Ahrends, Burton and Koralek (ABK) was established in London in 1961 by three young AA graduates, Peter Ahrends, Richard Burton and Paul Koralek. By the 1970s, ABK was known as one of the most creative and versatile of Britain's younger practices, its workload ranging from college buildings in Oxford and Chichester to housing, public libraries, retail and industrial buildings. While influenced by High-tech, their buildings were characterised by a concern for strong form and materiality. Major projects of the 1980s included stations for the Docklands Light Railway and the pioneering St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight, as well as buildings at Hooke Park in Dorset designed in collaboration with Frei Otto. ABK's victory in the prestigious 1982 competition for an extension to the National Gallery in London reflected the firm's standing but the scheme was abandoned following a controversial intervention by the Prince of Wales. Written by eminent architectural author and critic, Kenneth Powell, and lavishly illustrated with images from the practice's archive and stunning new photography, this book is an essential read for architects, students, architectural historians and anyone who is interested in learning more about a key practice in British post-war architecture. This book has been commissioned as part of a series of books on Twentieth Century Architects by RIBA Publishing, English Heritage and The Twentieth Century Society.

The first survey in nearly two decades of the work of John McAslan + Partners. Making Architecture both provides an up-to-date account of the work of John McAslan + Partners, one of Britain’s most respected and dynamic architectural practices, and analyses the culture of a studio that has made a remarkable contribution to architecture, place-making and the lives of individuals for four decades. A series of thematic chapters includes detailed, fully illustrated descriptions of many recent and ongoing international projects, from Central and Waterloo stations in Sydney and ten new stations for Delhi Metro to the transformation of King’s Cross station in London; from the sensitive restoration of the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, to the new Doha Mosque and nearby Msheireb Museums in Qatar. It also includes the pioneering initiatives for which the McAslan studio has become well known and that underline the practice’s humanity and sense of social responsibility: the urgent restoration of the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the devastating earthquake in 2010; the Hidden Homelessness initiative, begun in 2017; the N17 project that provided a pop-up design studio in Tottenham, London, after the riots of 2011, with the aim of inspiring young people to become engaged in the regeneration of their own community; and many others. Edited by Chris Foges, with a foreword by Kenneth Frampton and an introduction by Alan Powers, and with contributions by architectural specialists, this beautifully designed book offers the key to understanding the development and philosophy of one of the world’s most socially engaged architectural practices.

The Great Builders surveys the careers of forty great architects whose engineering skills were crucial to their success. Sixteen nationalities and seven centuries of architectural innovation make for a survey of spectacular scope and depth: from churches and fortresses to bridges and high-tech skyscrapers, it includes masterpieces from all over the world and covers 700 years of architectural history.

Here is Brunelleschi, who built the ‘unbuildable’ dome of Florence Cathedral; Sinan, a Christian engineer who became chief architect to the Ottoman court; Joseph Paxton, scribbling down a design for the Crystal Palace, London, on a piece of blotting paper; and James Bogardus, an early American evangelist of the opportunities offered by cast-iron architecture.

Rapid advances in industrial production inspired experiments with new materials and techniques, gradually allowing a whole new architecture to emerge: reinforced concrete, plate glass and steel were central to the creations of Le Corbusier, Auguste Perret and Mies van der Rohe, for instance; and, in the High-Tech architecture of the present day – represented by Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava, among others – computer-aided design has seemingly tested the boundaries of the possible.

Arup Associates, a major presence on the British architectural scene for more than half a century, emerged from the famous engineering consultancy founded by Ove Arup in 1946 and reflected Arup's own vision of "total design", formed in the 1930s in his groundbreaking collaborations with Berthold Lubetkin. With architects, engineers and other professionals working in groups, it offered a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to the design of buildings. From early groundbreaking factories to a series of university commissions, innovative offices, and cultural projects, including the Snape Maltings concert hall, the practice moved on to become a major player on the London development scene with its projects at Finsbury Avenue and Broadgate. This book, the first monograph on Arup Associates for more than 30 years, discusses the work of the firm from the years of the Arup Building Group in the 1950s to the 1990s and assesses the contribution of its leading designers, including Sir Philip Dowson, Derek Sugden and Peter Foggo. The text is based on interviews with many former and current members of the practice. The book is fully illustrated with images from the Arup archive and stunning new photography offering a new perspective on an exceptional body of work.

