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Design

DESIGN

Design

DESIGN

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The Studio embraces an interdisciplinary approach in all scales of Design & Cultural Endeavour,

– from Tea spoon to CiTy.

It embraces Architecture, Product and Graphic design, Development management, Interior design and Landscape.

It absorbs and promotes events and debate at its London base through Testbed, which acts as a community hub for itself and its neighbours (The Royall College of Art, Vivienne Westwood, Squint/Opera (film and animation), Foster + Partners, and Bed Head.

Our mission is simple,

‘Make liFe beTTer’We have global experience and can deliver our brand through our Toronto, Chongqing and London offices.

We work in Strategic Partnership with other practices throughout the world.

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prof. William alsop obeProf. Alsop works on large-scale urban planning and design initiatives across the world from his London, Shanghai, Istanbul and Toronto bases.

His work is guided by the principle that architecture is both vehicle and symbol of social change and renewal. The philosophy extends from the design of objects and individual buildings to embrace broader principles of urbanism and city development. By abandoning the hegemony of an acceptable style, he has rendered the whole process of architecture one of increasing fluidity and transparency; a new and refreshing position for architecture both in the UK and elsewhere.

Prof Alsop is the recipient of a multitude of world-class level recognitions for his work, including the RIBA World Architecture award – the highest architectural recognition in the UK – as well as professorships in distinguished universities in Europe and North America.

Prof. Alsop is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and a Member of the Royal Academy, London.

scott LawrieScott joined Will in 2009 as Managing Principal, and is based London studio. In his previous roles, which included initially working at Lohan Associates’ office in Chicago (where he won an American Institute of Architects’ Design Award), Scott held senior positions with Foster + Partners in London, John McAslan & Partners and PRP. He gained significant experience in the design and delivery of landmark projects throughout the world, specializing in high density mixed use, high end and affordable residential and commercial projects both in the form of new build and also a high proportion of listed buildings in London. His portfolio includes work on Masdar Zero Carbon City in Abu Dhabi; the redevelopment of the British Museum Great Court and at Wembley Arena in London; large mixed use projects in London with high density residential towers on prestigious sites such as Kings Cross and Wembley along with super high rise buildings in China and Russia.

Scott has acted as a Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Civic Awards Judge and was involved in the review of the draft Mayor’s Housing Guide during its consultation process.

The most creative architect in the worldFaST COMPaNY magazineWill alsop tops the 2009 Creative people in architecture List

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Graphics

Landscape

Product

Interiors

Project & Design Programme Management

ALL Delivers.We recognise that many of our Clients operate to strict commercial parameters, and delivering within those parameters is integral to our service. Creativity of design is central to our ethos, however we believe that creativity and commercial common sense are not mutually exclusive domains; in fact, rather the opposite.

our studio teams are supported at all stages of the design process by a project manager experienced in the business of development. The project manager compliments the skills of colleagues focused principally on design, working with Clients to clearly define their brief at inception stage, and to ensure that the principles of the Clients requirements are then driven through the project to delivery.

The scope of our service can vary to suit the needs of our Clients, from focused design management, to a full project management service. our approach is collaborative, hands-on and rooted in common sense.

• Client brief formulation;• Budget, cost and value coordination;• Project team selection and leadership;• Design programming and management;• Commercial and practical procurement

advice; • Monitoring of performance, quality and

programme; • Risk management.

aLL aims to identify, release and enhance value for our clients through world-class design. ALL Delivers. Chongqing

Architecture& Master Planning

Strategic partners

ToronTo LonDon

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HonorAry PoSITIonS AnD AwArDS2010 Honorary Doctorate, Ryerson University, Toronto2007 Honorary Doctorate, University of East Anglia 2006 Honorary Fellow, Queen Mary and

Westfield College, University of London, Faculty of Building, Barbara Miller Award

2005 Honorary Fellow, University College Northampton

2004 Honorary Doctorate, Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto

2003 Visiting Professor in Urban Art – School of Art & Design, Liverpool

2002 Honorary Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University2001 Honorary Doctorate, University of

Nottingham Trent, School of Architecture 2000 Officer of the British Empire (OBE)1997 Visiting Professor, the London Institute 1996 Honorary Fellow of the Royal

Society of British Sculptors Honorary Doctorate of Law, Leicester University

1995 Member of the Russian Academy of Art 1994/98 Member of the Design Council1992 Hamburgische Architektenkammer Rhône

AcADeMIc APPoInTMenTS1997 Ongoing Professor, Technical University of Vienna1990 Visiting Professor, University of Hanover1988 Unit Master, Architectural Association1986 Visiting Professor, Bremen

Academy of Art & Music1984 Visiting Professor, Royal

Melbourne Institute Design1984 Visiting Professor, New South

Wales Institute of Technology1982 The Davis Professor, Tulane

University, New Orleans1977 Visiting Professor, San Francisco Institute of ArtVisiting Professor, Ball State University, Indiana1973 Tutor in Sculpture, St Martin’s School of Art

peckham Library received the 2000 stirling prize, the most prestigious architectural award in britain

Studies on Tate Modern

Prof. Alsop adresses the Ryerson University Senate, Toronto

DistinctionsWill alsop’s work is internationally recognized as ground breaking and thus has been recognized by professional bodies and academic institutions around the world

Prof. Alsop is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and is Head of Construction at the Technical University of Vienna.

La Fosca Hotel, Spain

PeCkhaM London, UK

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CLarKe qUaysingaporeAwards

SeLecTeD ArcHITecTurAL AwArDS2008 Cityscape Asia Awards, Best Waterfront

Development, Clarke Quay, Singapore Cityscape Asia Awards, Best Future Mixed-Use

Development, Raffles City, Beijing, China2007 MIPIM Future Projects Awards, ‘Big Urban

Projects’ Category: RiversideOne (Middlehaven Masterplan), Middlesbrough, UK

Cityscape Architectural Review Awards, (Tourism, Travel & Transport– Built), Clarke Quay, Singapore

Cityscape Architectural Review Awards, (Tourism, Travel & Transport – Future), Shanghai Kiss, China

RIBA Commercial Building Prize for the London Region, Palestra, London, UK

Structural Steelwork Awards 2007, commendation, Palestra, London, UK

2006 RIBA Education Award, The Blizard Building, London, UK

Civic Trust Award, Fawood Children’s Centre, London, UK

Civic Trust Award, The Blizard Building, London, UK Hot Dip Galvanising Award, Highly Commended,

Fawood Children’s Centre, London, UK Waterways Renaissance Award: New

Islington, Manchester, UK2005 RIBA London Region Award, Fawood

Children’s Centre, London, UK RIBA Stirling Prize Short-list, Fawood

Children’s Centre, London, UK Leaf Award, Best Use of Technology within a Large

Scheme, The Blizard Building, London, UK AIA/UK Excellence in Design Awards, commendation:

Fawood Children’s Centre, London, UK Royal Fine Art Commission Building

of the Year – Special Award, Fawood Children’s Centre, London, UK

Toronto Architecture and Urban Design Award: OCAD, Toronto, Canada

2004 DX Design Effectiveness Award, OCAD, Toronto, Canada

prof. alsop’s achievements and creativity have been recognized by some of the most prestigious architectural awards in europe as well as america and asia

RIBA Worldwide Projects Award, OCAD, Toronto, Canada

2003 MIPIM – Future Project Prizes, The Public, West Bromwich, UK

AJ/Bovis Lend Lease Award for Architecture – RA Summer Show, Barnsley Masterplan, UK

