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Norman Foster on the unique architecture of Cuba
2 February 2015Norman Foster has made many trips to Cuba in the past decade, and has come to realise that the uniqueness of Havana’s architecture and cars may soon be gone forever. He set about recording for posterity the city’s sights and sounds in a book. Here is his essay that features in the newly published book, Havana Autos and Architecture.
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Erik Spierkerman on artificial intelligence
27 January 2015AI is short for Artificial Intelligence, but don’t we need to define what is human intelligence first? Maybe AI should stand for Alien Intelligence; for a different way of looking at things rather than a computerised method of working things out, says Erik Spiekermann. Founder of MetaDesign and FontShop, Erik Spiekermann is a teacher, author, designer and partner at Edenspiekermann.
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Neri&Hu at this year's IMM Cologne
13 January 2015Shanghai architect Neri&Hu is creating the focal point for January’s IMM Cologne furniture fair. Johnny Tucker was in Shanghai for the announcement, and then caught up with practice co-founder Lyndon Neri again in London to challenge him about some of the notions behind the scheme.
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SCIN curates materials feature at Architect@Work
13 January 2015Material specialist SCIN is curating the materials feature at Architect@Work and the focus is on facades
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OMA's Reinier de Graaf travels to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro
6 January 2015Despite being sanitised for the benefit of the World Cup and upcoming Olympic Games, OMA’s Reinier de Graaf sees the much-discussed favelas of Rio de Janeiro as a stark, if vital, reflection of the paradox of exponential growth — in which those who have traded countryside for city are denied a proper urban life.
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Pile of hope - 20 years of Maggie's Centres
6 January 2015It’s been 20 years since Maggie Jencks dreamt of a single room where cancer patients, like herself, could go to escape. She didn’t live quite long enough to see the first Maggie’s Centre open, but this October marks the opening of the 18th centre in 18 years. Her modest vision has been transformed from her husband Charles Jencks’ ‘pile of hope’ — a stack of articles promising breakthroughs — to the ambitious charity of today...
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Thomas Heatherwick's Gin Palace
23 December 2014Gin brand Bombay Sapphire has sunk its heritage stake deeper into the British psyche by establishing a distillery in the heart of the Hampshire countryside. Thomas Heatherwick converted and developed the Laverstoke Mill on the River Test, and has created a visual heart for the visitor experience with two spectacular glasshouses to cultivate the essential botanicals that flavour the gin.
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Project: Science Museum
23 December 2014The Science Museum in London is undergoing a major £60m facelift, which will see new exhibition spaces by Zaha Hadid, Wilkinson Eyre, Muf and Coffey Architects. Cate St Hill pays a visit to the latest gallery, dedicated to the history of information technology, by Universal Design Studio.
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Can design be an act of political dissidence? asks Ines Weizman
15 December 2014Though manifest for millennia, recent years have seen a rash of urban protest, and an interest in the architectural platforms of social upheaval. Civil unrest has become a cultural phenomenon. But how much political agency can designers really have? Architect and educator Ines Weizman ponders the idea of dissidence – the critical act of standing ‘apart’.
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Alvar Aalto: Second Nature - Exhibition review
15 December 2014It was in 1933, in the unlikely location of London’s luxury food purveyor, Fortnum & Mason, that the British had their first taste of the relatively unknown Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and his curvilinear plywood furniture.
