The Guardian on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
June 2022
Olly Wainwright has published his Guardian review of this year’s Royal Academy architecture rooms which have been co-curated by Níall McLaughlin and artist Rana Begum. With this year’s theme being ‘Climate’, Wainwright highlights that “Architects and engineers have, after all, some responsibility for the mess we’re in, given that 40% of carbon emissions come from buildings. They also have the means to do something about it”. Níall commented, “there can be a sense of fatalism about the climate, but our discipline can show that imaginative change is possible”.
The article reviews a few select pieces such as Stonemasonry Company and Webb Yates engineers’ large stone beam titled ‘Equanimity’, the Khudi Bari (or Tiny House), a modular monsoon-resistant shelter designed by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, and Thai architect Boonserm Premthada’s ‘Dung Power’ a structure made from elephant dung bricks.
The article can be accessed here.
Image © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry
Ayr Masterplan
February 2017
In collaboration with acclaimed international land artist Charles Jencks the masterplan for Ayr has been given planning consent. The project has been conceived as an urban square next to the River Ayr that will be used for festivals and events.
The scheme, focuses around a new glazed structure, that will open up a number of views blocked by post-war development and includes commercial, cultural, leisure, community, hotel and residential buildings. South Ayrshire Council has already committed to building a new council office for 350 of its staff as part of the scheme.
Ayr Renaissance began purchasing the mainly 20th century buildings on the site almost four years ago with funding from the council and the Scottish Government’s Regeneration Capital Grant Fund.
Demolition will begin immediately on the buildings within the plot, which falls inside the Ayr Central Conservation, following the approval for the masterplan by South Ayrshire Council last week.
Archaeologists will work alongside the demolition contractors in preparation for a six-month dig.
James Knox, chairman of Ayr Renaissance, said: ‘This decision marks a turning point in the fortunes of Ayr. Decades of blight will be swept away, opening up the river to the town’s people for the first time in generations. ‘Our masterplan offers a humane and beautiful solution to the transformation of this key site, which will act as a magnet for visitors, office workers and inhabitants alike. It marks a sea change in the economy of the town.’