The month: Dec/Jan12

Terry in Poundbury
While Libeskind is disrupting neoclassicism in Dresden (see opposite), Quinlan and Francis Terry continue to work to the old rules. This big development,
just completed, forms the western side of Queen Mother Square in Poundbury, the Prince of Wales’ traditionalist Dorset suburb. The Terrys completed the south side earlier.
These highly formal buildings frame what is to be Poundbury’s district centre. This one is essentially a 40,000 sq ft office building, but incorporates a mini-Waitrose supermarket and a local producers’ market in its arcade. HP

President’s Medals
The Bartlett and the Architectural Association are joined by the University of Melbourne in the winners’ roll call for the President’s Medals. The 37 projects on the strong international shortlist show a strand of socially and politically engaged projects as demonstrated by the winners. Bronze Medal winner Basmah H Kaki brought together the poetry of sound and the devastated landscape of an Indian quarry to create a centre for the relief and treatment of miners. Robots of Brixton, by Kibwe Tavares, is already a YouTube hit for its animation showing a degraded south London populated by robots. Its exploration of immigration, riots and urban form won it the Silver Medal. The Dissertation Medal was won by Hannah Robertson for her study of design methods for a real project for self-built homes for remote aboriginal communities in Australia.
David Gloster, RIBA director of education said ‘The breadth of response was remarkable… students haven’t given up on architecture as a catalyst for change, and nor should we.’ EY
For more on the President’s Medals work see the supplement with this issue of the RIBA Journal.

Three-cornered Quadrant
When opened in 1915 by the Lyons organisation, London’s Regent Palace Hotel was Europe’s largest. The cream faience-clad steel-framed building by Tanner, Wills and Ancell was built on Crown Estate land.
Now it has been redeveloped by the Crown Estate as part of a large upgrade project for the area. Designed by Dixon Jones and renamed ‘Quadrant 3’ it is essentially a new office building dropped into this triangular site, but preserving the three original corners. Residential and retail uses complete the mix.
Dixon Jones uses new glazed faience in cream, blue and green to distinguish the three main facades. Inside, conservation architect Donald Insall Associates has restored and reinstated bars and restaurants from both the Edwardian and Art Deco eras. HP

Va va voom
Cool white ceramic tiles, long span steels and some very high tech sports cars on the new McLaren production line: this Foster-designed building near Woking is a stripped-down sister to its Stirling Prize shortlisted neighbour, the McLaren headquarters; sharing the attention to detail of its legendary client, executive chairman Ron Dennis.
Next in the expanding Formula 1 fuelled empire will be a building for McLaren Applied Technology which will require application of the company’s expertise beyond motorsports. EY

Libeskind makes a point
First won in competition back in 2001, Daniel Libeskind’s Military History Museum in the highly-charged context of Dresden has finally opened. The beaux-arts symmetry of this late 19th century arsenal is sliced open with a new aluminium-clad steel framed insertion. In plan it is a giant arrowhead, pointing in the direction the Allied bombers came from on their deadly raids in 1945. At the rear it contains new gallery space but at the tip, seen here, it is left empty but for an observation deck 30m high, giving views out over the rebuilt city. HP

Glasgow smile for Gareth Hoskins
Glasgow-based Gareth Hoskins Architects won Scotland’s Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award 2011 last month for its refurbishment and enlargement of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The £25,000 award, one of the largest in Europe, was presented to Hoskins at the Scottish Parliament by cabinet secretary for culture and external affairs Fiona Hyslop. A two and a half year makeover has restored the building to its former glory, with new gallery spaces for over 8,000 exhibits. The vaulted basement is now the main entrance ‘Arrivals’ area. Over 3,000m3 of soil was dug out to connect it with the street level – all to ease access legibility and orientation.
The prize judges were unanimous in their praise for the renovated museum, saying in their citation that the improvements were ‘achieved with such subtlety that even some expert critics have failed to fully comprehend the care which has gone into the execution… this sensitive and intelligent adaptation enhances both the building and the objects displayed within it’. CK

No competition in Libya?
Mystery surrounds a competition, reported in Building Design last month, inviting proposals from local and international architects, for a ‘Freedom Park’ to be built on the site of former Libyan ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s fortified Tripoli compound Bab-Al-Azizia. The 6km2 site has been bulldozed, according to the website designlibya.org,
host of the competition, to turn it into a ‘powerful symbol of a new, free Libya.’ But the provenance of the competition remains unclear.
Architect Nigel Spawton at Oxford firm GBS architects, who worked out in Libya before the uprising, and was first told about it through their local design consultancy ‘Bionic Consortium-Libya’, said he thought it was ‘A bit of a kite-flying exercise for someone. Conversations have been had about the site with Libya’s National Transitional Council, but they are not behind this.’
Meanwhile, a UK Trade & Industry conference ‘Rebuilding Libya: Opportunities for British Business’ takes place in London on December 14. CK