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Wednesday 15 December 2021

Dezeen's top 10 British architecture projects of 2021

From a towering castle entrance to a studio in an old barn, we take a look at 10 of the most impressive British architecture projects featured on Dezeen this year as part of our review of 2021.

East Quay, Somerset, by Invisible Studio and Ellis Williams Architects

A mashup of galleries, studios and holiday homes can be found at the East Quay art centre, which Invisible Studio and Ellis Williams Architects designed for a community group in the West Country harbourside town of Watchet.

In reflection of its varied contents and the surrounding ad-hoc harbour buildings, the complex is composed of a stack of volumes with different forms and materialities. They are unified by a concrete plinth that wraps around a public courtyard.

Find out more about East Quay ›

Mirrored exterior of Maggie's Southampton — Photo is by Hufton + Crow

Maggie's Southampton, Southampton, by AL_A

This year saw Amanda Levete's studio AL_A join the illustrious list of architects to have designed a Maggie's Centre for cancer care in the UK.

Maggie's Southampton is a low-lying pavilion, tucked away in a verdant garden at Southampton General Hospital. AL_A adorned its exterior with mottled stainless steel cladding and walls of pastel-coloured ceramic blocks.

Find out more about Maggie's Southampton ›

Tree-like wooden columns inside Cambridge Mosque — Photo is by Morley von Sternberg

Cambridge Central Mosque, Cambridge, by Marks Barfield Architects

Elaborate tree-like pillars are the focal point of the Cambridge Central Mosque, which Marks Barfield Architects completed this year as a "calm oasis of contemplation".

The pillars, which feature inside and outside the building, link to form a decorative canopy supporting the mosque's domed roof. Outside, they are paired with a decorative brick facade that draws on local architecture.

Find out more about Cambridge Central Mosque ›

Auckland Castle's entrance — Photo is by Nick Kane

Auckland Tower, Bishop Auckland, by Niall McLaughlin Architects

One of the more unusual projects of the year is Auckland Tower, a landmark entrance and viewpoint created for a castle in the County Durham town of Bishop Auckland.

Niall McLaughlin Architects modelled the viewpoint on an illustration of a medieval siege engine, while its adjoining welcome building resembles a market hall, nodding to the town's old marketplace.

Find out more about Auckland Tower ›

Interior of Sands End Arts and Community Centre — Photo is by Rory Gardiner

Sands End Arts and Community Centre, London, by Mae

In Fulham, Mae opened a community centre that was designed using the principles of a circular economy – an economic model that minimises consumption.

The centre is designed to be easily adapted to meet future needs and is built with an exposed timber structure, bricks made from construction waste and reversible fixings in place of glue. As part of the project, Mae also converted an existing lodge on the site into an arts space.

Find out more about Sands End Arts and Community Centre ›

Converted barn in Devon — Photo is by Rory Gardiner

Redhill Barn, Devon, by TYPE

Another project on this list that involved the conversion of an existing structure is the Redhill Barn, a secluded home in Devon that was created by TYPE.

The house slots within the weathered stone walls of a 200-year-old barn that was missing its roof. TYPE's intervention preserves this original envelope, marrying it with an exposed Douglas fir structure, lime plaster walls and pared-back furnishings.

Find out more about Redhill Barn ›

Exterior of David Brownlow Theatre — Photo is by Jim Stephenson

David Brownlow Theatre, Newbury, by Jonathan Tuckey Design

Jonathan Tuckey Design used a facade of red composite cement panels to set the David Brownlow Theatre apart from its leafy surroundings at Horris Hill School in Newbury.

The theatre, which is intended to evoke Renaissance architecture, is used for everything from school assemblies to drama productions. Its other key features include a cross-laminated timber structure and a portico that doubles as a billboard.

Find out more about David Brownlow Theatre ›

Art Barn, Devon, by Thomas Randall-Page

Another Devon barn conversion that featured on Dezeen in 2021 was carried out by architect Thomas Randall-Page for his father, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page.

The project, aptly named Art Barn, involved transforming the agricultural building into a studio space. The building's original appearance has been retained, but sliding doors and a folding balcony that blend into its cladding have been introduced. Inside, a freestanding cork-clad structure has been added for use as a cosy workspace.

