The month: September 2010

Class perspective
Commenting on the debate over the photography of children, Kingston University students Anna Brooks and Samantha Harvey have reproduced the traditional class pic with a twist – a 180° twist to be precise. Harvey said they were prompted by the fact that ‘the ethical issues and paranoia surrounding the laws of photographing children in today’s society are confusing, and some would say, farcical, but we also wanted to challenge people and ask at what point will the photography of children be completely forbidden?’ Two Essex Primary schools were the willing suppliers of the head shots. CK

Finsbury Park acts up
Finsbury Park in North London used to be a bit of an entertainment centre, with Frank Matcham’s Empire music hall and its Gaumont and Astoria cinemas. All are long closed, the Empire even demolished. So it’s cheering to see a planning application to build a new theatre there. Young practice Hughes Jones Farrell has designed the twin-auditorium Park Theatre for the company’s artistic director Jez Bond. The drama-led theatre has bought an empty office building for conversion. With a 200-seat main space and flexible ‘black box’ studio and bar/cafe, the scheme will be part-financed by five flats on the upper floors. If the planners approve, a start on site is likely at the end of the year. HP

Hex House casts a spell
Following our ‘prefabulous’ issue in July-August, architect Brian Horseman of Devon has sent us this ingenious building system, Hex House, which he developed himself. It’s clever: four hexagonal one and two storey units (shown as houses here, but as applicable to other building types) that can stand alone, or be set in conjoined configurations, giving the repetition and efficient building envelope of a traditional terrace, arranged in a more protean way. Units are designed to be composite timber-frame (SIPS) in construction and made offsite, with final cladding to choice. They can interconnect for uses such as clinics, stand alone or be set in small groups for holiday homes, and so on. Horseman is now looking for construction partners to take up the idea. ‘The intent is to maximise the density while giving all units a ground floor entrance,’ he says. We think it’s a very practical idea, so for client readers who are interested, Horseman Architects awaits your call. www.bjhassoci ates.co.uk HP

Olympic mettle
By the time this month’s RIBAJ lands on desks, the fate of the East End’s skyline will be known, with the planning for Anish Kapoor’s 114m high Arcelor Mittal Orbit for the 2012 London Olympics determined. Yawns were stifled in the great ‘Will it, won’t it get planning?’ drama, when Cabe fired a salvo in the form of a design review report claiming the ‘design is not yet resolved in sufficient detail to receive planning permission’. Four days later Arup associate director James Lough fired off a letter answering Cabe’s queries.

He reiterated that the Orbit is conceived as a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, but there was a whiff of ‘Pseud’s Corner’ in his justification for the use of faceted rather than curved glass on the viewing platform. Apparently, ‘it reflects the the faceted nature of the sculpture which is not solely curvilinear in form… It allows linear elements to form the curved surface which is the aesthetic that the design team wants to create,’ and ‘provides a direct contrast to the simplicity and purity of the square annulus’. We hope they can rectify this last issue by 2012: it sounds terribly painful. CK

New primary, new look
Alsop Sparch is kickstarting regeneration on the Aylesbury Estate in south east London with its new circular Michael Faraday School. It can be seen here in pictures taken from a crane during construction. Carrying on the Alsop design tradition, the primary looks quite unlike its neighbours, glazed and clad in bright Trespa panels with kinky horizontal louvres. It has a ‘living room’ at its centre, stipulated by the headteacher who was as keen as Alsop Sparch to give spaces character with names, so for castle wall read balustrade and watch out for the flying carpet on the ground floor. Shop windows for classrooms are set around a living room overlooked by a mini auditorium perched high under glulam beams. EY

Brady in waiting
It’s like the London buses over at Portland Place at the moment – you don’t see one for 175 years, and suddenly two come along at once. Last month saw the official announcement of Angela Brady, director of practice Brady Mallalieu, as the second female and next and 74th President of the RIBA.

Taking over from Ruth Reed on 1 September 2011, Brady brings a lot of experience to the role, being among other things chair of the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland, a Cabe enabler, external examiner to the Mackintosh School and a member of the RIBA Women in Architecture Committee. Brady’s also very media savvy, having presented the six part ‘The Home Show’ in 2008, taking a prime-time slot in Channel 4’s weekday schedule. Thankfully, she’s not letting the smell of the greasepaint go to her head, saying that she is making sure she concentrates on the key challenges facing the construction industry, ‘so that we can work collectively to combat some of the environmental and economic problems we all face’. CK

School’s out again for Cullinan
Edward Cullinan Architects sees its first school completion since Greenwich Millennium School in 2000 with Brampton Manor, the first sample school of Newham’s BSF programme to finish. The project boosts the 1960s school’s performing arts spaces (state-of-the-art theatre/auditorium; dance and drama spaces; TV and audio studios plus media editing suite) and lifts key parts of the circulation. The new Reglit clad links are uplit and the base in engineering brick extends out to create group sitting spaces. The practice also got to design some nifty little tuckshops for the school. Its next major education project will be Birmingham’s Shenley Academy – due to complete in 2012. EY