Articles by Eric Baldwin

Heatherwick Studio’s Coal Drops Yard in London’s King’s Cross is set to open on October 26, 2018. As a new major shopping district in King’s Cross, the design brings new life to two heritage rail buildings from the 1850’s. Now home to stores, restaurants and cafés, Coal Drops Yard sits just off Granary Square next to Regent’s Canal and the refurbished Central St. Martins School. The pair of elongated Victorian coal drops are reimagined as a space for the public to make their own. 

London-based JAA studio has released a new proposal to transform Grenfell Tower into a black concrete memorial to victims of the fire. Encasing the burnt-out shell, a solemn sarcophagus of 224 concrete panels would wrap the facade to anchor the tragedy in collective memory. Titled Grenfell Tower: in Memoriam, the concept does not claim to be an answer but an alternative way of thing about the site and its new-found sanctity after disaster. As JAA states, “the city needs its scars.”

Images have been released of the Bjarke Ingels Group-designed plans for Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood. First reported by The Real Deal, the development is called the Miami Produce Center. A mega mixed-used complex on stilts, the design was created with Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett. A special area plan filed with the city of Miami shows the design will include office space, education areas, residential units, retail, a hotel and parking spaces. The eight-building complex will cover over 8 acres northwest of downtown Miami. 

Programmer Joel Simon has created an experimental research project, Evolving Floor Plans, to explore speculative and optimized plan layouts using generative design. Interested in the intersection of computer science, biology and design, Joel organized rooms and expected flow of people through a genetic algorithm to minimize walking time, the use of hallways, etc.

ICONIC WORLD has announced the winners of the 2018 Innovative Architecture Awards. The awards honor superb examples of interaction between disciplines through an independent architecture and design competition. ICONIC WORLD focuses on internationally outstanding construction projects, innovative interior and product design as well as compelling communication in an architectural context. The focus is on holistic production and on the interaction between the trades in the context of architecture.

British researcher Darmon Richter has recently released Monumentalism, a visual study of over 200 photographs featuring socialist architecture and designs built by 20th century regimes around the world. These photos were taken in more than 30 different countries and show a broad range of subject matter, from military parades in the former Soviet Union to revolutionary memorial sites. See more after the break. 

As one of the founding members of Archigram, the avant-garde neo-futurist architecture group of the 1960s, the British architect, professor, and writer Sir Peter Cook (born 22 October 1936) has been a pivotal figure within the global architectural world for over half a century; one of his most significant works from his time with Archigram, The Plug-In City, still invokes debates on technology and society, challenging standards of architectural discourse today.