just bamboo or repurposed wood. I designed a sustainable interior that is both aesthetically pleasing and creatively put together using cob, exotic encaustic tiles, glistening glass bricks and concrete. The design was inspired by the local Indochine style with a minimalist scheme."

Student: Alexa Cher-Alizee Wilson
Course: BA(Hons) Interior Design
Email: alexa.w.studio[at]gmail.com

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Ayse Begum Bozkaya

"In this project, the aim was to design a store and a cafe for environmentally conscious clients using sustainable products and finishes. The project brings together Scandinavian simplicity, minimalism and functionality with European elegance and sophistication.

"The focal point of the design is the installation area, which consists of a giant steel structure. This area is designed to host conceptual projects and exhibitions or to display the inspiration behind the fashion designer's collection.

"Furniture and accessories are from Sancal, Essem Design, Karl Andersson & Soner, Arflex, Egizia, Salvatori and Swedese."

Student: Ayse Begum Bozkaya
Course: BA(Hons) Interior Design
Email: aysebegumbozkaya[at]hotmail.com

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Fernanda Espidio

"This project is a coffee shop based on the concept of Japandi – it is a mixture of the traditional Japanese influence and Scandinavian design. The three concepts that guided the project were flow, hygge and origami."

Student: Fernanda Espidio
Course: MA Interior Design
Email: espidiofernanda[at]gmail.com

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Ibrahim Mohamad Aljasem

"This is a luxury French restaurant inspired by 1920's art deco beauty. It uses natural wood and furniture upholstered in lush green velvet."

Student: Ibrahim Mohamad Aljasem
Course: BA(Hons) Interior Design
Email: ibrahim[at]luxurious-studio.com

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Kavindi Opatha

"Santorini is a pavilion inspired by the beauty of the Greek city of Santorini. The space reflects the beauty of Greece by capturing the essence and characteristics of the city.

"The flower ceiling, along with the colours blue, white and mild grey accompanied by simple furniture designs are meant to make the occupants feel like they are in Greece.

"When we think of this beautiful city, we visualise a seaside, white and magical blues. The pavilion design's primary function is to capture and simulate these emotions.

"The pavilion is placed on a pool to make use of the beach, which creates an infinity effect to the design while the overall design provides an exquisite, calming and a perfect finish to host magical wedding ceremonies."

Student: Kavindi Opatha
Course: MA Interior Design
Email: kavindiopatha[at]gmail.com

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Mackenzie Morrison

"Student digs to art deco lounge! The room was a dark magnolia space with mismatched furniture in an unliveable layout. My client wanted an art deco aesthetic and wasn't afraid to go bold.

"It's paid off tenfold, and her lounge truly makes you go 'wow' when you enter. Chevron and sunburst motifs signify more obvious deco design, and have been paired with more subtle references to make a striking but not cliche space."

Student: Mackenzie Morrison
Course: BA(Hons) Interior Design
]Email: mackenziepaigeinteriors[at]outlook.com

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Marina Ternovaya

"My project has the spirit of the 1960s. It was designed for a modern young family in a house in the centre of Moscow, built in the 1960s. Throughout the project, it was essential to preserve the shade of the design of the Sixties in Russia but at the same time evoke a contemporary aesthetic.

"The project uses stucco, which was very popular in Moscow, and modern furniture and lighting to ensure the interior isn't outdated."

Student: Marina Ternovaya
Course: BA(Hons) Interior Design
Email: tma704[at]yandex.ru

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Noor Kamal

"The Hypnos Hotel is a commercial project that is in Lancaster Gate, London. This project consists of many spaces that required renovation and remodelling while embracing the building's era. Moreover, due to its location and target market, it was essential to find the ideal design. The building was Victorian, and the target market was for business people or tourists who want to enjoy the city.

"Therefore, the plan was a Victorian/modern interior to fulfil requirements. During the designing process, it was important to include DDA requirements and sustainable materials."

Student: Noor Kamal
Course: BA(Hons) Interior Design
Email: noor.mkamal[at]outlook.com

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Philip Baldacchino Caruana

"The interior design conveys a distinct experience through storytelling which respects the local heritage of Zebbug, Malta. The design was developed from the De Rohan Arch's moulded edges found on the triangular pediment.

"The bed headboard displays decorative features through a linear gold, black and silver pattern. The gold and black designs increase in length as the headboard goes up.

"The headboard exhibits similar characteristics to the arch's neoclassical architecture through the grandeur of scale and simplicity of geometric forms. The beige walls paired with the brown ceiling accentuate the chandelier's golden features."

Student: Philip Baldacchino Caruana
Course: MA Interior Design
Email: philipcaruanadesign[at]gmail.com

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Sabine Daly

"The space was designed with the concept of being a modern industrial design with a slight nod to the steampunk concept through the use of copper as an accent. It includes concrete floors and exposed brick walls (not shown).

"The colours black, white and copper are used along with exposed brick to create a bold statement and since the colours and materials are bold the furniture and objects are simple in shape to not overwhelm the space. The marble backsplash is bold but at the same time simple, it has all three main colours – black, white and grey – it is what connects the whole design together."

Student: Sabine Daly
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Design
Email: sabinedaly[at]gmail.com

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Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and National Design Academy. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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