What happened to the promise of wooden buildings? They’re more sustainable, aesthetically pleasing and top architects are enthralled by them – so why are we seeing so few wooden buildings on our city skylines in the UK?
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Press & Publications
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dRMM-led team submits masterplan for rebuilding of Old Kent Road estate
dRMM, Adam Khan Architects and JA Projects have put forward a masterplan for a 700-home regeneration of a housing estate in Southwark, south London.
Why don't we care more about preserving biodiversity?
The devastating impact of climate change is now widely known but the gradual degradation of our planet’s biodiversity is just as detrimental to its health.
Brexit, new work and Europe's love for wood' - why dRMM is setting up in Berlin
Stirling Prize-winning architect and timber pioneer dRMM has set up a European outpost in Berlin.
Oxford University names finalists in 2,000 home masterplan contest
The University of Oxford has shortlisted five teams for the next round of its international competition to masterplan a £1 billion residential-led development at Begbroke Science Park in Kidlington.
Exclusive: Architects named for phase 1 of huge Smithfield Birmingham job
Stirling Prize winners dRMM and Haworth Tompkins are joined by RCKa and up-and coming local practices Intervention Architecture and Minesh Patel Architects on the massive project to redevelop the home of Birmingham’s historic markets.
The best buildings have the best clients - and the public sector is lagging behind
Architects often say that the best buildings they have made have strong client leadership at the helm. This needs to be qualified. What makes a great client?
No patient should wait in a corridor when they've been told they have months left to live
A comprehensive look at the reach of Maggie’s Centres and the positive impact they have had on the lives of those who have used them, featuring dRMM’s Maggie’s Oldham
Southwark picks dRMM and Okra in Old Kent Road net zero carbon contest
A team led by dRMM and featuring emerging practice Okra has won Southwark Council’s competition for a mixed-use regeneration scheme on Old Kent Road.
Southwark Council selects dRMM-led team for Tustin Estate regeneration
A team featuring dRMM, Adam Khan Architects and AJ 40 under 40 star JA Projects has won a competition to redesign the Tustin Estate on Old Kent Road in Southwark.
A grove, not Gove – the primary school with nature at its heart
You won’t find any little rows of government-sanctioned classroom cells at this new Cambridgeshire primary school, whose bright, timber-built design lets the outdoors in.
Severe timber shortage as ‘perfect storm’ brings price hikes and delays
The Covid crisis, Brexit hurdles and surging construction activity have combined to create a ‘huge’ timber shortage across the industry, architects have told the AJ.
dRMM unveils re-usable Timber Beacon concept for COP26
dRMM has revealed its proposal for a timber pavilion to be erected at autumn’s COP26 summit in Glasgow by an alliance of timber trade groups.
Do you want beautiful, sustainable and safe tall buildings? Use wood
A ban on constructing with timber is one of the more misguided responses to Grenfell writes Rowan Moore.
Journey towards a plastic free future
A treasured wooden object
Alex de Rijke talks to the Wood Awards about a favourite wooden object – a tulipwood CLT sample.
Benefits to timber architecture and sustainabily sourced timber
Director Jonas Lencer talks to Archivibe about timber and sustainability.
This is what coronavirus will do to our offices and homes
One day, the virus will subside. It could be eradicated. But even then, life will not simply return to the way it was before Covid-19. Spurred on by the coronavirus crisis, architects have been rethinking the buildings we inhabit.
Rethink: What has Covid-19 taught us about designing schools?
How best to spend the government’s £1bn school building bonanza? Four sets of priorities range from better access and bigger spaces to flexibility and promoting hygiene.
Architects urge prime minister to protect BAME-led design firms
More than 100 sign letter to Boris Johnson over concern for small and BAME-led practices.
Young people are lockdown’s losers – but architects can help
Designs need to adapt to mitigate the stresses highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic, says dRMM director and Quality of Life Foundation founder Sadie Morgan.
A new moral and aesthetic code for architecture
Architects must stop following style or theory, writes Jonas Lencer.
Architects tell government radical changes needed to combustibles ban
Stirling Prize nominees call for structural timber to be excluded, while RIBA argues for more buildings to be covered.
RetroFirst: Flexible new-builds are essential to future-proofing
Choosing high-quality, robust materials that lend themselves to future adaptation should be the starting point for any project – new-build or retrofit, says dRMM’s Saskia Lencer.
Is timber the future of architecture? Find out with Forest of Fabrication at RIBA North
RIBA North, The Building Centre and RIBA chartered practice dRMM present Forest of Fabrication, an exhibition celebrating the possibilities and significance of modern timber architecture.
New design principles demand infrastructure ‘celebrates nation’s ambition'
New infrastructure projects should consider four key principles covering not just value for money but also fostering a sense of local identity and cutting carbon emissions.