Laureate Preservation of Historic Buildings Award, Speicher Am Fischmarkt, Hamburg, Germany

2002 AJ/Bovis Lend Lease Award for Architecture – RA Summer Show, SZ Family House of the Future

BDA Architecture Award, Speicher Am Fischmarkt, Hamburg, Germany

2001 Concrete Society Award, Cardiff Bay Barrage, UK AIA London Chapter Design Award for Best

Building, Peckham Library, London, UK Civic Trust Award, Peckham Library, London, UK BCIA Award, Peckham Library, London, UK Renault Design Award, Speicher Am

Fischmarkt, Hamburg, Germany2000 RIBA Stirling Prize, Building of the

Year, Peckham Library, London, UK BCIA Award, North Greenwich Jubilee

Line Station, London, UK RIBA Civic and Community Architecture Award, North

Greenwich Jubilee Line Station, London, UK1999 RIBA Award, North Greenwich

Jubilee Line Station, London, UK Concrete Society Award, North Greenwich

Jubilee Line Station, UK1997 RIBA Worldwide Projects Award,

Le Grand Bleu, Marseille, France RIBA Civic & Community Architecture Award,

Le Grand Bleu, Marseille, France1995 Palmarés Award for Architecture,

Le Grand Bleu, Marseille, France1991/92 Paraplegic Facilities Special

Prize, Berlin Olympics 2000 Architectural Prize, Potsdamer/Leipziger Platz White Rose Award, Leeds Corn Exchange, UK RIBA National Award, Cardiff Bay Visitor’s Centre, UK

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Will AlsopYou may know his ‘wonky-legged’ Peckham library or other striking constructions using strong colours and ‘blobby shapes’. But the name of the man who built them? Will Alsop is fast joining Foster and Rogers as one of the Uk’s top architects. lynn Barber finds him as cheerful as his buildingsLynn barber — The observer Sunday 8 April 2007

I thought architects came in Armani suits with shaven heads and peculiar glasses. Will Alsop, in his crumpled black shirt, black jacket and long, lank, greying hair, looks more like a hairy biker - amazingly scruffy and obviously not a man familiar with gyms. His favourite watering hole is the Chelsea Arts Club, which to put it mildly is not the place to order wheatgrass juice. He smokes even more than me. At one point he tells me he is 59 then pauses and adds, ‘You’re supposed to say I don’t look it.’ Oh, OK, I tell him, leaving open the question of whether he looks older or younger. Actually 59 is still quite young for a top architect because architecture is a famously late-flowering profession - Philip Johnson started a new practice when he was 90. But with Alsop you slightly wonder if he’ll make old bones.

Since his Peckham Library won the Stirling Prize in 2000, Alsop probably counts as number three in the hierarchy of British architects, after Lords Rogers and Foster. His recent building for Goldsmiths College, New Cross, and the Blizard Building, his science institute for Queen Mary’s College in Whitechapel, won rapturous praise - the Guardian called the latter ‘rational and romantic, questioning, quixotic and necessary’. Other much admired buildings include the Hotel du Departement (seat of regional government) in Marseille which was his first big commission and the Ontario College of Art and Design. The former is known as Le Grand Bleu because it is blue, the latter as the Dalmatian because it has black and white spots.

His buildings often have playful elements - strong colours, blobby shapes, and stilts at crazy angles - but they are functional too. When I said something about the ‘wonky legs’ of the Peckham Library he corrected me sharply: ‘There is a good structural reason for putting the legs at an angle. Not that I believe in having to justify everything you do, but if you have straight legs in parallel you have to put in some bracing otherwise they might shift sideways but if you have a series of legs at angles they’re bracing the lateral load anyway, so there is a reason for it. People say, Oh, that’s just Will being wilful but not a bit of it.’ He once said he could best teach his students about load-bearing by making them form a human pyramid. Anyway, his buildings stand up, they are weatherproof, and the people who use them like them, which is more than you can say for some famous architects.

And he is good fun. He has a dry wit and merry chortle. His studio in Battersea is a bright and bustling place, full of eager-beaver young things, with his own colourful abstract paintings round the walls. He believes that cheerfulness is important and that ‘Being an architect is to some extent a performing art because you’ve got to keep people up, you’ve got to keep the whole situation buoyant and I’ve noticed that the best and most successful projects are when everyone just keeps smiling. Architects are the only profession that actually deal in joy and delight - all

the others deal in doom and gloom. Yet it’s surprising how many architects dress as though they’re accountants, and behave like accountants. They manage to make something that should be thoroughly enjoyable into a rather dull grind.’

It is noticeable that accountants often feature as bogeymen in his conversation - his father was an accountant. But he was 64 and already retired by the time Will was born. The family were comfortably off and lived in Northampton. Neither parent showed the slightest interest in architecture - though Will recalls that his mother was very houseproud and liked rearranging furniture, which might be relevant. When he was six he designed a house for her to live in - its most striking specification was that it had to be built in New Zealand.

He always wanted to be an architect, even before he really knew what architects did. But he remembers that there was one modernist house in Northampton, New Ways, designed by Peter Behrens in 1926 and actually the first Modern Movement house in Britain, and his mother took him to see it, though she always used to say how ugly it was. The lady who lived there gave Will and his twin sister ice cream, ‘And it was really good ice cream, so maybe that had a certain positive effect.’

When Alsop was 16 his father died, so he decided to leave school, where he was bored, and do his A-levels at evening classes while working for a local architect. (‘Even today I think, Why are these kids going to school full-time to do A-levels? They don’t need to.’) He did a foundation course at Northampton Art School and thence to the Architectural Association (AA) where he entered the competition to design the Pompidou Centre in Paris and was runner-up to Richard Rogers. His first proper commission was a swimming pool for Sheringham in Norfolk in 1984 (the start of a love affair with the Norfolk coast) and then a visitor centre for Cardiff Bay. After that he got a lot of work in Germany, including the Hamburg Ferry Terminal, before beating Norman Foster in the competition to build the Marseille Hotel du Departement in 1994. But even then, the work still didn’t exactly flow.

‘I came back here and went round to see potential clients and they’d say they wanted to see what you’d done - and I’d say, the Hotel du Department, because I was proud of it and it was well received - and they’d say, Yes, but what have you done here. I’d say, But I built this in a foreign language, 800 miles away, on time, on budget - all the things you say - and they’d say, Ah, but it doesn’t count because it’s not in Britain. Scary.’ (He says it was even worse for Richard Rogers - he was out of work for two years after he built the Pompidou Centre.) But he gradually got more commissions in his fifties and is probably now one of the busiest architects around.

However, Alsop was never very good at handling the finances and, after several

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press

Richard Johnson/interiorimages.ca

Ontario College of Art & Design University in Toronto

Catering to basic human needs—food, fuel, shelter and so on—is usually the work of those who are, often literally, down to earth. And few industries deal as directly with the concrete as the building trade. It's odd, then, that architects frequently give the impression of having their heads in the clouds. Indeed, one of the exhibits at last year's Architecture Biennale in Venice was a cloud.

