Breaking news: British architect and artist Chris Wilkinson, co-founder of the RIBA Stirling Prize-winning studio WilkinsonEyre, has passed away at the age of 76.
The news of his death on 14 December was announced this morning in a short statement by WilkinsonEyre.
"It is with deep sadness that WilkinsonEyre announce the death of Chris Wilkinson on the 14 December," it read.
"Our thoughts are with his family who have requested privacy at this time."
Wilkinson founded Chris Wilkinson Architects in 1983 and headed up the practice until 1987 when his former colleague Jim Eyre became a partner.
London-based Studio Seilern Architects has completed a villa on the Greek island of Paros, designed as a cluster of white cube-shaped forms that are oriented to follow the setting sun over the Aegean Sea.
Located next to an olive grove in Makra Myti on the island's southwest coast, Paros House was designed to be a "beautiful and simple luxury living environment", finished in traditional white stucco and Greek marble.
Paros House is a villa in Greece designed by Studio Seilern Architects
The spaces of the villa are organised around an east-west axis designed to follow the path of the sun throughout the day in summer.
Cutting through the centre of the site, this axis begins with an entrance ramp to the east and ends with a long, thin infinity pool that extends westwards towards views of the Aegean Sea.
The villa has views oriented towards the sea
A bamboo pergola is punctured by a single oculus that brings sunlight into the otherwise shaded poolside lounge, finished in hand-chiseled marble.
Around this central axis, the spaces of the villa are designed as stand-alone rooms with their own entrances, set on stepped platforms of terrazzo that lead down to the pool terrace.
"The surrounding built volumes that comprise the villa are placed on overlapping terrazzo slabs, which give the appearance of floating above the soil," explained Studio Seilern.
A living and dining space with a bedroom above sits in the largest central volume, which opens onto the poolside terrace via a set of sliding glass corner doors.
This block is flanked on either side by smaller en-suite bedroom blocks, each of which has its own more private terrace area sheltered by high white walls at the north and south of the site.
The interior has a minimal palette to match the exterior
Inside, the palette of "minimal material richness" is continued, with apertures framed by angled sections of hammered Alive marble and countertops and benches finished in sandblasted and chiseled stone.
"The scale of the aggregate displays calculated variation between different terrazzo surfaces, creating a subtle but vital gradation; a simple arrangement of raw materials that offers layers of intricacy," described the studio.
"These careful adjustments provide complexity without overloading the project, allowing the landscape to imbue the house with a unique formal energy appropriate for its coastal position."
The building's white walls echo the local vernacular
The white, vernacular buildings of the Aegean islands have inspired many contemporary reinterpretations for holiday villas and hotels.
A transparent swimming pool suspended between two buildings at the Embassy Gardens development in London gained huge attention this summer as aerial footage of residents enjoying the facility on a hot day went viral.
The Financial Times' architecture critic branded the Sky Pool "the visual cipher for everything that is wrong with London’s property boom, its local politics, its architecture and its optics", while the New Statesman also covered it in scathing terms.
Residents of the building have since spoken to Dezeen about how the pool runs up heating costs of £450 per day, despite being too cold to use in the winter. They are calling for it to be closed during the winter months.
Following a lengthy planning battle, Foster + Partners' proposed 305-metre high tourist attraction in the City of London was rejected by the UK government due to concerns about embodied carbon, its impact on historical buildings and the quality of its design.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan had previously dismissed the project as being "poorly designed" and having "very limited public benefit".
Telosa is a planned city for an unconfirmed location in the western United States, currently being designed by Danish architecture studio BIG on behalf of billionaire Marc Lore.
It has been billed as a sustainable utopia for five million inhabitants that "sets a global standard for urban living, expands human potential, and becomes a blueprint for future generations", according to the Telosa website.
But sceptics pointed to the fact that Lore made his fortune from Walmart, a company with a reputation for very low pay, while eyebrows were raised when the entrepreneur revealed to USA Today that the first Telosans will be subject to a selection process.
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry designed the steel-clad The Tower for the Luma Arles arts centre in southern France to evoke Van Gogh's Starry Night painting.
But the project came in for criticism, including questions over its environmental impact and its place among the ancient Roman city of Arles.
Japanese architect Tadao Ando was tasked with redesigning the historic Bourse de Commerce building in Paris.
The centrepiece of the transformation was a nine-metre-tall cylindrical concrete wall placed within the rotunda of 18th-century stock exchange.
Architecture critic Aaron Betsky was outraged by the revamp, and in a piece for Dezeen wrote that it was the "equivalent of what a dog does to a lamppost".
All Along the Watchtower was a metal rooftop tensegrity structure designed by architecture collective Project Bunny Rabbit as part of an annual competition organised by charity Antepavilion.
