Living With Buildings Exhibition

4 October 2018 – 3 March 2019 at The Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.

How does our built environment affect us? This major exhibition about health and architecture examines the positive and negative influence buildings have on our physical and mental health.

Architects, planners and designers can have a powerful influence on our health and self-esteem, as well as ideas around community and society.

We spend more time than ever within the structures of our cities, and more people than ever live in metropolitan areas. The recent tragedy at Grenfell Tower in west London, in which 72 people lost their lives, draws urgent attention to the connections between our homes and health, as well as to wider social and political priorities.

In this exhibition, examine some of the ways in which architecture and the built environment interact with concerns of health and wellbeing. From the slums of 19th-century London to the bold experiments of postwar urban planners to therapeutic spaces for people affected by cancer, look anew at the buildings that surround us and shape us.

The exhibition includes works by Andreas Gursky, Rachel Whiteread and Martha Rosler, buildings designed by Lubetkin, Goldfinger and Aalto, and a new commission by artist Giles Round exploring the role colour can play in making us feel better. You’ll also be able to see an innovative mobile clinic developed to provide effective, adaptable healthcare in emergency situations.

View the Wellcome Collection website for further information.

Plan for 55-storey Manchester student skyscraper

Plan for 55-storey Manchester student skyscraper

National Housing Summit 2018: Opening speech from Prime Minster Theresa May

The Prime Minister Theresa May has announced £2bn of new funding for housing associations to build homes. In an address to the National Housing Summit on 19 September 2018, she put social housing at the heart of the nation’s priorities – and housing associations at the heart of delivering them.

The funding will be available as far ahead as 2028/29, which the Prime Minister said would give housing associations the long-term certainty they need to plan ahead and secure more, and larger, sites for development.

National Housing Federation Chief Executive David Orr welcomed the £2bn of new funding, adding that “the really big news here is the Prime Minister’s long-term commitment to funding new affordable homes.”

Plan of Work update brings forward fire safety measures to earlier stages in design process after Grenfell Tower tragedy

Full article at Building Magazine

RIBA has floated an update of its Plan of Work process bible for architects, developers and the wider construction industry that incorporates the Hackitt Review’s recommendations to improve fire safety in tall buildings.

The institute supported many of the proposals in Dame Judith Hackitt’s post-Grenfell Tower tragedy review, published in May. But it pulled no punches over Hackitt’s decision to focus on the regulatory system and not suggest specific changes, such as banning desktop studies, insisting on the use of sprinklers in tall buildings and the introduction of secondary escape routes.

Now RIBA has mapped the Hackitt Review’s key recommendations against the Plan of Work to produce a clearly defined programme of fire safety actions for clients, designers and contractors at each of its seven stages.

In its Plan of Work for Fire Safety update, published for consultation today, RIBA proposes bringing forward consideration of design decisions related to Part B requirements of Building Regulations to Stage 2 (concept design) of the process to ensure that fire-safety design is complete and signed off prior to the start of construction. Architects will need to submit detailed drawings for full plans approval at Stage 4 (technical design) before work can start onsite.

Aberdeen Standard Investments buys £68.8M Covent Garden student accommodation

The Standard Life Pooled Property Pension Fund has acquired Grosvenor House, a student accommodation block on Covent Garden’s Drury Lane – from GH Partnership Limited for £68.8 million.

Savills acted for GH Partnership Limited. Bidwells has advised Standard Life Pooled Property Pension Fund

Grosvenor House is currently let to the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) until September 2027.

Comprising 46,627 sq ft over a basement, ground floor and six upper floors, Grosvenor House serves as accommodation for graduate students of the university.

Colin Summers, Partner, Capital Markets, Bidwells, said: “We were delighted to be involved in the acquisition of this ultra-prime student accommodation let to the London School of Economics. Located adjacent to Freemason’s Hall and a stone’s throw from the Royal Opera House, in our view, this is as prime as student gets.”

David Stewart, Fund Manager for Aberdeen Standard Investments, said: “The purchase of Grosvenor House is aligned with the fund’s strategy of increasing its exposure to alternatives through the acquisition of high-quality assets in prime locations with the potential for active asset management.”