London Calling

An ethnic mix has always been an essential part of London's character, with areas such as Spitalfields home to successive waves of immigrants - from Huguenots in the 18th century to a diverse Jewish population in the mid-20th century, and a sizable Bangladeshi community today. Jeremy Melvin explains how, through its dynamic sense of the multicultural, ‘London taught other cities how to become metropolises’. How, though, does an urban mix, such a natural phenomenon in areas such as Old Compton Street (left), Brick Lane (centre) and Electric Avenue (right), translate into current architectural form? Here Melvin looks at the work of three London-based practices that have all worked on community schemes that engender notions of inclusiveness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biochemistry Department,University of Oxford

Howard Watson describes how Hawkins\Brown's new Biochemistry Department for the University of Oxford represents an innovative new model for scientific research institutes. Spatially, its interior not only positively embraces and encourages social interaction and the fertilisation of ideas, but also brings art, architecture and science together under a single roof. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Too Good to Be True: The Survival of English Everyday PoMo

‘Intelligent, eclectic, witty, profoundly humanistic, and keen to debunk an inflexible, elitist and dangerously authoritarian Modernism’: Kester Rattenbury evokes the spirit of early British Post-Modernism. She reminds us of how in the early 1980s it spearheaded a spirited community architecture that played a strategic role in protest against wholesale, motorway-led redevelopments and the survival of Convent Garden. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Educational Innovation through Building Adaptation

How can school and university buildings adapt to accommodate growth and significant change in educational technologies? How can new buildings be designed that will stand the test of future change? Architect and planner Alexi Marmot , Professor of Facility and Environment Management at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, looks at innovative upgrades of old educational buildings and conversions of other facilities into contemporary schools, colleges and universities. She identifies general principles and useful tools that can help educators, architects and designers working in the field.     

‘Complexity and Contradiction’:The Italian Architectural Landscape

Italy is renowned the world over for its vibrant design culture. Yet for decades its architectural heritage has held contemporary architecture in a stranglehold, stifling the real possibility of realising innovative schemes in historic cities. In recent years, there has been every outward sign that this situation has abated: a growing number of municipalities are actively setting out to attract signature architecture, and a new generation of architects has emerged - largely educated abroad - who are unhindered by the strictures of historicism. Though, as guest-editor Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi explains, there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful, the situation is far more complex and contradictory than it first appears, as the passage of architectural advancement in Italy constantly stop-starts and is beset by some major roadblocks. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.