30 St Mary Axe

16:59 2012, Arup, City, City of London, Financial district, Foster and Partners., London, London 2012, Open House day, The Gherkin No Comments

The main highlight of the 2012 Open House was the 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) which was closed for a couple of years and was reopened this year. The building is 180m (591ft) tall and is in the centre of the financial district of London called the City. The construction started in 2001, was completed in December 2003 and was opened in the end of spring of the year of 2004. It was designed by the Foster and Partners Architects and was constructed by ARUP. The building has become an iconic symbol of London and is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of modern architecture. The Gherkin was the biggest attraction of the Open House day of 2012, to get in you had to wait for 7 hours or more in the queue. It is also the 8th tallest building in the UK and 48th tallest in Europe. 

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Open House day - London

18:21 Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek Architecture, Architecture, Classical Architecture, London, London 2012, Modernism, Open House day, Roman Architecture No Comments

The Open House weekend is on every year for a weekend. This weekend is when nearly all the buildings  are open to the public. The Open House weekend is held in cities such as New York, Dublin, Galway, Barcelona, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Click here to get more information on this beautiful sculpture designed and made by Thomas Heatherwick and his studio.

The well known RIBA the Royal Institute of British Architects building was also on show on the weekend and had a free pass to see both exhibitions that were on: DESIGN STORIES and 5 BY FIVE. Learn More...

The highlight of the 2012 Open House was the Gherkin which was closed for a couple of years and was reopened this year. Click here to find out more...

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Hampton Court

16:24 2012, Castle, Cycling, Hampton Park, London, London Olympics 2012, Olypmpics, Outside the Olympic Park No Comments

The Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the midlands of England. It was inhabited by the royal family since the 18th century and now is one of the biggest tourist attractions of England. It was used as a venue for cyclists and hosted several events such as the Time Trial and Road Cycling. It was the venue where Bradley Wiggins the Tour de France 2012 winner had won his gold medal. The Hampton Court was built in the early 16th century and was owned by Thomas Wolsey the Archbishop of York. It was built in the Tudor times for an unknown price. It hosted the The Road Cycling Time Trial event that commenced from the historic landmark of Hampton Court Palace. The Time Trial saw riders setting off with 90 second intervals between them, racing through areas in Surrey, including Kingston-up-Thames and Richmond - competing for the quickest time. Men and women will race separately, with men covering a distance of 44km and women 29km. Whether you wave off riders or welcome them on their return, Hampton Court Palace is a beautiful and fascinating historic feature to explore. 

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Olympic Hockey Venue

16:11 2012, Hockey, London, London 2012, London Olympics 2012, Olympic park, Olympic venue, Olympics, Riverbank Arena No Comments

The Olympic Hockey arena was inside the Olympic park and was the main Hockey arena where all the events were held. It used in the Summer 2012 Olympics and was used as the venue for 7-a-side football and 5-a-side football in the Paralympics summer events. It was a two pitch complex and had a capacity of 15,000 seats in the main arena and 5,000 in the smaller arena. It was £19,000,000 cost to build and was a unique structure. This stadium will be used as a training ground for Leyton Orient FC. It also may hold the 2015 hockey world cup. The stadium will be converted into a smaller capacity of 5,000 seats after the Olympics.

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Lord's Cricket Club

16:07 2012, Cricket Club, London, London 2012, London Olympics 2012, Lord's Cricket Club, Olympics, Outside the Olympic Park, Paralympics No Comments

Lord's Cricket Club is one of the venues that were not Olympic Park bound and is situated in St John's Wood, London. It hosted the archery events and was used also in the Paralympics for archery as well. It is a big venue and is one of the biggest Cricket Grounds in the world. It was built in 1884 and was redeveloped and made more modern in 1999 for the Cricket world cup. It has a media centre that was designed by Jan Kaplický  and has won the famous RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architecture) award. It has the capacity of 28,000 and it's cost to build was 5 million pounds. It is now a home to Marylebone Cricket Club and the English International squad. It still serves as their home ground since 1814. 

