What makes a pub special? From the perfect place to flog atomic secrets to the official strictly protected viewpoint for St Paul’s, a new book tells the amazing stories behind the city’s greatest barsWhen you stumble out of the medieval warren of Ye Ol…
Short Lease in a Slick Machine
A personal essay by Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell: The apartment I’ve lived in this past year quite frankly and very succinctly encompasses everything I kind of hate about architecture, about design, about the ways people in the profession are expected…
Luma Arles review – Frank Gehry, a billionaire and a wonderland of good intentions
Parc des Ateliers, Arles, FranceGehry’s crumpled metal tower is the glittering icon of a new cultural campus in the south of France where high ideals and extravagance feel at oddsI am looking at a wall surfaced in salt. It is the wall of a lift lobby i…
All God cons: camping in churches has a record year as UK staycations boom
As conventional campsites fill up, more holidaymakers are discovering the joys of ‘champing’ – and silent nightsPenny Thomas has always favoured adventure holidays over lying on a beach. But this year, with UK destinations in such demand during the pa…
San Francisco luxury tower still sinking even as engineers work on $100m fix
A project to reinforce the Millennium tower foundation came to a halt after it was found the building had sunk an inchSan Francisco’s notorious sinking luxury high-rise is still sinking, even amid a $100m project designed to fix the issue.Work to reinf…
Build on the past for a net zero future | Letters
Sue Miller and Sean Tompkins on the importance of retrofitting and reuse of materials in construction in order to reduce the UK’s carbon emissionsYour article on the importance of retrofit and reuse of buildings over new-build is most timely (Editorial…
Forget shops: how Stockton on Tees ripped up the rule book to revive its high street
Stockton-on-Tees is leading a radical rethink of our urban centres, which is now even more urgent as Covid takes its tollA few months before the pandemic struck, Nigel Cooke found himself under incredulous interrogation at a Local Government Associatio…
The Guardian view on buildings – out with the new! For the planet’s sake | Editorial
Tearing down old structures and throwing up new ones is how we usually make our streetscapes. It’s also ruinous for the climateA new and highly swanky hotel lands in Edinburgh, a mass of shimmering bronze-coloured coils, and all anyone can think to say…
How to make London greener: stick up a tower block with a roof garden
The idea may not win the Garden Museum’s competition but, as a parody, it deserves a prizeThe Garden Museum in London is running an architectural competition for the design of a pavilion for St Mary’s Gardens, a leafy enclave next to its premises in a …
The MSG Sphere: will Stratford’s giant orb venue really go ahead?
The MSG Sphere, Madison Square Garden’s proposed stadium will beam adverts into locals’ faces all day – but it is apparently being fast-tracked by London plannersAs planning applications go, it’s certainly got balls. Or, to be precise, one massive ball…