Tower Bridge, close to the Tower of London, is one of the best-known and most recognizable bridges in the world. Opened on 30 June 1894, this combined suspension and bascule bridge was designed by architect Sir Horace Jones and engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry. This new book, published to mark the 125th anniversary of its opening, will explore the history of the bridge, set it into the context of the River Thames and its crossings, and will, above all, focus on its design and construction. Highly illustrated with old and new images, from material held in the London Metropolitan Archives to specially commissioned photographs, Tower Bridge: History * Engineering * Design is a major new illustrated study of a remarkable piece of architecture and engineering.

Completed in 1984 by Arup Associates 1 Finsbury Avenue (1FA), the first section of the Broadgate masterplan, was widely acclaimed at the time and has since been listed as a Grade II building by Historic England. It was commonly acknowledged as having set the exemplar for future commercial architecture in the UK, introducing major innovations in construction methods and materials from the US and adopting a whole new approach to the design and planning of an office block. 1FA has recently undergone a prestigious mixed-use restoration by British Land, in liaison with Historic England, designed by award-winning architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. While retaining the distinctive listed facade and reintroducing the original plan's full-height interior atrium, AHMM have taken a similarly innovative and experimental approach to the complex, and in doing so, have set a new exemplar for the future of office design in the 21st Century. This book sets the iconic building in its historic context, before detailing the story of its initial development, design and construction, its listing and the effect of this listing on a commercial property in terms of planning and adaptive re-use. It then critically examines the current, similarly innovative scheme and the reimagining of this late 20th-century landmark.

It was perhaps no surprise that Jacques Ferrier was personally selected by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to design the country's pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. It was to become, along with Thomas Heatherwick's `Seed Cathedral', one of the most lauded and visited pavilions of the fair, and embodied the key characteristics of Ferrier's work: a deep interest in technology; the encouragement of social interaction through the use of courtyards, walkways and loggias; and the use of a perforated outer skin that not only responds to the need for internal climatic control but also provides an additional space for informal social gathering while softening the transition from the building's internal space to the outside world. Influenced by the critic Rayner Banham, by the work of French architect-engineer Jean Prouve, and by his early experience of working with Norman Foster, Jacques Ferrier has developed a highly individual approach to architecture that seeks to harness technology in order to create buildings and urban environments that fully engage with the practical and emotional needs of people. Central to Ferrier's philosophy is the idea of the `Sensual City', which aims to create buildings and cities that engage with the five senses - sound, smell, sight, touch and taste - that are central to human experience. Ferrier is the antithesis of the celebrity `starchitect', but his work stands out precisely because of its calm thoughtfulness, sensitivity and precision.

Following the tremendous success of Merrell's "New London Architecture", this book presents an entirely new selection of the most exciting building projects of the twenty-first century in London. The architectural renaissance of Britain's capital continues in the new millennium with the design and construction of ever more striking and imaginative buildings of all types to serve the needs of the city's population. Projects range in size and budget from such landmark structures as Wembley Stadium and the forthcoming 'Shard of Glass' (London Bridge Tower) to such cultural projects as the Young Vic theatre and Britain's first architecture gallery, near Tate Modern; from offices, schools and hospitals to shops, hotels and private houses. With stunning photographs, drawings and renderings accompanying critical texts, this book offers a compelling portrait of a city eager to embrace the best of the new. "New London Architecture" profiles over 110 new architectural projects, both large and small providing an essential reference for anyone interested in the changing urban landscape of one of the world's most vibrant cities.