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May will see the return of the Clerkenwell Design Week. The event is a showcase of architecture and design works from across the globe, with a focus on British designs.

Held in a variety of locations in the historic Central London area, it will see show regulars returning as well as some new faces such as Arper, Plumen and Foscarini.

Brands returning to the festival include Vitra, Knoll, Boss Design, Domus Tiles, Deadgood, Dare Studio, Jennifer Newman, Muuto, Magis, Zanotta, Johnson Tiles, and Dezeen.

The event takes place across 50 furniture showrooms and several special locations. The Farmiloe Building, a former Victorian merchants warehouse, will play host to high-profile international brands; The House of Detention, a subterranean Victorian prison, will form the festival’s hotspot for new designers, and the 12th century crypt and charming garden of the Priory of the Order of St John, will act as the hub for interior decoration trends.

Taking place on the 21st to 23rd May 2013, it is the fourth time the event has taken over the area, being spread out over several different sites, and will offer talks, debates and parties throughout its course.

To register for the event click here.

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The Design Museum in London has announced the  winner of the 2013 Design of the Year Award, the Gov.uk website!

The website, which won by a unanimous vote, was chosen for its simplicity and ease of use, being built to allow visitors to quickly find the services they are looking for.

Chosen from a shortlist of seven category winners,  which were unveiled on Wednesday 10th April, the overall winner was announced on the evening of 16th April.

The category winners include a folding wheel for wheelchairs, the Medici chair and a medicine packaging designed to fit between bottles of coke.

The Category winners are as follows:
Architecture: TOUR BOIS-LE-PRÊTRE, PARIS
Designed by Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal

Digital: GOV.UK WEBSITE
Designed by Government DigitalService

Fashion: DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL
Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland

Furniture: MEDICI CHAIR
Designed by Konstantin Grcic for Mattiazzi

Graphics: VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE IDENTITY
Designed by John Morgan Studio

Products: KIT YAMOYO
Designed by ColaLife and PI Global

Transport: MORPH FOLDING WHEEL
Designed by Vitamins for Maddak Inc.

Previous winners of the award include the Olympic Torch by BarberOsgerby and the Plumen 001 light bulb by Hulger and Samuel Wilkinson.

The exihibition will remain open until the 7th July 2013, further information can be found on a previous blog post here.

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haworth tompkins: the shed at the national theater, london from designboom on Vimeo.

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Pulsate from STRIPE on Vimeo.

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Two British architecture firms who worked on projects for London 2012 have successfully been chosen to design stadia for the next Olympic Games.

3DReid and AndArchitects have been chosen to work with local companies to design and build venues.

3DReid has recently been working on the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games arenas, whilst AndAchitects has a long list of work with lower league football clubs.

Whilst the games will take place across 4 different areas of Rio, the companies will be focused on one area, which is the master plan of international firm AECOM. This section is vital for the games legacy as it will be be transformed in the years after the games into athletic training centres and a mix of public spaces and buildings for residential, commercial and office use. 

Watch the outline for the plans in the video below.

Rio 2016 Olympics from James Shaw on Vimeo.

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Foster + Partners has designed their first flagship hotel, where everything from the shell to the interiors has been designed by the practice. 

The ME Hotel, which opened earlier this year, is a brand new luxury hotel built occupying a triangular site in the Aldwych Crescent area of London.  The 157-bed hotel seamlessly integrates with the restoration of the adjacent 1904 Marconi House, whose interior has been completely restructured to provide 87 apartments.  

Clad in Portland stone, the hotel was built to the same height and scale as its neighbour, and despite having a modern feel, is still in keeping with the surrounding area. An elliptical tower on the corner of the building, which defines the end point for the Aldwych Crescent, is topped by a glass cupola – a contemporary reinterpretation of the Edwardian-style domed roof across the street. The glass cupola houses the penthouse suite for the hotel, with an impressive 360-degree panorama of the city, including views of the river.  

Guests arriving at the hotel pass through a ground floor lounge with accompanying public restaurants and bar before ascending to a dedicated hotel lobby with a champagne bar on the first floor, all housed within a nine-storey high pyramidal space, encased entirely in white marble.  

On the tenth floor is the hotel’s rooftop terraces, which are an urban oasis, with the Radio Rooftop Bar offering views of the river and Westminster skyline. The 5-star hotel also boasts versatile conference suites, a gym and a luxury 25-seat screening room.