Few resolve this apparent contradiction as successfully as Will Alsop. A longstanding favorite of the avant-garde and winner of the Stirling Prize in 2000, he is now probably, after Lords Rogers and Foster, the best-known and best-regarded

British architect. Yet although Mr. Alsop's buildings, which often feature unusual structures and bright primary colors, aren't without their critics (the satirical magazine Private Eye has twice chosen his work for its award for Worst Building of the Year), they possess a relatively rare quality in modern architecture: they are, for the most part, extremely popular with the people who use and live next to them.

It is a quality that has made him very busy: when I speak to him the day after the opening of a small show at London's Royal Academy, he is in Canada. By the time I call him a couple of days later, he is in China.

Contained in Burlington House's Architecture Space—really a passageway behind the main staircase—the exhibition, entitled "En Route: Proper Behaviour in the Park" (until March 13), comprises large, splashy, colorful paintings produced in response to drawings by students from Ontario College of Art & Design University in Canada, re-imagining Grange Park in Toronto. It offers some clues as to how Mr. Alsop resolves the apparent discrepancy between the abstract thinking of contemporary architecture and the production of physical spaces that the public actually enjoys.

"The students' job was to make a lot of noise, really, performing the role that members of the public have for previous work," he says. "Of

JANUARY 21, 2011

Building a Brighter Future Architect, Painter and Now, Seemingly, Park Warden, Will Alsop Refuses to Be Contained by Space

By ANDREW MCKIE

Page 1 of 3Architect Will Alsop Talks About Building a Brighter Future - WSJ.com

21/01/2011http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959104576081853252939910.html

Page 1 of 2

25/01/2011http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/will-alsop-back-at-scho...

Page 1 of 2North West RIBA Awards Winners 2010 | News | Architects Journal

07/12/2010http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/riba-award-winners-2010/north-west-riba-a...

Page 1 of 1Alsop paintings on show at London hospital | News | Architects Journal

07/12/2010http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/alsop-paintings-on-show-at-lond...

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‘But what it means in the profession is that when a project comes along, they think you have to take a long time to do it. Whereas Lutyens said, Sometimes I’ll go and have a drink with someone on my way home and get a new project. But if I don’t know what I’m going to do with it before supper, I know it’s going to be difficult. He had this idea that you could see the essence of the project in 20 minutes.’ And is Alsop the same? ‘Well I don’t think there’s any rules. Some things take longer but sometimes you do see very quickly what you can do. And of course the older you get, the quicker - not always but often - because you have a whole body of stuff to draw from.’ He has an equally brisk approach to site inspections. When I asked how long he spent familiarising himself with a site before designing for it, he said, ‘Oh, sometimes five minutes. Some sites you can just drive past if there are no distinguishing features - as long as you know where it is and where south is, that’s enough.’ You need to know where south is for the light - in China, he says, you can’t sell an apartment if it doesn’t have south light. Is that feng shui? I asked. ‘No, it’s common sense!’

What he does like doing is consulting local people about what they want for the area. He devotes much time to holding workshops and asking people what their town means to them, and what they would like to see there. He believes that we all crave civic identity and that that’s what’s missing in much of Britain. ‘I get them to do all the work and then I sit down and try to make sense of what

they’re talking about. And they’re quite usefully mad in a way. The politicians and planners make terrible assumptions about a lack of imagination in the general public, but they’re much more imaginative and what they’re really saying by and large is that they want the place that they live in to have an identity and be different from anywhere else.’

Alsop’s architectural heroes are Le Corbusier, Sir John Soane, Mies van der Rohe and John Vanbrugh, which shows a typical eclecticism. I tried to goad him into being snide about some of his British contemporaries, especially Foster and Rogers, but he said, No, they all have their good points, and he likes the fact that so many different styles can co-exist. ‘With architecture today there’s no predominant style or methodology - it’s more open that it has ever been in history and that’s a good thing because it allows people like Quinlan Terry to do what he does and me to do what I do and others to do what they do, and as long as we all do it well and with commitment, I think that’s terrific because it means we get some sort of variety in our towns and cities. It’s the variety that’s important. The most dangerous thing for architecture is to have a theory, because then it’s all the same.’

Unlike most architects, he thinks Prince Charles was right to make his carbuncle speech in 1984 because: ‘It shook things up, it brought architecture more into public consciousness. And it was the beginning of a broadening out, whereas before the Modernists had had it all their

own way. I’m not against Modernism either - it’s what I was brought up on - but it was time to stir it up and he did.’ Alsop even has a good word for Poundbury, Prince Charles’s model village of ‘traditional’ houses in Dorset. ‘I can cope with Poundbury! I wouldn’t do it myself but I can appreciate that it has certain qualities – an element of surprise, an element of disorder – that people respond to. Whereas they don’t respond to the clean lines and rationality of modernism, because we are not rational by and large.’

The awful thing about being an architect, I’ve always thought, is that you spend half your time designing buildings that never get built. Alsop says that actually it’s far more than half - usually only about 10 per cent of your designs are ever built. But that’s fine, he says - even when he has no particular commission or competition in mind, he likes designing buildings. ‘It’s like tennis - you have to keep doing it all the time, whether you have a client or not. I believe that absolutely. You can speculate in your sketchbook - you’re allowed to think about anything, with or without a client.’

He recently designed an ideal prison and researched it by staying in HMP Gartree and talking to prisoners. Now his thoughts are turning to hospitals, and he has been reading up Le Corbusier’s ideas for a hospital (never built) in Venice: ‘He thought that as soon as patients were in shuffle mode they needed somewhere to shuffle to, so he designed what was basically a club overlooking the lagoon with leather armchairs, a bar, smoking! And where the boys could meet the girls and possibly fall in love. So I thought it was those sorts of ideas that are missing in our ideas for hospitals.’

I do hope Alsop builds a hospital one day - I would enjoy shuffling along to his club. And with any luck he will, because he has no plans to retire, ever: ‘I still feel that all my best work is yet to come.’ He has the rare knack of making buildings that people enjoy using. But he won’t explain how he does it because ‘If you can explain it, you spoil it’ and also you risk creating a theory or set of rules, which is the last thing he wants. ‘I think it’s good to have some sort of mystery, which is best left unexplained.’ But his approach to architecture can broadly be defined by his statement: ‘I like people. I hope it shows.’

rocky patches (especially when his major ‘Fourth Grace’ project for Liverpool was cancelled), he sold his practice last year to the design conglomerate SMC for £1.8m. He says that’s fine - it allows him to concentrate on architecture. ‘I think you have to have the intelligence to recognise that you’re not a good businessman and therefore find someone who loves money to look after that aspect for you. I worked for some other architects before I started on my own, and one of them I thought was rather good but he could have been better had he spent less time looking at VAT returns. And I decided then that I didn’t go through seven years of training and meandering and travelling and trying to educate myself to end up doing VAT returns.’

He and his wife (they have three grown-up children) live between an Edwardian mansion flat in London and a converted stable block in Norfolk. But why hasn’t he built his own house? ‘Lots of people ask me that. And the answer is: I rather like my wife. If I built my own house, she’d leave me. So I feel very comfortable not doing that, though of course I often have daydreams about it.’ In fact he has built his own studio in Norfolk - ‘Sheila was very happy about that because it got me out of the house! But I spend a large proportion of the day talking or thinking about new buildings so it’s quite nice to go home and have her taste imposed on me. And I do like her taste. She likes antiques and I don’t dislike them at all. She’s very good at making things comfortable - somewhere you can curl up on the sofa in front of the fire and just veg out looking at telly with a glass of wine, and I’m very happy to do that.’