Find out more about Art Barn ›

Glasshouse in Edinburgh — Photo is by Gillian Haye

Writer's studio, Edinburgh, by WT Architecture

The smallest project on the list is a glasshouse hidden in the garden of a Victorian villa in Edinburgh, which WT Architecture designed as a studio for pair of writers.

In homage to a dilapidated glasshouse that previously occupied the site, its design is intended to be visually simple. It features a low brick base, from which an exposed timber and steel structure is cantilevered.

Find out more about the writer's studio ›

Design District Canteen — Photo is by Taran Wilkhu

Design District, London, by Knight Dragon

SelgasCano, 6a Architects, Barozzi Veiga and David Kohn Architects are among the eight architecture studios that contributed to the Design District in Greenwich.

Led by developer Knight Dragon, the project is intended to emulate a city and features a cluster of creative workspaces all with a unique style. Among the buildings is an aluminium-clad block by Barozzi Veiga and a transparent structure (above) by SelgasCano that contains the site canteen.

Find out more about Design District ›

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Kelly Wearstler creates modernist Gingerbread Dreamhouse

Gingerbread Dreamhouse by Kelly Wearstler

Interior designer Kelly Wearstler has put an architectural spin on a Christmas classic, creating a gingerbread house in a California modernist style.

Wearstler designed the limited-edition Gingerbread Dreamhouse in collaboration with pastry chef Mark Tasker from New York restaurant Balthazar and entrepreneur Richard Christiansen from food retailer Flamingo Estate, with all proceeds going to charity.

Gingerbread house in modernist style with checkerboard icing and large porthole window — The Gingerbread Dreamhouse is a modernist take on a festive tradition

"Gingerbread houses are such an iconic and traditional staple of the holiday season but Richard Christiansen of Flamingo Estate and I wanted to give them a classic Californian contemporary spin," Wearstler told Dezeen.

Instead of the typical gabled cottage, Wearstler's gingerbread house has the intersecting flat planes of a low-lying modernist home. Porthole windows and a white checkerboard icing facade, with varying sizes of checks, complete the look.

Side view of the Gingerbread Dreamhouse, showing two side porthole windows and a colonnade at the rear — The house is made entirely from gingerbread and icing, with features such as a checkerboard facade and round windows

"We drew inspiration from many iconic mid-century and brutalist homes in Southern California, particularly Rudolph Schindler and Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic architecture," Wearstler said.

The structure is built entirely from gingerbread biscuits with icing as the bonding material.

While coming up with a design that would be strong and stable under these constraints was challenging, Wearstler found that mid-century style was actually perfectly suited to the task.

"The main challenge was designing an incredible house that could be easily assembled in the classic gingerbread style," said Wearstler. "We really leaned into the flat-pack, simple planes of modernist architecture and it truly all fell into place."

Kelly Wearstler sits on one side of the Gingerbread Dreamhouse while Richard Christansen stands on the other — Wearstler devised the Dreamhouse design in collaboration with Richard Christiansen of Flamingo Estate

"In the end, we designed a house we would actually like to live in," she continued. "We often think of gingerbread homes existing in cold, alpine climates but ours is a desert home with sharp lines and a modern attitude."

One hundred Gingerbread Dreamhouses have been made in total, and are available to purchase via the Flamingo Estate website for US$650 (£490).

All proceeds will go to Create Structure, a charity that aids communities to rebuild after natural disasters.

Wearstler founded her design studio in 1995 and is best known for her hotel projects, such as San Francisco Proper, which combines vintage European design for an eclectic look.

Her recent work has included the renovation of a 1950s Malibu beachfront cottage and a virtual house-garage hybrid designed for basketball player LeBron James' electric Hummer.

The post Kelly Wearstler creates modernist Gingerbread Dreamhouse appeared first on Dezeen.

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Last chance to enter Dezeen and LG Display's OLEDs Go! competition

OLEDs Go! 2 illustration by Andrew Joyce

Dezeen and LG Display's OLEDs Go! competition closes for entries on Monday. Enter before the deadline for the chance to win up to €35,000.

The contest, which is free to enter for anyone over the age of 18 in any country around the world, seeks creative OLED designs to enrich people's changing lifestyles.

