This year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opens to the public on the 21st June which Níall has co-curated with artist Rana Begum two rooms of art and architecture. Our practice has been been extremely delighted to have had this opportunity and assisting with assembling and the intall of some of the pieces, from Boomserm Premthada’s elephant dung brick to a full size Khudu Bari flood shelter in Bangladesh by Marina Tabassum.
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)