He tries to veg out at weekends as much as possible and also takes a month off in the summer to go painting in Majorca with his friend Bruce McLean. He is a strong believer that ‘the Victorian work ethic drags us down’. But actually he has a pretty hectic schedule - when I met him he was just back from Delhi and Vienna (where he is professor of architecture) before leaving for New York. He also has offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Beijing and Toronto which he visits regularly. He says he doesn’t mind all the travelling - ‘The trick is to make sure you go in the proper class! Otherwise you would die, simple as that’ - but he still thinks of himself as very much an English architect and spends as much time thinking about, say, Croydon (‘Croydon is pregnant with opportunity’) as Yonkers, New York, where he is converting a disused power plant into a residential tower with shops, museum and swimming pool.

He has more projects on the go than he can actually list - the next one to be opened will probably be ‘Chips’, a residential building which is part of his big master plan for New Islington, Manchester. Isn’t it difficult keeping all these balls in the air? ‘Well, that brings into question the business of how you actually work. At architecture school, generally speaking a group of students are set a project and given a term to do it. And I think this creates the wrong mindset, because they’re given 10 or 12 weeks to do a really simple project. So then they start doing “research” and getting up late and going to the bar - and that’s all right, that’s what being a student is all about.

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Le granD bLeU Marseille, France

Competition Prizes

SeLecTeD ArcHITecTurAL coMPeTITIon PrIzeS2005 First Prize: Peckham Square, Liverpool, UK 2003 First Prize: Fourth Grace, Liverpool, UK First Prize: Walsall Waterfront, UK2002 Special Mention: Duxton Plain

Public Housing, Singapore1999 Special Prize: Oslo Opera House, Oslo, Norway1996 2nd Prize: UK Embassy, Berlin, Germany1994 Short-listed: Tate Modern, London, UK1993 1st Prize: Swansea Centre of Literature, Swansea, UK1991/92 Special Prize: Potsdamer/

Leipziger Platz, Berlin, Germany1990 1st Prize: Hotel du Département des

Bouches-du-Rhone, Marseille, France1971 2nd Prize: Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

starting with the second prize for the pompidou Centre in paris (at the age of 23), prof. Will alsop has been distinguished with some of the most prestigious architectural competitions in the last 30 years

Swansea Centre of Literature

Tate Modern

Cardiff Opera House

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ExhibitionsMoving freely between art and architecture, Will alsop’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in art galleries, architectural centres and biennials

2007 Towards…, Chelsea Space, LondonJack in the Box, FinlandBradford, MoMA New YorkFuture City, The Barbican, LondonCultural Fog, Olga Korper Gallery, TorontoBathing Beauties, The Hub:National Centre

for Craft & Design, LincolnshireRoyal Academy Summer Exhibition, LondonCreative Prisons, Touring exhibition2005 Supercities, Urbis, ManchesterGroundswell; MoMA, New York CityPicture a City, Bradford Masterplan

film by Squint Opera2004 Middlehaven Masterplan, Venice Biennale2002 Malagarba Works, Will Alsop & Bruce

McLean: Milton Keynes GalleryAll Barnsley Might Dream, Venice BiennaleBeauty, Joy & the Real, Sir John

Soane Museum, London2001 Not Architecture, Aedes East Gallery, Berlin2000 Venice BiennaleNational Institute of Architecture (NAI), Rotterdam1998 Alsop Paintings & Architecture,

Architekturgalerie,Stuttgart1997 River of Dreams, Mayor Gallery, London1996 Exhibition of Paintings, Beatrix Gallery, London1995 Exhibition of Paintings,

Westcliffe Gallery, NorfolkExhibition of Paintings, The Mayor Gallery, London1994 Exhibition of Paintings, Galerie

Lilli Bock, Hamburg1992 Selected Projects Exhibition,

Aedes Gallery, BerlinArc en Rêve, Hôtel du Département,

Marseilles, Bordeaux1991 Fluid Forms/Fluid Functions, Edinburgh1987 Bridge/Beam/Floor/Roof, The

Architecture Centre, Bremen1985 Paris Biennale Exhibition1975 Five Young Architects Exhibition,

Artnet Gallery, London1974 Forty London Architects Exhibition,

Artnet Gallery, LondonGroup Exhibition: Fruit Market, Edinburgh1973 Radical Architecture Exhibition, Padua1969 Two Man Exhibition, Compendium Gallery

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MaSTeR pLanning

WiLL painTing

WiLL painTing

Dialogue and input from structural engineers, M+E, acoustics, landscape, etc will inform and shape the evolving design concepts

with other designers, artists, poets…

…Concept Z

Consultants

Collaboration

Initial costing of ideas/concept and check against budget

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sig

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isio

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Learning about the projectmeeting with the client, visiting the site, the city and region,research,meeting and understanding all the stakeholders

Will and his collaborators turn the paintings into architectural concepts

WiLL painTing

WiLL painTing

WiLL painTing

Meeting, talking, drawing, writing, discussing, laughing with the stakeholders

Concept X…

…Concept y…

wORkiNg wiTh STakehOldeRS

WorKshops

–– ReFineMenT & DeveloPMenT oF The iDeaS –––>

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in masterplanning, the process is key.

ours starts with painting and drawing, but it mainly pivots on bringing on board the recipients of the work, i.e. the current or future users of the area.

and they are brought on board by participating in a series of structured workshops where different themes are explored.

The end result is largely dependent on successfully engaging all stakeholders in this process of discovery – understanding their concerns, fostering their dreams and making them part of the solution.

ultimately, the final outcome – the plan – must come from the strategy team leading the project, as no clear vision and leadership can truly come out from a complete consensus, but it is through this process of talking, discussing, arguing, sharing and enjoying together that the solutions to complex scenarios unravel.

Showing the architectural concepts to the stakeholders, and refining them based on shared learning about the project, discovery, testing the ideas against the brief, and the evolution of the brief itself

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as part of our architectural work, a number of what have become ‘street creatures’ have taken a life of their own, and are increasingly being developed and manufactured as independent multi-use facilities.

Lounge seating & bench

Table & Seating

Table & Counter

Kitchen

STreeT

creATureS

1 Canopy, Spinningfields, Manchester

2 westside Sales office, Toronto

3 Florist kiosk, Manchester

4 Service pod for Hotel Abu Dhabi

5 Bungalow hotel room, Spain

6 Sculpture by Alsop & McLean

7 Kiosk in Carlsbad, Checz Republic

8 Restaurant & viewing platform, gao Yang, Shanghai

9, 11 Meeting rooms in the Blizzard Building, London

10 Rough Luxe Hotel, London

12 Market stalls in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi

13 Phollie in Pha Tad Ke, Laos

14 Hotel room pod, Spain 15 Juice Bar, Manchester 16 Café, Jersey Islands 17 Cardiff Bay Visitors’

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I believe in less talking, more drawing and painting. Get people to sit down and show you the way they see a building, work with them, develop the ideas, show them yours. Design is an exploratory process, like painting. As you work, the concept emerges – you must never come with a preconception of the way it should look.

ARTart is an integral part of our architecture – is there at the inception of a project, in the exploration of the architectural object through paintings, and accompanying the design process, whether in more paintings, films, or poetry

Our London studio has its own art space, Testbed1, the first in a series of physical spaces that will work as platforms for experimentation and for convergence of the arts.