It features a top prize of €35,000 and total prize money of €88,000.

Full details of how to enter the competition are included in the competition brief and rules.

Contest seeks designs to enhance people's changing lifestyles

This is the second edition of the OLEDs Go! competition.

This edition of the contest seeks designs that incorporate small to medium OLED displays (between 27 and 55 inches diagonally) that provide new experiences and enhance people's changing lives.

Entrants are free to design any product for any user or demographic around the world and can aim to improve a lifestyle that is emerging or changing for any reason.

Designs must be feasible to manufacture using current OLED technology.

Rather than radical, futuristic concepts, we are looking for practical designs that could be developed and produced over the next few years.

€88,000 prize money up for grabs

Competition entries will be judged by a jury comprising Dezeen editors and LG Display executives and designers, who will select the finalists and determine the overall winner.

A shortlist will be published on Dezeen in February 2022, with the finalists revealed in March 2022 and the winner announced in May 2022.

The winner will receive a top prize of €35,000, the runner up will receive €20,000, third place will win €15,000, fourth place will win €10,000 and fifth place will win €8,000.

Contest builds on success of last year's OLEDs Go! competition

This is the second time that Dezeen has teamed up with LG Display to run the OLEDs Go! competition.

The inaugural contest was a huge success, receiving over 200 entries from 50 different countries around the world.

It was won by Richard Bone and Jisu Yun, who designed a transparent OLED television called Scroll that doubles as a shelf.

Entrants to last year's competition are free to enter this year's contest as well, including winners, finalists and those that made the shortlist.

However, any design that was shortlisted last year cannot be resubmitted or adapted for this year's edition of the competition. Designs that are too similar to any of the shortlisted entries from last year will also be discounted.

For more information about the competition, including how to enter, visit: dezeen.com/oledsgo.

The top illustration is by Andrew Joyce.

Partnership content

OLEDs Go! is a partnership between Dezeen and LG Display. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Residents "livid" over £450 daily cost of heating Sky Pool

Residents at the Embassy Gardens development in southwest London claim its controversial Sky Pool is too cold to be used in winter, despite heating costs of £450 a day.

There are calls for the transparent swimming pool, which is suspended 35 metres in the air between two buildings, to be closed during the colder months to save money and energy.

"We are livid," said one Embassy Gardens leaseholder, who did not wish to be named.

"The outside temperature has obviously dropped, but the Sky Pool is still open to residents and currently uncovered. We're basically heating the sky."

Women in Sky Pool — Residents claim the Sky Pool is barely being used now the temperature has dropped

Dezeen has heard from three separate residents that the Sky Pool is now only being used by a small handful of people, though the developer of Embassy Gardens, Ballymore, said that the pool area was accessed more than 100 times in the last week.

"It costs roughly £450 a day to heat that pool before adding the costs for two staff including a security guard," the resident added.

"It's also only being used now by a handful of residents because the water's actually quite cold."

Ballymore's running cost estimates for the Sky Pool put the total figure at £720,000 for 2021 including £164,250 for heating, with residents footing the bill via service charges.

"The water was barely warm enough to stay in the water for more than 5-10 minutes, even at the far end where the warm water jets are," a recent post on an Embassy Gardens residents' Facebook group said.

"Not that I'd normally rush to swim in an outdoor pool 13 floors up in the winter... but it's been billed as a year-round facility that we're paying to be open and staffed by two people."

The pool is usually covered at nighttime to mitigate heat loss but has been left uncovered for the past fortnight after the cover became damaged and was removed for repairs.

It's understood that the Embassy Gardens Residents Association plans to ask Ballymore at their next meeting to close and cover the Sky Pool for the rest of winter, with the water warmed just enough to prevent freezing.

Developer claims pool "remains popular"

Energy prices in the UK are set to rise dramatically next year amid record wholesale costs for suppliers and the raising of a government-enforced cap on bills, meaning that heating the pool could be even more expensive in 2022.

The Sky Pool gained huge attention after being launched in June, as aerial footage of it being enjoyed by residents on a hot, sunny day went viral.

