UCL SUMMER SHOW
JUNE 2015
The Bartlett Summer Show 2015 opens from the 26th June until the 11th July at The Bartlett School of Architecture, 140 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2BX. The show is one of the world’s biggest architecture degree shows presenting work from over 500 students. Niall teaches Unit 17 with Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Michiko Sumi.
These images show students from Unit 17 – taught by Niall, Yeoryia and Michiko – preparing for the show and installing their collective model. Each student designed a building in Leicester based upon a theme that asked them to re-imagine a regional British city in the light of the Government’s new proposals for devolved powers. The model is interactively linked to an array of mobile phones mounted around the edge that show short films of the students describing their work in detail.
ATHLETES OCCUPY OLYMPIC HOUSING
AUGUST 2012
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)