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SELECTED PROJECTS Mixed use Retail environments

residential hospitality Commercial property restoration

Transport public buildings energy healthcare Cultural buildings

urban intervention Master planning

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Location Shanghai, ChinaClient Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal DevelopmentSize 68,000 m2

Year Phase 1 due 2009Phase 2 due 2010

shanghai port international Cruise Terminal – urban design & mixed used development Will Alsop was appointed by the Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal to develop proposals for the gao Yang site. alsop reviewed the previous masterplan proposal, and explored and put forward interventions for consolidating and enriching this masterplan.

will alsop has co-ordinated with the other design team disciplines: structural, mechanical and electrical principles as well as supporting information relating to traffic analysis, fire, structure, facade engineering and lighting design.

gao Yang is a prestigious site, prominently located along the Huangpu River, to the north of the Bund in central Shanghai. A generous site, approximately 68,000m2 in area, bounded by the Daming Road to the north, Gong Ping Road to the east and gao Yang to the west – a site for a new International Cruise Terminal being currently developed with Phase Two.

The development of the gao Yang site represents a significant contribution to the diversity of Shanghai, and will be seen as a catalyst for stimulating the regeneration of the surrounding district. gao Yang introduces a rich mix of uses, combining working, living and leisure activities – ingredients necessary to create a vibrant urban district. These activities are set in the context of a public park overlooking the waterfront.

gao yangshanghai, China

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Client Capitaland China Holding Size 150,000 m2

Project Status Completed in 2009Skills Architecture

Department store and hotel

Raffles City Beijing, a key component of an expanding global brand, developed, owned and operated by CapitaLand, is located at the junction of dongzhimen Neidajie and Beijing’s 2nd Ring Road. The site is at the heart of Beijing’s business district and sits on one of the city’s most important crossroads.

The organization of the building components is designed to be straightforward, well-connected and clearly expressed. There are four components: the retail podium, residential apartments, the Beijing Ascott serviced residence, and the commercial office tower.

The retail podium with its 5-storey sweeping day-lit enclosure and glass ‘Crystal lotus’ is the defining centerpiece of Raffles City, and combined with the office lobby’s tessellated glass envelope is a statement of the project’s ambition and commitment to excellence in design and construction.

RaFFleS CiTybeijing, China

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Client John Lewis Partnership Skills Architecture

Department store

Scott Lawrie led this successful design and on site renovation whilst at his previous practice, John McAslan and Partners. This Grade II listed department store is located in Sloane Square, one of the most prestigious shopping areas of London.

Further to this he subsequently initiated and prepared the scheme for the redevelopment of the Peter Jones depository into a mixed use development which included retail units, social housing and high end flats for sale. As well as improved building services and operational facilities, Scott worked to preserve the building’s much-loved and distinctive form.

The project, completed in three phases between 2002 and 2005, allowed operational continuity throughout the works, and drew strong praise from the client and key authorities.

The Royal Fine art Commission said that “the John Lewis Partnership and the architects are to be congratulated for putting together a scheme which respects the integrity of the Peter Jones Building whilst adapting it so that it can trade more effectively as a department store.”

peTer jonesLondon, UK

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Location Manchester, UkClient Urban SplashContract Value £20 millionSize 16,200 m²Year Completed 2009

residential development

New islington, Manchester’s Millennium Community, is situated between the Ashton and Rochdale canals on the Northern edge of Manchester City Centre. Launched in 2002, alsop’s Strategic Framework for New islington, lays out an exceptional place, modelled around new canal arms and an inspiring landscape.

Commissioned by Urban Splash in 2002, Chips presents the first new apartments for sale in New islington and was inspired by three fat chips piled on top of one another. The Chips building comprises three equalheight, long, thin new build masses (Chips) approximately 100m long by 14m wide stacked and staggered upon one another creating an elevated ground floor and eight levels comprising 142 one, two and three bedroom apartments.

The building is clad in a composite wall faced with a cladding covered in newspaper print with text that echoes the industrial heritage of the Ancoats area. The design provides a mix of living and studio units and commercial space within a single project. The project defines a quality of living by combining outstanding design with technological innovation while embracing key concepts of sustainability, integration into the urban landscape and the provision of inspirational and sensational apartment units.

The building’s apartment types range from studio spaces to 3-bed apartments. There is also a variety of differing external balconies. The apartments are planned internally around a central ‘pod’ unit, housing the bathroom and kitchen areas. The apartments can be open plan or sub-divided by the use of large folding screens.

ChipsManchester, uk

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Location Masdar City, Abu DhabiClient abu dhabi Future energy CompanyContract Value £480 millionSize 240,000 m² gFaYear ongoing

residential development and urban design

The Fusion Quarter neighbourhood, within the Masdar City development in Abu Dhabi, will be developed in six phases and consists of 240,000m2 gfa residential/mixed use neighbourhood with a strong emphasis on leisure and recreational facilities, thus providing an optimal work-life balance.

a carbon-neutral community, the Fusion Quarter will be a welcoming environment for an international population where all cultures will be represented through the retail and leisure offering, making the area a focal point for the whole of Masdar City.

The unique selling point of this neighbourhood is that all aspects of daily life, for both the professional and their families, has been carefully considered; this quality-orientated living experience will be a key retaining point and will help prospective business tenants build a competitive and stable work force in the region.

Utilizing a cost-efficient modular construction methodology, the design strikes a balance between ease of construction and diversity of offer, through a sophisticated system of building components and room modules that can be arranged in a wide array of combinations.

FuSion QuaRTeR Masdar City, abu Dhabi

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Completion 2003Size 16,000 m2 Client MAB Groep BV

hotel and urban entertainment centre The “polder city” of Almere, close to amsterdam, has grown up as a low-rise development along the lines of the English garden cities. Although the residential areas of Almere are attractive, the settlement lacks a real “heart” and the lack of local amenities encourages people to commute to Amsterdam for entertainment. Almere has, however, something of a tradition of encouraging bold and innovative architecture and this has underpinned moves to transform the central area.

In line with the development masterplan for Almere, which envisages a process of “intensification” for the city centre, Alsop have designed a 16,000 m2 waterfront entertainment centre. Completed in 2003, the Centre consists of a family of buildings grouped around a new square and elevated 4m on a unifying podium, which covers a parking area. Varied in form, the buildings use a variety of materials to create a rich new urban landscape. At the heart of the development is the Pop Zaal, its reinforced concrete structure clad in pre-weathered zinc and steel mesh. The four storey hotel, in contrast, is clad in cedar boarding, while the retail centre is metal clad. The square itself is a lively place, with cafes and restaurants, attractive in all seasons.

alMeRealmere, holland

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Completed 2003Contract Value £50 millionClient garbe Uk ltd

remodelling of grade ii listed building

Located between the Georgian Bloomsbury Square, close to the British Museum, and the busy Southampton Row, Victoria House is monumentally Classical in style (though steel framed) and contains some impressive interiors, particularly its entrance lobbies and staircases. The building was considered as the headquarters for the new Greater London Authority. The architects’ brief was to create a large space for the client, garbe Uk as well as lettable offices to modern standards and ancillary areas.