But the facility came in for heavy criticism over the fact that affordable housing residents at Embassy Gardens are not allowed to access it, with the Financial Times' architecture critic Edwin Heathcote branding the Sky Pool "a disaster that’s already happened".

Architecture studio HAL, which designed the Sky Pool and claims it to be a world-first, previously told Dezeen it wanted to provide "a swim like no other".

Sky Pool from below — The Sky Pool garnered huge attention after opening this summer

"The Sky Pool remains a popular amenity for residents during colder periods, including having been used more than 100 times in the last seven days alone," said a spokesperson for Ballymore, which also manages the development.

The spokesperson subsequently clarified that this figure is based on the number of times the pool terrace has been accessed.

Some Embassy Gardens residents have expressed unhappiness with the quality of services at the development in the context of rising charges – which now stand at £6,500 a year for a two-bedroom flat, with that money going towards the running of the Sky Pool as well as other facilities including a separate indoor pool.

"Independent analysis of service charges across our London estate found that Ballymore service charges are competitive, represent good value for money and are, in the vast majority of schemes, in line with or better than market comparables – including at Embassy Gardens itself," the Ballymore spokesperson said.

HAL did not respond to Dezeen's request for comment.

Masterplanned by UK architecture studio Farrells, the 15-acre Embassy Gardens estate is in London's Nine Elms district which has seen massive development activity over recent years and includes the Kieran Timberlake-designed US Embassy.

The photography is by Shelley Montez.

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Rosana Escobar finds new potential in the humble coffee bag

An agave plant fibre used to produce coffee bags could be repurposed in the furniture industry, according to Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Rosana Escobar.

Fique is primarily turned into coffee bags to be exported from Colombia all around the world, but Escobar believes the material is not being used to its full potential.

Unravelling the coffee bag by Rosana Escobar — Rosana Escobar has created furniture from fique fibres leftover from coffee bag production

By identifying "missed opportunities" in the production process, the designer has found sources of waste fique fibres, which she believes could be used for crafting furniture and textiles.

To demonstrate this, she has used the material to create a bench, stool and rug.

Felt rug by Rosana Escobar — A felt rug is produced using the fique fibres

"This is a huge industry that completely relies on another industry – it relies on the industry of coffee – and this makes this material very vulnerable," Escobar explains in a video.

"I wanted to give a voice to this material, to produce new products that could give new narratives and could make us connect with the fibre differently," she said.

Fiques stool and bench by Rosana Escobar — A stool and bench are made from the yarns as a way of recycling the coffee bags

Escobar developed the project, titled Unravelling the Coffee Bag, for the bachelor degree programme at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) in the Netherlands.

Originally from Bogotá, the designer wanted to look more closely at a material that is embedded in Colombia's history, but which has become increasingly mono-functional.

Fique fibres drying — Fique is grown and harvested in Colombia, primarily for the production of coffee bags

She felt it was important to develop ideas that fit into the material's existing lifecycle, rather than place more demand on an already strained farming industry.

To do this, she investigated each stage in the fibres' journey from plant to product.

"In all these different stages I found opportunities where waste is produced and discarded," she said.

The first opportunity takes place when the fique fibres are harvested. As the material is combed, it creates a "kind of fluff" byproduct, which Escobar has turned into felt.

The designer also discovered that coffee bags are largely disposed of after use. She proposes unravelling the woven fabric to create hair-like fibres.

Unravelling the coffee bag b Rosana Escobar — Escobar identified missed opportunities in the lifecycle of the fique fibres

Escobar used the felt to create her rug, while her bench and stool are made from the recycled yarns.

These designs were developed in collaboration with local fique producers, building on their existing craft techniques.

"I think it is necessary for new products to come out of this industry and to be produced locally," Escobar told Dezeen. "Because if raw materials are exported, to be processed elsewhere, the value is only gain on the other end."

Fique furniture by Rosana Escobar — The designer hopes to bring new value to the material

Escobar presented the project as part of Design Indaba's Antenna showcase

Escobar presented her project during Dutch Design Week in October, both at the DAE graduate show and as part of the Antenna graduate showcase organised by Design Indaba.

Other DAE bachelor degree projects completed this year include a DIY repair system, a device for turning human breath into clouds and furniture that charts a history of homosexuality.

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