UK’S BEST MODERN CHURCH AWARD
NOVEMBER 2013
The Bishop Edward King Chapel was among the winners of the ‘The UK’s Best Modern Churches’ competition which celebrates the best churches built within the last 50 years, announced at a ceremony held at Lambeth Palace in London. The open competition was run by the National Churches Trust, in association with the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association and the 20th Century Society.
Of the top ten selected winners, the Chapel for Ripon College was the most recent nomination, with eight of the ten built in the late 50s and early 60s. The scheme was described as “a treat to look at” and “architecturally elegant, with a lovely intimate reflective interior.”
Link to Best Modern Churches
ATHLETES OCCUPY OLYMPIC HOUSING
AUGUST 2012
In the run up to the London Olympics, the Athletes’ Village housing block N15, is now occupied with athletes’ preparing for the games. Niall McLaughlin Architects have designed the external skin of the housing block on a ‘chassis’ designed by Glen Howells. The facade samples fragments of the Elgin Marbles, scanned from the British Museum and converted into 3D pre-cast panels depicting galloping horses from the Parthenon Frieze.
Niall McLaughlin commented on the practice’s approach to the unusual commission in Building Design. ‘I was very interested in the principle of the facade being delaminated from the building’s core form. Usually it’s something one tries to swim against to retain a sense of ‘authenticity’, but here we decided to embrace it….I like the idea of setting Ruskin’s conception of the craftsman against the absolute Taylorism of the construction process. Through digital reproduction, these deracinated stones are now doubly lost.’ (Building Design 27.01.2012)