The scheme balances preservation and innovation. Working with the local planning authority (lB Camden) and English Heritage, the architects identified interiors of historic interest, which have been carefully retained and restored. In terms of core commercial accommodation, the building has been substantially remodelled. Two full floors of offices have been added, and former circulating areas such as the central tower altered to provide additional office space. The internal lightwells have been remodeled as environmentally controlled atria with ‘pod’ meeting rooms suspended in the space. daylight has been maximized to by the removal of existing glazed brick walls to the lightwells and replacement with glass curtain walling. Cantilevering the floor beyond the existing line has meant an increase in area for the main office levels. Obsolete lifts have been removed and new ones provided at the centre of the building, improving vertical circulation and creating a more flexible floor plate.

At ground level, a new retail area and shop frontage is added on the Southampton Row elevation, and a internal loading bay accessed from a modified entrance in the Bloomsbury Square facade. A health club is accommodated in the basement, and the ballroom, with its striking listed art deco interior, utilised as a restaurant.The external appearance of the building has changed very little, though the open arcade on Southampton Row has been reinstated with the removal of shop units built in during the 1950s.

viCToria hoUseLondon, UK

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Residential, hotel, office and retail development In a hot and steamy summer day in haikou, the hainan Trade Plaza hotel atrium provide people a fantastic sun shelter and cooling place that allows them to do many interesting activities, the concept of “water” is well presented of its fluid, flowing and moving nature. People are free to move and interact and the atmosphere should be moderately busy but fairly relaxed.

The atrium encourages multi levelled and functional interactions. The semi-open aired space enclosed by the glass stripes provides the shading, natural ventilation and a social venue for people who are here on different purpose.

For people arriving for work, the 5 metre high water walls at east side of the site shape the grand gateway which leading them to the express escalators. The escalators soar up to the floating lobby that divert them to different office zones via vicarious express double deck lifts with high speed and efficiency.

For guests arriving to stay at 5* hotel, the entry locates at west side of the building; it also offers hotel’s own dedicated express escalator that land guests at the same level at the floating lobby, they will be met by courteous hotel staff then shown to the 3 sets of hotel exclusive express escalator which will take them to the hotel reception at 52nd floor.

For people who come here for a bit of fun, exploring, shopping or just meandering, they will face abundant options! One can feel being spoiled for choices: the internal space runs up almost 40 metres high, the central spiral ramps wrapped around the centre core gently directing flow from top to bottom. For people who know this place better than others, they may choose to take a lift up to the top of ramp and walk their way down as there are many different shaped, coloured pods/objects projecting from the ramp; ramp is like an internal shopping street that offers people different options and choices for stopover; they may go to Various restaurants, ice-cream shops, cafes, and even cinema!

Landscape element is also introduced into the space, the central reflective pool echoes the surrounding and landscape objects such as landscape shelves and cones punctuate the space and bring the nature to the inside.

hainanhaikou, China

Location Haikou, China Client New City Construction Development Co Ltd. Haikou Contract Value £20 millionSize 223,000 m²Present Stage Competition

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Area 33,000 m2

Location SingaporeClient CapitalandPresent stage CompleteTotal cost of building £20 million

Mixed use development

alsop’s first major project in asia, a dramatic redevelopment of the river front district of Clarke Quay in Singapore, is succeeding in drawing tourists and locals back to the historic waterfront.

Developed by Capitaland, the Sgd88million (approx. £30.6million) mixed use scheme, designed to increase commercial and leisure activities, gives the riverfront area a new identity and re-positions Clarke Quay as a vibrant and attractive destination. Crucial to the success of the project has been the architect and engineer’s ingenious manipulation of the site’s micro climate through the design of a distinctive and sophisticated shading/cooling system that provides the quayside with tremendous visual interest and environmental benefit.

Following a steady decline since its heyday servicing bustling trade on the Singapore river, and an unsuccessful conventional gentrification of the heritage site in the 1980s, Alsop was appointed in 2002 with a brief to rejuvenate the prominent three hectare diamond shaped site. For alsop the challenge was to provide a new lease of life not just by developing an attractive re-design of the streetscape and waterfront but also to address the perennial climate problem – and to find ways to mitigate against the Singapore ambient temperature and heavy rainfall – without resorting to the traditional scenario of creating an internal air conditioned mall.

The first phase of the waterfront revival, which was completed in March 2006, has effected a total transformation of the area’s ambience, activity and appearance through the redevelopment of three main areas: the riverfront, the streets and River Valley Road.

CLarKe qUaysingapore

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Completion 2005 Client Queen Mary & westfield CollegeContract value £34mAwards 2009 The Chicago Athenaeum, International Architecture Award / 2006 RIBA Education London Award / 2006 Civic Trust award / 2005 leaf award, Best Use of Technology within a Large Scheme

School of Medicine and Dentistry for Queen Mary, university of london

In Autumn 2000 Alsop were commissioned to develop a new 9,000 m2 School of Medicine and dentistry for Queen Mary, University of London, at their Whitechapel campus. The brief was to create a new environment for research staff and students which would stimulate the exchange of information between departments, physically opening up the school and engendering new clarity in its workings.

The Alsop response was to create a building in which individual departments were placed within the structure to be identifiable to each other and from the school’s exterior. Sight lines are provided from the street into every level including lower-ground laboratories and open spaces within the plan form an amenity for the users as well as providing pedestrian access across the site. The forms, suspended within the glass rectangle, house seminar and teaching spaces as well as offices; the central tenet of transparency for the college and its operations, and the hope that the forms within the structure will be shared with a broader community of local schools and other users, prompts the use of amorphous forms and bright colours, eliciting interest and enthusiasm from outside the building as well as within.

Traditional research laboratory design tends to isolate the scientific research functions. The unique interaction between research departments and public facilities at The Blizard Building has only been achieved through the detailed consultation with representatives of the scientists user groups, who have actively engaged in the design process and project aspirations of cross-fertilisation and interaction.

Queen MaRyLondon, uK

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Theatre complex

The brief for this project called for an iconic cultural platform for the city to compete with nearby Beijing. The master plan is to include a cluster of galleries, museums and hotels around the central theatre. The concept for this design is based upon the notion that “life revolves around the theatre, the theatre is placed in the centre of ordinary things, life in ordinary things is theatre.”

Centring the theatre spatially in the site to allow life to revolve around it, involved raising it into the air so that the park could flow underneath around a covered, shaded performance space. This also creates a sculpture within the park- a four-legged shiny element, unique to it’s surroundings.

This proposed main theatre building contains three theatres – the main 2,000-seat theatre, an 800-seat multifunction one and 500-seat children theatre The main theatre was carefully designed to be able to change layout to suit a standard, central or 270 degree stage. Meanwhile, the public main foyer shared by the three theatres and the back stage technical and personnel areas are also located in this main building.

The building is accessed via one of the four legs. From the ground level entrance, visitors take escalators directly up to the main public foyer which acts as a social space and offers views of the area. A ring of retail surrounds the building with a linear park on it’s roof, ideal for weddings and functions with immediate access to the horn-shaped restaurants above. an access ramp and a lift for full-size articulated lorries are provided within the rear two legs. This would be the largest theatre in the world where stage sets, performance-related equipments as well as general building services equipments can be delivered direct to the backstage area.

