The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
Why is Keir Starmer ignoring the concrete and steel elephant in the room?
The Labour leader’s macho posturing on housebuilding ignores the 60 megatonnes of upfront carbon that building 1.5 million new homes would produce, writes Alice Moncaster
RetroFirst
RetroFirst is an AJ campaign to prioritise retrofit over demolition and rebuild. Hundreds of architecture practices, organisations and individuals have declared their support for our campaign
A call to arms: mass timber extensions can help pay for a retrofit revolution
We can make retrofit the norm by making it more profitable, adding storeys to existing buildings made of renewable low-carbon timber, argues engineer Kelly Harrison
Localism is key to saving high streets, AJ100 lunch hears
A cookie-cutter approach to filling retail units is part of the reason high streets are failing, Preston Benson of community-focused developer Really Local Group told an AJ100 lunch audience
Anti-demolition amendment to PDR planned
Permitted development rights to demolish many unlisted buildings could end following calls from heritage campaigners
Gove’s M&S Oxford Street decision could be great for cities
Though painted as a damaging act based on resistance to change, Michael Gove’s seismic decision to stop Marks & Spencer demolishing its Oxford Street store is actually a positive move, argues Rab Bennetts
New RIBA president Muyiwa Oki to ‘put pressure’ on government on retrofit
Muyiwa Oki will ‘put pressure’ on government to deliver a national retrofit strategy as RIBA president, the institution’s new boss said today (1 September)
M&S launches High Court appeal against Gove’s Oxford Street refusal
Marks and Spencer has launched a legal bid to overturn Michael Gove’s rejection of its Pilbrow and Partners-designed plan to demolish and redevelop its Oxford Street store
Architecture needs a ‘rinse and repeat’ approach
We should move away from the idea of architecture as a finite product and instead embrace ongoing maintenance for our creations, argues Toko Andrews
Is the M&S Oxford St demolition refusal a climate crisis turning point?
Will Michael Gove’s decision to block the demolition of Marks and Spencer’s Oxford Street store set a hard-and-fast precedent in favour of retention or simply lead to more confusion? Will Hurst, Anna Highfield, Richard Waite and Gino Spocchia investigate
Campaigners make final plea to save Portsmouth News Centre
Heritage campaigners and academics have called for the News Centre, an iconic 1960s modernist building in Portsmouth, to be saved from demolition – although it may already be too late