Sadie Morgan and Jamie Fobert land New Year Honours
dRMM founding director among 2020 recipients.
RIBA names all-female list of new honorary fellows
The RIBA has named an all-female list of recipients for its honorary fellowships for the first time since the awards began. Recipients include Sadie Morgan.
Cork and bottle
Alex de Rijke admires the creativity and commitment in a self-built experimental house by Matthew Barnett Howland with Dido Milne and Oliver Wilton.
How is CLT industry responding to the combustibles ban?
Proponents of cross-laminated timber were up in arms when the government announced its plans to ban combustible materials from the external walls of high-rise buildings.
Sadie Morgan lands Homes England role
Design guru Sadie Morgan has been appointed to the board of Homes England.
Why Sadie Morgan is a role model for us all
Architecture needs to make its voice heard in government and client circles – and that’s exactly what the first winner of BD’s Female Architectural Leader Award is doing, says Elizabeth Hopkirk.
Forest of Fabrication
dRMM celebrates modern timber construction at the Building Centre.
Sadie Morgan launches foundation for wellbeing in developments
Sadie Morgan has created the Quality of Life Foundation to drive improvements in the way life-quality and wellbeing are factored into the development process.
Sadie Morgan honoured with AJ100 Contribution to the Profession award
The co-founder of Stirling Prize-winning practice dRMM has taken on a broader role, ensuring that design is valued on major public projects writes Pamela Buxton.
First phase of £3.5bn Silvertown Quays scheme approved
Architects on project include AHMM, dRMM, PTEa and Maccreanor Lavington.
Architects optimistic on timber use after cladding consultation closes
Practitioners hope ‘common sense’ will prevail on cross-laminated timber.
Living in the future
Pre-fabricated homes tipped to be the solution to London’s housing shortage.
Why wood is back at the top of the tree for architects
Strong, clean and versatile, engineered timber is the ‘new concrete’. With wooden skyscrapers in the offing, could it be the answer to the global housing crisis?
How design can provide solutions to social problems
Sadie Morgan tells Robert Bevan about how we need to get some joy back in our lives.
dRMM Stirling Prize interview: ‘Sometimes you don’t need a building’
Alex de Rijke of RIBA Stirling Prize-winning practice dRMM talks to the AJ’s Richard Waite about its Hastings Pier scheme, describing it as ‘less of a building and more of a platform for future architecture’.
Architects must muscle in on infrastructure, says Sadie Morgan
Drop the jargon and charge for your ideas, adds Alex de Rijke
Hasting Pier deserves its Stirling Prize
Sadie says the pier has risen, phoenix-like, from its all too real ashes thanks in large part to local craft and ingenuity.
Walking tall: Hastings pier wins the Stirling architecture prize
Nicknamed the Plank, de Rijke Marsh Morgan’s stark wooden wonder – using timber reclaimed from previous fires – was praised for changing ‘the idea of what architecture is’.
Hastings Pier named UK's best building
The Royal Institute of British Architects has awarded its annual Stirling Prize to an example of an enduring British archetype: the seaside pier.
Stirling Prize 2017 awarded to dRMM for "masterpiece of regeneration" at Hastings Pier
dRMM wins the biggest prize in UK architecture for transforming a century-old, ruined pier into a new attraction for the seaside town.
Maggie’s cancer centre in Oldham: a balm for the senses
This, the 21st of the cancer centres begun by Maggie Keswick-Jencks, stays true to the group’s founding mission to create spaces of calm and light to help support patients and their families.
London's housing shortage - and lessons from the past 20 years
The lessons of the past 20 years will shape British architecture going forward – and could even solve the housing crisis. Sadie Morgan of progressive, wood-loving architecture practice dRMM talks about flatpack housing, her passion for placemaking and pick’n’mix homes.
UK needs infrastructure spending to succeed after Brexit
Architect and government adviser Sadie Morgan has called on the UK government to stick to its infrastructure investment plans as it prepares to leave the European Union.
dRMM's Trafalgar Place development features multi-hued brickwork and communal gardens
Multi-coloured bricks cover the facades of this residential scheme by architects dRMM, which is built on the site of the former brutalist Heygate Estate in south London and has been shortlisted for this year’s Stirling Prize.
Festival House, Blackpool – review
A beautiful new seafront register office is one of the gems of Blackpool’s regeneration.
Grey is not the only colour
Please miss, can I have a detention?
The new, improved Kingsdale comprehensive is such fun the pupils won’t want to leave. Jonathan Glancey reports.
Why architects are now using wood to construct big buildings
Timber, despite being the world’s oldest construction material, is now the most modern.
A roof over your head? So last year
Design innovations are showing that houses – and cars – can have flexible shapes, says Stephen Bayley.
Home for old buffers
It sits in a scrapyard and there’s a railway line outside the window. My dream place, says Jonathan Glancey.