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The Guardian on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

June 2022

The Guardian on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

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

St Cross Ground Breaking

February 2015

St Cross Ground Breaking

Building has started on our project for St. Cross College in Oxford. It will accommodate a library, seminar rooms and 53 post-graduate rooms just behind St. Giles. Soon after excavation started, we uncovered the shrouded remains of a woman buried in 1642 during the English Civil War.  Oxford Archaeologists dated her from the coins that had been placed on her eyes. After a pause to remove the remains, the builders have started foundations around the historic walls. Completion is expected by May 2016.

A Ground Breaking Ceremony was held on the site on 27th February.   Practical Completion of the building is anticipated in May 2016. You can follow progress on site by accessing the contractor’s webcam here (un:stcrosscollege; pw:oxford)