Find out more on the project page.

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One Angel Square opened its doors at the beginning of the year to become the new headquarters for the Co-operative Group.

Designed by 3D Reid, the building comprises the first BREEAM 'Outstanding' regional office building in the UK, offering a total of 327,643 sq ft over 17 floors.

The design incorporates a recycling system for used water as well as a rainwater harvesting system to decrease water consumption by the building. It is also designed to consume 50% less energy compared to the previous Manchester headquarters of the Co-operative Group, as well as a reduction of 80% in carbon emissions. This will lead to an overall reduction of 30% in operating costs.

The building will get its power from rape seeds from the Co-operative farms, acting as fuel for the building's CHP (Combined heat and power) plant, with the remaining husks of the crop recycled into animal feed.

It has been designed to be future-proof allowing for a general temperature increase of 3-5 degrees and with the possibility of a 30% increase in rainfall by 2050. 

Other ground breaking engineering features include a double skinned facade, to minimise heating and cooling throughout the year, and underground concrete earth tubes that provide free heating and cooling for incoming fresh air. There are also electrical pool car charging points and an 'App' is in development to relay real time information on how the building is performing.

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Architecture and design company Murado & Elvira has released a free download that allows you to build your own paper model of the Teknobyen Studentboliger, a student housing project the company built for SiT in Trondheim, Norway.

The building has been nominated for the Statens Byggeskikkpris 2012; the Norwegian National Building Awards and has won the Trondheim Kommune Energispareprisen (Energy Saving Prize 2012).

The company also has a free desktop pet available to download- there are five to choose from, representing the belief that buildings as objects can become like pets due to an empathic relationship people build with them.

Download the Free Paper Teknotoy here.

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In the latest move forward for a new London airport Boris Johnson has appointed Zaha Hadid Architects, along with aviation experts, to develop designs for a multi runway hub, to be built in the southeast.

Zaha Hadid will submit plans that will also help make recommendations on the location of the airport, which the Mayor of London sees as vital to rejuvenate the British economy and to solve the current aviation crisis.

Other organisations asked to prepare plans, as part of an airport design and infrastructure panel, were Atkins, a British design and engineering company, and Pascall & Watson architects who worked on St. Pancras international and Heathrow Terminal 5.

Find out more via the full press release here.

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The French Rugby Federation (FFR) has unveiled the winning design for the new French national rugby stadium. 

The ‘Grande Stade’ will be built using the designs of Populous and Ateliers 2/3/4/, and will be much more than just a rugby stadium; as well as hosting all the French rugby home matches, it will accommodate conventions, shows and a broad range of other sporting events thanks to its multi-purpose design. 

The design boasts a retractable pitch, to ensure the best possible playing surface for matches, and a retractable roof, which will help to create an intense atmosphere for sporting fixtures as well as creating the largest roofed entertainment venue in Europe, with a planned seating capacity of 82,000.

The new venue will be built South of Paris, with the architecture alluding to the hospitality and shelter of a town, with solid white stone masses on the exterior resembling the rock quarries of the region, contrasted by the variety of thriving public spaces and multi-level lounges within the structure.

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A new hotel is being built that will extend 328 feet underground, but fear not it will still have a view. 

The Shimao Intercontinental Hotel is being built in an abandoned quarry near the base of Tianmashan Mountain in the Songjiang district of Shanghai.

The hotel will accommodate 380 rooms over 19 floors, with three of those floors being above ground, whilst the remainder are built against the face of the 100 meter deep quarry.

The concept is to mimic a waterfall with a glass atrium that will span from the ground-level all the way down into the quarry and was designed by the British engineering firm Atkins Global. It will also blend into the surrounding area via green roofs at the ground level, which will double up as insulation.

To increase the wow factor of the future 5-star resort there are no plans to drain the water from the bottom of the quarry. Instead they will use it as a man-made lake for water sports.

There will also be underwater public areas, including a 10-meter-deep aquarium, alongside the standard amenities you would expect from a luxury hotel; cafes, restaurants, swimming pools, shops and sporting facilities.

Whilst the hotel won't meet the original opening date of May 2009, it is scheduled to be open from late 2014 to early 2015.

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