The façade of the main theatre building is designed using a modular plywood rainscreen cladding system. These panels sit onto a steel lattice secondary structure. glazed panels can be substituted where necessary, and PV panels will be attached to the South side onto the plywood. Although freeform in appearance, this system uses a careful pattern of three different clusters, These are arranged strategically to suit the curve of the sculptural theatre architecture.

langFangChina

Area 150,000 m2

Location Langfang, ChinaClient City of LangfangPresent stage Competition entry – third placeTotal cost of building £250 million

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Location leeds, UkClient leeds Metropolitan University/Yorkshire County Cricket ClubFacility Sports pavillion, media centre and educational facilityCompletion 2010Size 4,000 m²

Cricket pavilion, media centre and teaching facility

The Carnegie Pavilion is a unique ‘dual-use’ higher education and sports facility that will be occupied all year round. It is at one and the same time: a university faculty expanding beyond the campus and embedding itself within the surrounding community, within a working sports ground; and sports facility housing applied higher education – a ‘new paradigm in learning’.

leeds Metropolitan University entered into a unique partnership with Yorkshire County Cricket Club (YCCC) to not only enable the delivery of the Carnegie Pavilion, but also to provide mutual benefits for both organisations, enhancing higher education, sport and the all round sustainability of the development.

The Carnegie Pavilion will accommodate Leeds Met’s School of Tourism, Hospitality and Events (The), where students will benefit from direct exposure to real life sporting events and hospitality. The development incorporates a full-scale teaching kitchen as well as lecture theatres and faculty offices. Students of digital journalism will also be based in the building, and will work hands on with the hi-tech facilities of the new media centre, designed to meet the latest standards for both TV and radio broadcasting. The dual-use 150 seat auditorium for example, on major match days, converts into a 100 seat press box for cricket journalists, with uninterrupted views of the cricket action.

Co-occupation of the building (over 70% of the rooms have been designed for ‘dual-use’) dramatically reduces its running costs, as well as its carbon footprint, when compared with two separate buildings. Indeed, the Carnegie Pavilion has achieved BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard whilst complying with ECB cricketing requirements including the south facing glazed wall providing uninterrupted sightlines.

CarnegieLeeds, UK

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门厅Entrance Hall/Public Area / 1500 m2

展厅Exhibition Hall

展厅Exhibition Hall /3000 m2

珠海历史基本陈列厅History Exhibition Hall /2550 m2

平台Terrace

管理Administration /1000 m2

展厅Exhibition Hall

展厅Exhibition Hall

展厅Exhibition Hall

展厅Exhibition Hall

展厅Exhibition Hall

设备与管理用房Equipment & Technical Management

中央控制中心 Central Control

展览设计制作室 Exhibition Design

生态城市体验区Biological City Experiment

总体规划大模型展区Large Model Exhibition Hall

规划公示、查询厅Planning Display

规划馆之友Friends of Exhibition Hall

序厅Introduction Hall

接待厅Reception

市政交通基础设施规划展区City Infrastructure

总体规划展区General Planning

城市历程展区City History & Development

专项规划展区Theme Exhibition

专业研究室Restoration Studio

模型库房Model Storage

规划资料库房Planning Material Storage

会议室Meeting Room

Museum complex

This is a new destination, set in a park full of flowers and ponds, where lovers can walk together. The museum ‘cloud’ provides cool shade to the park below, creating a place for friends and family to meet and mingle.

The main entrance ramp leads visitors from the park to the base of the Museum ‘hill’. above this new horizon, visitors marvel at the array of City Museum gallery forms. Below it, and connected by a series of escalators, is the Urban Planning halls and City model.

A series of openings in the Hill provide natural light and create stunning views of the exhibition spaces below. A petal roof canopy supported by a scattering of columns unites the museum as one.

a cool breeze circulates through the lace work of petals, with rays of sunshine forming carefully constructed pools of light accross the HIll.

A free form lattice of walkways connect the City Museum galleries together, a place where vistors never follow one route, an adventure for people to become lost in the past, present and future of Zhuhai.

This place is a 24hr wonderland, some where one can visit as many times as one likes – every time is different, every time leaves a memory to remember.

ZhUhaiChina

Location Zhuhai, ChinaClient Zhuhai Jiuzhou Tourism groupContract Value £59 millionSize 48,400 m²Year 2010

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Client Blackfriars Investment Ltd/Royal London Asset ManagementSize 37,400 m2

Contract Value £70 millionCompleted 2006 Awards 2007 RiBa National award 2007 RiBa Commercial Building Prize for the London Region2007 Structural Steelwork Awards, commendation

a commercial development at blackfriars

Palestra is alsop’s first contribution to the rapidly developing Bankside quarter, south of the Thames. The opening of the Tate Modern and better communications – the Jubilee Line Extension and Alsop’s forthcoming Thameslink 2000 station at Blackfriars (with links to Luton and Gatwick airports) – make this potentially one of the most dynamic cultural and commercial growth points of London.

The key idea of this bold speculative commercial scheme is the provision of big, straightforward and highly flexible floor plates, which can be used in open plan or cellular formats. The building takes the form of a raised box, with retail and restaurant space at ground level, where public routes penetrate the development. The offices are arranged in two distinct planes, separated by an open level of ‘social space’.

The appearance of the building belies its basically simple diagram. The facades make use of the most advanced glazing technology, with benefits not only in terms of working environment and climatic controls but equally for the public. The glazing incorporates a bold abstract pattern that is impermeably bonded into the individual glass sheets – and thus becomes a huge artwork challenging the idea that speculative office space need be visually boring or environmentally negative.

paLesTraLondon, UK

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Completion 1998Client london UndergroundContract value £110mAwards 2000 BCIA Award2000 RIBA Civic and CommunityArchitecture Award1999 RiBa Stirling Prize Short-list1999 Concrete Society

Underground station

North greenwich Station has been acclaimed as perhaps the most striking of the twelve stations on London Underground’s £3.5 billion Jubilee Line Extension – probably the greatest single programme of architectural patronage in post-war Britain. as the gateway to the Millennium Dome and with its associated bus link, the station has now become one of the most heavily used on the line. It is also one of the largest and forms an integrated transport interchange serving a wide area of south-east london, serving the Millennium Village and other developments on the peninsula.

The context for the scheme was a cleared site, with no existing buildings: the site for the station was determined by the alignment of the line, which crosses the Thames twice between Canary Wharf and Canning Town. The scheme as built provided for a cut-andcover approach, with the station totally enclosed by a ‘lid’ – with provision for a subsequent ‘air rights’ development.

The dynamic form of the station is memorable and provides a clear and comprehensible diagram – a prime objective in all JLE stations and a sharp contrast to the confined and confusing spaces of most older Underground stations. Equally memorable is the bold use of colour. Blue mosaic coats themain columns, while deep blue glass is used as a wall cladding. These precise finishes contrast with the exposed concrete and suspended services of the roof.

As large as any mainline station, it explores older traditions in station design to create a building which mixes clarity of purpose with rich allusion and metaphor to create a point of arrival for a new quarter of London.

norTh greenWiCh London, UK

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Location Toronto, CanadaClient Ontario College of Art and Design (OCad)Size 7,800m2

Year 2004Skills Architecture

oCaDontario, canadaCollege of art and Design

A distinctive cultural force in Ontario, OCAD’s impetus to expand comes with a growing recognition at national level of the contribution of the creative industries to Canada’s modern economy. The decision to employ alsop was based upon a significant track record in the design of cultural buildings of enduring effectiveness and appeal which also offered iconic representation of the client body as the school enters a new age.

