Will Alsop was born in Northampton in 1947. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association in the 1960s and, with fellow student John Lyall, he established Alsop & Lyall in 1981. Jan Stormer joined later, and upon the departure of Lyall, the practice was renamed Alsop & Stormer in 1991. The firm has offices in London, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Moscow.

Because of his avant-garde and strikingly different buildings, Will Alsop has always been considered something of a maverick in the British architectural scene.

Alsop is part of a group of British architects who studied in the years of Pop Art in the 1960s and were encouraged to look beyond existing buildings for their inspiration. At the Architectural Association, Alsop absorbed ideas from pop music, science fiction films and even comic books for his inspiration.

Will Alsop follows a parallel path as an artist. He was a tutor of sculpture at Central St. Martins College of Art & Design, London, for several years, has held many other academic posts, and actively promotes the artistic contribution to built environments; forming collaborations with many artists in different media to this end.

Sharp Centre for Design

Toronto, Canada

The elevated “table top” extension to the Ontario College of Art and Design, with its striking black and white pixilated skin and 12 multi-colored legs, stands 26 meters above the mixed Victorian and modern streetscape.

Web site : www.alsoparchitects.com

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Claesson, Koivisto, Rune was founded in Stockholm in 1995 by Marten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune. Started as an architectural office but soon became multi-disciplinary, both architecture and design with the same priority.

Amongst their commissions are houses such as the Sfera building in Kyoto, interiors such as the Operakallaren gourmet restaurant in Stockholm.

The trio have designed a large number of furniture, carpets and other products for Swedish manufacturers including Asplund, David Design, Nola, Skandiform and Swedese as well as products for Italian companies including Boffi and Cappellini.

Their works have earned numerous awards and, among other distinctions, and was the first Swedish architects ever to be exhibited in the international section of the Venice Architecture Biennale (2004).

Pebbles

Seating Island – Cappellini 2001

Inspired by beach pebbles. Flat, irregular round stones, tumbled smooth by millions of ocean waves. Soft and beautiful to the touch and to the eye.

Pebbles is an adjustable piece of seating furniture that is not a sofa but is best described as a “seating island”. An upholstered disc, about two meters wide, forms a generous seating platform, while a pillar supports a smaller, centered disc (also upholstered). The smaller disc functions as a backrest, armrest, table/work surface or even a second seating platform. An unusual piece of furniture design - a whole new typology for seating.

The Pebbles seating island still one of Claesson, Koivisto & Rune greatest successes, having won design awards and world recognition.

Website : www.claesson-koivisto-rune.se

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Tony McGuirk is an architect and urban designer, and chairman of Building Design Partnership.

Tony has been with BDP since 1986 and currently heading up the housing sector throughout the practice.

Mr. Mc Guirk led the design teams for many award winning buildings notably the exemplar and Stirling Prize contender Hampden Gurney School in Marylebone.

For the eighth year in a row, BDP has taken pole position in the AJ100 – the definitive list of the UK’s biggest architecture firms. The firm, which has offices across the UK as well as in Dublin and Singapore, employs more than 700 architects worldwide, 344 registered UK architects, 58 more than its nearest rival Atkins and 66 more than third-placed Foster + Partners.

The Armada

s’Hertogenbosch-The Netherlands,2003

Won in competition, the ten alternating ‘tall’ and ‘long’ apartment houses set beside a canal are the centre piece of a redeveloped quarter next to the town’s station. 

The bowed, stainless steel south fronts manage the area’s winds whilst the winter garden side provides convivial access.  The ‘canal’ is the flooded roof of the parking garage. It is already one of Holland’s most loved public buildings.

Web site: www.bdp.com

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