If you are looking for something to kill a little time on your breaks at work, then it is worth looking at the David Chipperfield Architects website and browsing through past projects and forthcoming plans the company is currently working on.

There’s nothing quite as inspirational as looking at the work of one of Europe’s most celebrated architects and his team.

Whilst browsing I even started imagining what it would be like to have Chipperfield design a house or a workspace for me and then I came across the Koenig Books shop on Charing Cross Road in London. That’s a shop I’ve visited a number of times and had no idea Chipperfield’s team was behind it, clearly believing it too small scale for their attention.

So evidently anything’s possible in the world of architecture. My shed is looking a little ropy – I might give David a call now to see if he can do something about it.

This week the winners of the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture 2011 were announced in Barcelona. The main prize went to David Chipperfield Architects for their work on the Neues Museum in Berlin alongside Julian Harrap.

The Emerging Architect Special Mention went to Ramon Bosch and Bet Capdeferro for the Collage House in Girona. The winners won 60,000 and 20,000 euros respectively to go along with the accolades and the considerable boost to reputation that these awards represent.

The winning formula for these particular projects appeared to be the marriage between new and old materials, giving historical structures a new lease of life.

The architecture of Manchester really contributes to the atmosphere of the city. Having lived in the city all my life, it’s easy for me to identify the parts of Manchester that seem to pulse with its life and history.

Parts of Castlefield are particularly evocative because the very architecture reflects the fervour of industry that led to its rise. The canals, arches, bridges and red brick edifices are a feature of the wider Manchester area, but they converge at Castlefield in all their photogenic glory.

It’s a shame that a lot of modern architecture doesn’t bring to mind the idea of being built to last, incorporating as it does so much glass. However, it feels that in Manchester the marriage between old and new, industrial and post-industrial works more attractively then in many cities made rich for their role in the industrial revolution.

The designers of the Shakespeare theatre in Stratford have stated that there may not be another major golden architecture project for years to come. This is due to cuts in the UK but mainly the boost that occurred at the start of the millennium. It seems that ideas are becoming stagnant and a number of people believe this may scar Britain in a number of ways.
This will have an effect on the economy and the tourism that such projects attract. Essentially this is also due to lottery funding cuts as major private sectors can no longer match the funding.

London has been waiting for the cycle hire scheme for a very long time now, however it seems this has been implemented at the detriment of our beloved capital. First off it has been called the Barclays cycle hire scheme which means Barclays bank has thrown their branding over all cycle stops and cycles themselves. Simply this has caused a major corporate branding problem.
The sponsorship deal cost nearly twenty million pounds to setup and has Barclays smiling from ear to ear. This has destroyed the architecture and image of London as every street corner now holds the branding Barclays bank.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson is to publish planning guidance documents for developers in the capital of Great Britain. The aim of the planning guidance documents is to outline where developers can build without destroying the view in London. This comes after the London views management has strengthened rules in the capital to ensure that developers do not destroy the sites of London. This will essentially safeguard our tourism business aswell.
Building are to be built within the confines of the documents publish by Boris Johnson who also states that new and interesting buildings will add to the enjoyment of the city. This should alos fit in with the heritage that come with London.

Benoy one of Britain’s largest architectural firms has successfully secured its third high profile contract in India. This comes as the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron is India to meet try and strengthen ties with India and Britain, however this visit maybe in vain as it seems the Gandhi’s of India have cancelled their meeting with David Cameron. There is still speculation around this and some believe David Cameron may have been snubbed by the Gandhi’s.
Benoy are well known for the Bull Ring shopping centre in the town centre of Birmingham a now popular tourist destination for visitors to the UK. Majority of the work Benoy will undertake is in Bangalore and Mumbai.

UK students are for once being praised for ‘doing good’. Let’s face it UK students have a reputation for being drunk and lazy all the time, so it’s quite good to see news like this. Essentially a bunch of architecture students from the University of Newcastle travelled to Uganda to build a children’s village for orphans in a heavily aids ridden population.
The students are said to have covered their own costs for travel and other expenses and have embarked on this amazing project of their own free will. They will be working to essentially save and home children who are desperate need of a safe environment.

A new development project in Ruthin has seen the Town Mayor invite a group of architecture students to come up with ideas for new projects across the town that could possibly help shape the future of the town.

Town mayor and an architect himself Gavin Harris, came up with the idea to persuade his own former teacher to get his new batch of students involved.

And to the delight of many in the town, the project will be costing less than £5,000, whereas a private firm would likely charge upwards of £40,000. Once completed, members of the community will be invited to view the ideas and plans the students come up with to see which will be viable to develop into full scale projects.

A recent announcement stated that the go-ahead has been given for a new £4.7m project to build a youth centre in the London borough of Havering. The buildings caterpillar shape has been developed to be ‘future-proof’ with alterations and development very much in the forefront of thinking.

The building is planned to the Borough’s first carbon-neutral structure and will contain a local radio station and a career advice section showing that not only the future of the building is important in this structure! During the development process, young people from the area were consulted to ensure that they were provided with a youth centre that will be of great benefit to them.