Following the appointment, will alsop instigated a series of client workshops in which early concepts were developed with college staff and students. During this time, conventional ideas of teaching, learning and architecture were explored as the group sought to redefine their new college of art and design. The participants exchanged sketches and ideas that lead to the development of a basic strategy. These original ideas are embodied in the final scheme, a flying, translucent rectangle or ‘table top’ vividly patterned with a colourful pixellated skin, raised eight storeys from the ground and housing the new Faculty of design.

The project unifies the existing brick structures beneath the ‘table top’, the park to the west and McCaul Street to the east. Views to the park are preserved for OCAD’s neighbours across McCaul Street, who participated in the consultation process. The park will also benefit from the area’s regeneration and, restored, will be the home to contemporary sculpture and school events.

Programming works in collaboration with OCAD and Alsop have accommodated all the elements of a complex client group. In addition to the teaching and administrative spaces the project also incorporates gallery spaces, design and research centres, lounge and meeting rooms, specific craft and metalwork workshops and design critique spaces. The college satisfies its aspirations to revive a neglected area of town by inviting in the public to visit galleries and cafe spaces in the new building. OCAD contributes distinctive design and revived public areas, internal and external to this quarter of the city.

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Location london, UkClient London Borough of SouthwarkContract Value £6 millionSize 2,300 m2

PeCkhaM London, UKpublic library and media centre Peckham Library won Britain’s mostcelebrated architectural award, the Stirling Prize, in November 2000.

The brief called for a building of architectural merit which would bringprestige to the borough and engendera sense of ownership and pride for the building by local people. Will Alsopcreated a building of unique appearance which satisfied both criteria, comprising innovatory solutions to design problems, creating working, archive and meeting spaces of genuine delight and stimulating appearance.

Suspending the main reading room on a cantilevered plane allowed the creation of a new public space below the soffit. within this room, ‘pods’ contain meeting rooms and independent collections, with workstations clustered below.

The brief included a children’s library and a range of adult learning facilities. The centre pod opens to the clerestory,allowing daylight to enter the main space while the ‘beret’ above affords shade. The library was conceived with sustainability in mind and has natural lighting and ventilation systems which significantly diminish the building’s energy requirements.

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Location Abu DhabiClient Al Reem InvestmentsContract Value ConfidentialSize 633 hectaresYear 2009-ongoing

Urban design

Al Reem Island, previously referred to as ‘Abu Al Shuoom’, ‘The Pearl’ and ‘Emirates Pearl Island’, is a residential, commercial and business project to be built on the natural island of Al Reem Isle, located off the northeastern coast of Abu Dhabi city.

The development will be connected to the Abu Dhabi city island by two or three bridges and located 20 minutes from the Abu Dhabi International Airport.

Al Reem Island will cover an area of 633 hectares (68 million ft2) and is being built by 3 developers – Tamouh Investments, Sorouh and Al Reem Investments. The development will be overseen by an independent third-party facilities management company known as Bayt Al Khidma, who will ensure all three Reem Island developers meet the high standards of construction. The island is expected to accommodate 280 thousand residents and will include important amenities like schools, medical clinics, shopping malls, restaurants, a 27-hole golf course, hotels, resorts, spas, gardens, and beaches.

In 2009, Will Alsop was invited to propose a vision for the Najmat area. Currently his office are working up part of that proposal into detail design stage. The boardwalk stretches from the vehicular bridge to the West to the marina to the East. With its natural, wild landscape it offers a different experience from the rest of the masterplan. It will be a romantic destination with attractors such as the juice bars and oyster bar.

Around the perimeter of the marinaoutdoor dining tables are cantileveredon platforms over the water’s edge.These tables are sheltered by large petal canopies which offer shading and cooling to create a pleasant outdoor environment which animates the marina edge day and night.

The Marina is the focal point of theMasterplan. It features a multipurpose,kinetic stage which can vary in height for different performances and rotatesto form a projection screen for open airshows. To the north of the stage rakedseating platforms provide dedicated seating for open air performances.

ReeM iSlanDal reem island, abuaDhabi

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Location Croydon, UkClient Croydon CouncilSize 9 km2

Masterplan Commissioned by Croydon Council and developed following an extensive consultation exercise, Will Alsop’s vision for Croydon addresses the major issues of both the built environment and the public realm, and how these affect the economic and cultural health of the town. His proposals offer a revitalised cityscape that realises the community’s aspirations and Croydon’s potential to become London’s Third City.

The key elements of the vision are centred around bringing residential accommodation into the heart of the town centre where it is currently lacking, revitalising Croydon’s key retail offer which is central to Croydon’s success, and subsequently repositioning the commercial/office market in central Croydon. In addition, a key feature of Will Alsop’s proposal is to improve the quality of the public realm and alter the perception of Croydon’s town centre by introducing additional green spaces and integrating existing underused green spaces. The vision aims to capitalise on the existing swell of developer interest in Croydon’s town centre.

Central to the Vision is breaking down the barriers to pedestrian movement currently created by the busy road and rail systems that dominate the town centre. Through a series of bold but considered rationalisations, significant land will become available, facilitating the introduction of new commercial, retail and residential development alongside a varied public realm of squares, parks and landscaping. Dramatically improving the quality of the environment for the pedestrian throughout the centre of the town is a crucial component of the proposals.

As the town centre environment improves, so Croydon will be rejuvenated by the introduction of green spaces and water. In bringing the submerged River Wandle to the surface; in redeveloping the massive footprint of the Whitgift shopping centre; in the arrival of University status and the construction of its campus; and with the commitment of the town to the design and development of architecture of quality, Croydon will emerge as an influential, desirable and vibrant city.

ThirD CiTyCroydon, UK

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Client Bradford Centre RegenerationContract value £50 millionCompletion 2004

Masterplan Alsop’s work with the Bradford Centre Regeneration team created an opportunity to let Bradford breathe with quality open space that optimises Bradford’s existing fine qualities, views and built inheritance.

Of the scheme, Will Alsop says ‘Bradford has the topography to allow every citizen to wake up to a view -- both physical and mental. Their collective ambition can create a placed of extraordinary difference.’

In terms of planning, the team approached Bradford from the perspective of having not a single centre but multiple centres of interest. The team identified the many communities which comprise Bradford and give it its quality of difference. A grid of 64 x 1km squares was laid over the city in plans, and in each was found the kernel of an experience, event or activity. Suitably promoted, these squares constitute a ‘new tourist map’ for Bradford, providing somewhere to meet, something to see, do, sell or buy. Emphatically each will contain something that people outside the neighbourhood might want to visit. And people inside the neighbourhood can be proud of. Views and site lines are as important as actual new structures. Many of these spaces already exist and are just hidden.

BRaDFoRDBradford, uK

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People + Placesour network of offices manage the territories in which we are currently active: north america, europe, Middle east and China.

each of these offices is lead by architects with a proven track record in design, client and project management, and delivery of built projects.

The senior team is formed by a group of experienced professionals with an in-depth knowledge in their specialized field; however, their common factor is a capacity to embrace and integrate in their own work the rest of the design disciplines practised by aLL.

Through our network of strategic partners – all of whom have worked extensively with us – we are able to provide our services thoughout the world.

norTh aMeRiCa

FaR eaST

Toronto

International HQ

eUrope+M.eaST

London

Will AlsopScott Lawrie

Chongqing

Lillian Cai

aTLasFar east

ibiNorth america

pLaneT b3India

Timespent with no specific intent,time as privilege,time without,time to explore,time to sit,time to stop,time to go beyond,time of pleasure…

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