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ExCeL Centre

16:02 2012, Boxing, Excel Centre, Fencing, Judo, London, London Olympics 2012, Olympics, Outside the Olympic Park No Comments

ExCeL (Exhibition Centre London)  London is one of the venues that is situated outside the Olympic Park and it was opened in 2000. It has a perimeter of 100-acre (0.40 km²). It hosted several events such as Fencing, Boxing, Judo, Taekwondo, Table Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling. The centre was built by Sir Robert McAlpine and first opened in November 2000 and was really expensive to build. It is now a very important exhibition centre in London and is one of the biggest exhibition and shopping venues all around the world. It has many visitors and has been bought by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company.

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Eton Manor

15:56 2012, Eton Manor, London, London Olympics 2012, Olympic park, Paralympics No Comments

Eton Manor is another venue inside the Olympic Park in Strantford, London. This venue was used in Olympics and Paralympics. It hosted Wheelchair Tennis and housed temporary training pools for participants in aquatics events, including three 50m pools for swimmers, and smaller pools for synchronised swimmers and water polo competitors. It has a total venues capacity of 10,500 people and the biggest venue "The Central Court" has a capacity of 5,000. It was designed by Stanton Williams and is now owned by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authorities. It has attracted interest of a local Football Club Leyton Orient. After the Olympic games it will host the Hockey Men's and Women's world cup of 2015 or 2016.

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Basketball Arena

19:30 2012, Basketcall Arena, KSS Design Group, London, London Olympics 2012, Olympic park, Olympic venue, Olympics, Paralympics, Populous, Sinclair Knight Merz, Wilkinson Eyre No Comments

The Basketball Arena in the London Olympic park is the main venue where the basketball events underwent, the other venue that the basketball events were played is the North Greenwich Arena (0₂ Arena). It has the capacity of 12,000 seats. It was supposed to be used for multi events such as Volleyball and Fencing; however, the Volleyball was moved to a new venue in Earls Court Exhibition Centre and Fencing was moved to the ExCel Arena near the Royal Victoria Docks. It was started to be built in 2009 and was finished to the mid-2011. The arena was designed by Wilkinson Eyre architects and two other manor architectural companies KSS Design grounp and Sinclair Knight Merz. Overall the building took only 15 months to build. To the end of the Olympics and Paralympics the venue will be used as a market or transported to Brazil for the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Olympic games. However there are still speculations that the majority of the venue will be recycled. 

The 0₂ Arena

  The 0₂ Arena is in Greenwich Peninsula, London. It also hosted the Basketball events and was designed by Populous. It has the capacity of 20,000 seats and is one of the largest arenas in Europe. 

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Media Centre

19:20 2012, Allies and Morrison, London, London 2012, London Olympics 2012, Media Centre, Modernism, Olympic park, Olympics No Comments

The large construction Media centre in Stratford; East London, is one of the largest buildings in the Olympic park. It is a centre for international broadcasting of the games. It was especially built for the Olympics to make it comfortable for the broadcasters to access the Olympic venues. The building is 275m long and is a 24-hour media hub that caters over 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and print journalists facilitating broadcasts to more than half of the people on the earth. Allies and Morrison have designed the 355 million building. It is going to be converted into space for commercial space and maybe rebuilt to make space for over 900,000 square metres of business surface. However the future plans look uncertain as there were small funds given to go through with the project.

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Olympic Aquatics Centre

20:53 2012, Aquatic centre, Architecture, London, London 2012, London Olympics 2012, Olympics, Paralympics, Zaha Hadid No Comments

The Olympic Aquatic centre is situated in Stratford, London; it is one of the main venues in the London Olympic park. It was used in both events Paralympics and Olympics. The venue could host 17,500 people and it has two main 50m swimming pools and a 25m diving pool. It was designed by Zaha Hadid the famous British-Iraqi architect that also designed the Bridge Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain. It was finished by late 2011 and was started in mid-2008. It costed 269 million pounds to construct and is now a part of the community. The pool will be converted into a leisure centre and a wave pool. The wings will be taken off and the capacity will shrink to 2,500.

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Olympic Stadium

20:21 2012, Architecture, London, London 2012, London Olympics 2012, Olympic Stadium, Olympics, Paralympics No Comments

Image by Chris Boland 

The Olympic stadium is Stratford, London, and it was and is the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic games. The stadium was opened in 2011 and the official construction date of the stadium was in mid-2008. The architects that designed the Olympic stadium are the Populous. The capacity of the stadium is 80,000 seats may get smaller by 25,000 and hosted the field events ,Opening and Closing ceremonies. It was originally costed £486 million to construct. It was used as the venue for the Olympic and Paralympic games and is going to be used as 2017 World Championship in athletics. There are speculations that there is a biding war between Tottenham Hotspurs F.C and West Ham F.C. to get the stadium and make it their new home.