The project was involved in one of the most shocking architecture-related stories of the year, after dozens of police stormed Antepavilion's offices and arrested staff, apparently partly targeting the sculpture.
It is thought police believed the building was being used by environmental pressure group Extinction Rebellion to prepare for protests, while All Along the Watchtower is similar to structures used by demonstrators to form roadblocks.
Antepavilion insisted there was no connection between the installation and Extinction Rebellion.
Munger Hall, a proposed student dormitory for the University of California Santa Barbara, received media attention in November after one of the school's consulting architects resigned over the project, saying he was "disturbed" by its design.
If built, 94 per cent of the huge building's 4,500 occupants would live in a room without a window.
Billionaire investor Charles Munger, who dreamed up the dormitory and donated $200 million to the project, later claimed in an interview that it would stand "as long as the pyramids".
This luxury hotel is being designed by Foster + Partners as part of The Red Sea Project, which will see an archipelago of 90 untouched islands transformed into what the developers have called the "world's most ambitious tourism development".
The British studio said it aims to employ a "light touch, non-damaging approach", but the concept has remained controversial.
SANAA's overhaul of the famous La Samaritaine department store in Paris was finally unveiled in June this year, eight years later than originally planned.
The extensive renovation led by the Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning studio included the addition of a new undulating glass facade, which critics slammed as resembling a shower curtain.
Architecture practice Caukin Studio has created a pop-up library with a thatched roof and a "tropical" interior intended to give people a private place to journal and raise awareness around mental health.
The studio, which specialises in creating accessible architecture that has a positive social impact, installed the thatched library inside a converted skip supplied by Skip Gallery.
The library's design responds to the needs of locals who might not otherwise discuss their feelings by encouraging them to write about their feelings in a journal.
Local therapy service Self Space collaborated with the studio to advise on supporting mental health.
The Feelings Library is a safe space for Londoner's to journal
"We've always been interested in how architecture and art can create positive social impact both in its function and the way in which it’s been designed," Caukin Studio cofounder Harrison Marshall told Dezeen.
"The project aims to transport visitors out of the hustle and bustle of central London, and into a cosy personal space where they feel comfortable releasing some of their personal thoughts."
It is open to the public for three weeks
Marshall says that the studio placed the library inside a skip because it acts as "a vessel for everything we want to discard."
The interior – which is brightly coloured and made from natural materials – seeks to create a safe, nurturing atmosphere where people feel comfortable enough to talk about their mental health.
The studio used natural materials and leafy plants inside
At the entrance, bright colours and lights are used to evoke different emotions and memories. Pink lighting seeks to ensconce visitors in a warm glow while blue paint is meant to reflect a bright sky.
Inside, verdant plants and self-help books line the timber shelves while visitors can sit on a wooden bench to journal in a private, serene environment.
"A big part of the design challenge was to create somewhere that could transport visitors away from the busy, concrete jungle of central London," explained Marshall.
"We took inspiration from the projects we've completed in more tropical parts of the world, and created a space made from natural materials; with thatch cladding that you're more likely to find by an Indonesian beach than next to a London office block."
It hopes to create a calm atmosphere
According to Marshall, now more than ever, people need an outlet to express how they are feeling. The architect cites the coronavirus pandemic as one of the key factors driving this trend.
"The Feelings Library is a creative way to create connectedness at a time many of us feel at our most lonely and disconnected," she said.
"It's been a challenging two years for us all, we have been isolated, uncertain and at times life has felt upside down."
"Journaling is an important tool for processing thoughts, with the simple act of converting feelings into written words, people are forced to reflect on what's going through their head; these books aim to provide a space to do exactly that," she continued.
The library will be dismantled and repurposed
After three weeks, the installation will be dismantled. The roof will be composted while the other materials will be sent to the Harris Academy Peckham school in south London where the studio will hold workshops to create a new structure.
Vescom's new upholstery is made from recycled PET bottles obtained from local sources. These are made into a yarn that Vescom has woven into four types of soft-touch fabric, each using a classic weaving technique.
Vescom's new recycled range comes in 59 different colours, all created by mixing coloured and grey yarn
Wilson is a basic weave, Avon is a melange, Norfolk is a grid, and Harding is a twill. They come in 59 colours, each obtained by weaving one of the colours from Vescom's own specially curated yarn bank with a grey melange as the warp thread.
This approach cuts down on excess yarn production, and the overall colour is determined by how much weft is visible in each of the four weaving styles.
There are four different weave patterns, ranging from a melange to a grid
The different weaves complement each other when used in combination, and the upholstery also meets the highest performance specifications for the contract market.
Made in Vescom's German weaving mill, the upholstery is designed to be durable, long-lasting and non-toxic.
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