Category Archives: architecture
Red Bull’s office gives employees wings
Check out Red Bull’s London headquarters, which has been recently refurbished. New offices comprise the top three floors of an existing 19th century building – including a rooftop extension. The top floor also includes a main reception, bar, café, and both informal and formal meeting areas. Looks like a pretty cool place to work!
London’s futuristic new bike highway?
Check out SkyCycle, a proposal of a revolutionary network of traffic-free cycle routes in London, that could accommodate up to 12,000 riders an hour! What do you think? Amazing, right?
Eye of Sauron in London
Check out @sarahknapton’s tweet and James Hastie’s pic: “Eye of Sauron appears in London as full moon rises over The Shard.”
Exactly!
The new London skyline
One thing that I love about London is that it’s constantly changing, growing, evolving, building and getting better.
I’ve blogged before about the new London Shard, which opened last year, but more skyscrapers are on the way! Check out this artist impression by Hayes Davidson of what the London skyline will look like when these are completed in the next 12 months. Thanks, Buzzfeed!
U.K.’s ugliest buildings
Top row, left to right: Titanic Museum, Mann Island, Cutty Sark
Second row, left to right: Shard End Library, Firepool Lock Housing, ArcellorMittal Orbit
The Carbuncle Cup shortlist was announced a couple of days ago and the following are their latest picks for the Worst Architectural Eyesores in the U.K.
Saving Castle Drogo
My MIL volunteers regularly at Castle Drogo, which is the last castle built in England in the 20th Century. Located in Drewsteignton, near Exeter in southwest England, it is a National Trust property which was formerly home to grocery magnate Julius Drewe. It is every bit the fairytale castle that you would imagine, but has sadly sustained water damage over the years, due to waterproofing problems during its early construction.
A fundraising campaign is currently underway to help raise money to repair the roof, replace windows, repoint walls among other necessary fixes in order for the castle to remain open to visitors. I hope that they are successful. See the video below to find out more about the castle and be sure to visit if you’re ever in Devon!
Shed of the year
It seems to me that the majority of American garden sheds are practical and purposeful. A place to store garden tools and bags of seed, pet food, bikes, paint cans, odds and ends. They’re strictly storage spaces and certainly not a place you’d want to spend any amount of time.
British sheds, on the other hand, are really places to dwell, have a cup of tea, read a book, listen to “The Archers” and maybe also store some odds and ends and a few little surprises.
Case in point: John Plumridge’s shed in Shrewsbury. From the outside, it looks like a pretty little garden shed.
Photo credit for all photos: Shedblog.co.uk
But inside, this awaits!
Check out all of the photos. It’s not surprising that he won the Shed of the Year award, which was presented last week.
And if you want to see some of the runners-up, here you go! Prepare to be inspired!
Shard Tower opens
The London skyline seems to be changing by the day! Meet London’s Shard, an 87-story tower in Southwark, which is officially the tallest building in Europe.
There’s something spookily Lord of the Rings about it, am I right? (Or at least Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol).
Photo credit: Sellar
It’s currently opening with 26 floors of vacant office space. The only tenant so far is the Shangri-la Hotel, which is using floors 34 to 52. Read more about it.
BRITRISH.COM 