                       

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The AA Bookshop

20:03 AA, Architecture, art, books, Bookshop, Design, Exhibition, London No Comments

The AA Bookshop is one of London's leading specialist architecture bookshops; AA Publications are featured alongside a comprehensive range of titles from international publishers. Order online at aabookshop.net where a selection of new books, special offers and some backlist titles is available.

Open

Monday to Friday 10.00–18.30
Saturday 11.00–17.00

36 Bedford Square

Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3ES

020 7887 4000

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

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London Olympic 2012

14:29 2012, Greek, London, London 2012, London Olympics 2012, Olympic Stadium, Olympics, Tradition No Comments

The London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony took place on 27 July 2012,  9:00 P.M. at the Olympic park.

Boyle, who is best known for directing Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting, said to the BBC that his production the Isles of Wonder theme captured the essence of Britain.

The Ceremony that welcomed the finest athletes from 205 nations for the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games, marking an historic third time the capital has hosted the world’s biggest and most important sporting event.

The London Olympic opening ceremony review.

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Project Review 2012

20:39 AA, Exhibition, London, London Festival of Architecture 2012, Project, Project Review 2012 No Comments

AA Projects Review exhibition and accompanying book launch are celebrated in the AA's main building and Bedford Square garden. 

This exhibition was an event that overviewed projects that students developed during their time at the Architectural Association school in London. In the exhibition there are hundreds of drawings, models, Installations, photos, documentaries and other catalogue or books available. There were materials that students used to help them make the work such as 3D computer models as well as maps and experiments that they carried out.

'At the AA architecture is pursued as a form of cultural knowledge, across year-long design projects and portfolios. We believe that truly great schools don't just nurture and support architectural talent: they build audiences for experimentation, out of which new architectural ideas, visions and projects emerge. Please join us as part of this audience, which the AA remains committed to promoting at the cutting edge of architectural cuture, practice and learning.'

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Out of Architecture Exhibition

22:32 Architecture, Arup, City, Design, Exhibition, London, Out of Architecture No Comments

An event designed to celebrate the uniqueness of the renowned architecture of St Catherine's, the Out of Architecture Exhibition augments the inextricable relationships between the buildings and the furniture that resides within them. The first of a two-part exhibition, the display at Arup’s in London will be open to the public and will be exhibited as part of the London Festival of Architecture.

Time : 10.00am - 5.00pm

Venue : Arup London Offices, Phase II Exhibition Space, 8 Fitzroy Street

Guests : Open to the public

Cost : No charge

To book: No booking required

More information on the Exhibition can be found here.

                                                       

Source: http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/events/2012/jun/out-architecture-exhibition-arup-london

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The Grand Opening of The Shard

20:31 England, Glass, London, London Festival of Architecture 2012, Modernism, Opening, Skyscraper, Structures, The Shard No Comments

On Friday the 5th of July the Grand opening of The Shard a spectacular laser light show officially unveiled Europe's tallest building in central London.

A selection of 12 lasers and 30 search lights fired rays from the Shard’s peak with the show culminating in the illumination of the skyscraper itself. To show the Dominance of the newest skyscraper in London city the 1016ft high structure shot lasers and lights over all of London. People gathered to watch the opening which they waited for such a long time.

The show was accompanied by two pieces of well-known classical music: Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and the Finale from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite performed live by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

In addition to the ceremony earlier yesterday tickets started to sell for the 'The View from The Shard' form the Official website of The Shard. The astonishing 40 mile, 360 degree views of the city, 800ft above the English capital. Click Here for more information.

Over 17,500 people have registered their interest before the tickets went on sale. Yet the website crashed this morning less than an hour after opening.

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The Developing City Tour

22:03 Architecture, Exhibition, London, London Festival of Architecture 2012, The Developing City, Tour No Comments

A short tour on the key elements and attractions on at the Walbrook Building. Including the layout of the exhibition, models and some sources of information. London Festival of Architecture 2012 - The Developing City Tour and more of the London festival of Architecture.

For more events Click Here.

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