Got something to say????
Email -

Liverpool is waiting with baited breath for the decision from John Prescott on whether to give the greenlight to allow local heroes Liverpool Football Club to start construction on their new stadium at Stanley Park.
The club is currently overwhelmed with demand for most matches and faced with the capacity problems, plus need to secure extra income from increased ticket sales so it can maintain pace with rival Arsenal who are set to benefit from increased ticket revenue when their new stadium is completed and Manchester United who have already added a number of stands to Old Trafford with plans for more.
The new stadium, which will have XXXX capacity will also benefit from much improved views which will provide fans with a greater sense of value for money, and Liverpool with an excuse to hike prices further as a result.
The current stadium at Anfield will be completely flattened to create a plaza the size of St Georges Hall to create quality public space to set the new stadium in with plans for cafes, shops and even a hotel around it. The nearby Victorian Stanley park is set to be restored to its former glory with improved football pitches and a complete restoration of the Gladstone Observatory.
The £80million, 60,000 capacity stadium and the surrounding masterplan, which has already been given planning permission by Liverpool Council has been referred to the Deputy Prime Minister because of the sheer scale of it, who has the final say on all large projects in the U.K.

Things look like getting acrimonious with the plans for the Royal London Hospital to be built out on the City Fringe. Shocked by the poor quality architecture, ugly appearance which is bland and bulky, poor quality cladding, and masterplanning that will create no go public spaces the project has been savaged by the Commission of Architecture and Built Environment who are strong believers that just because a building is a hospital it doesn't have to be sloppily designed.
The hospital is the latest product of the PFI scheme to create more healthcare, and designed and to built by Swedish construction maestros Skanska.
It has also attracted the ire of Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London who has announced that he will not be allowing the project to go ahead and is going to listen to the guidance of CABE placing him potentially on a collision course with the New Labour government who are desparate to get as many new hospital beds as possible by any means.
We understand that Skanska are considering keeping the current design and appealing directly to the Deputy Prime Minister who has the power to overturn the decision of the Mayor and allow the project to goahead. Given the political considerations it wouldn't be a surprising decision if this happened.

EXCLUSIVE - 1 Commercial Street on the City Fringe in London has reportedly started construction and is rising above street-level.
Designed by Richard Seifert Architects to stand on a plot just a stone-throw away from Aldgate Union, United Standard House (another Seifert project) and Minerva it will contain 16 floors of office space totalling 18580 sq m (200,400 sq ft) and 348 hotel rooms, plus four retail units at ground level. When complete it will be 70m to roof and 79m to tip making it the 18th tallest building in the Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Described perhaps a little too optimistically by the architect as 'light and contemporary and the design sculptural" it is the first of a series of constructions that are expected over the next year for the area on the border between Tower Hamlets and the City.

Royex House is also seeing work start on London Wall. One of the last remaining sixties blocks it is due a complete overhaul right down to the foundations. Designed by award winning architect Eric Parry it will lose a floor from 19 to 18 and yet increase in height by 4m to 71m in a Citypoint-style makeover that should substantially increase the specification of the building. The 24,140 sq m (260,000 sq ft) project is the largest speculative project to start in the City for several years reflecting the growing optimism of developers, in this case Bovis Lend Lease.

Deansgate, Manchester, is set to get yet another tall building with the proposal of the Renassiance Complex by Crosby Homes and Quintain Estates. Terry Farrell and Carey Jones Architects are working on the 22 floor project that will contain 150 apartments built next to a reclad existing 16 floor building. The lower building, the existing Ramada Renassiance building will contain a 200 bedroom hotel arranged on ground, first and 14 upper floors, adjoining offices, eight retail units on the ground floor and car parking. The expected tower height is approx 70m.
Deansgate has seen a flurry of tower proposals ever since Ian Simpson kicked things off with his now iconic Number 1 Deansgate which pioneered the signature Manchester wedge.

The creme de la creme of the British architecture press was given a guided tour last week of the almost finished Scottish Parliament lavishing bizarre amounts of praise on the £430 million, eleven times over-budget building.
The building which is set to open in August 2004 was described by one wag from the Time as "one of the most extraordinary buildings built on these islands in recent years, both in terms of the richness of detail it contains and the breathtaking quality of the workmanship." We can only assume he had to wear an adult nappy to stop getting wet trousers when confronted with the heart stopping Ikea-like quality of machine carved prefabricated beech furnishings and a debating chamber looking like a swimming pool.
The journalistic tour marks the latest in a series of ever more confident pronouncements from the project leaders and the embarassed Scottish Executive who are hoping their embarassing ordeal will soon be over. Despite their optimism the finance committee of the Scottish Parliament has warned that the whole debacle looks like costing another £20 million warning that the current budget assumes the building will open without a hitch and function perfectly from then on.
Anyone who has ever worked on a large project knows this only happens in La La Land, given the looks of the Parliament, a perfect location for it.

EXCLUSIVE - Designs have been announced for the new Private Finance Initiative funded Royal London Hospital, a complex of two towers which will be linked together by a glass bridge which will make up the largest medical development in the U.K. The contract to design and build the two towers of 18 and 20 floors has been won by Swedish company Skanska, the recent main contractors of 30 St Mary's Axe in London.
The combined budget of the project is £1 billion providing 250,000 sq meters of space containing 1248 beds, an increase of 168 from the current numbers. Construction is set to begin in the opening months of 2005 with completion scheduled for 2013.
In what's a growing trend for Skanska conditions of the scheme also allow them to operate the hospitals, something they are also doing in Derby and Warwick, but the less said about the controversial nature of the PFI running of hospitals the better.

EXCLUSIVE - Cardiff is set to see a new mid-rise residential tower following the release of plans for a building to stand abreast Penarth Marina on the outskirts of the city in the Vale of Glamorgan. Proposed by local developers Sky Asset, the 18 floor, 60m tall complex shaped like a gherkin is set to contain 63 apartments of 1-3 bedrooms and 3 town-houses on a redevelopment of existing residential units which should provide stunning views across the bay towards Cardiff.
The proposal has already been attacked by locals for being too tall or taking away the viewers eye from local church spires whilst local politicans from Plaid Cymru have been busy attacking it too for its impact on nearby listed buildings and dwarfing of natural features.
The planning application is not expected to go before the planning committee for some time thanks to the hostility and the need of the developers to amend their application to take into account local considerations.
The application, number 04/00555/FUL - Custom House, can be viewed in West House, Penarth or the Dock Offices, Barry. This is the tallest proposal for the area since the now under-construction Altolusso was floated in October 2002 for a disused site in Cardiff.

Manchester looks set to cement its position as the leader of all things groovy with the psychedelic shades of Islington Wharf proposal by property developer Isis. The proposal was originally floated for around the time of the Commonwealth Games but failed to come to through.
Designed by Will Alsop the proposal features 7 chunky buildings backing onto a public square on a packet of land straddling the Ashton Canal, an area of Manchester currently in dire need of development. The current area of 3.3 acres has over half of its 200 homes unoccupied and in a state of ruin.
Reaching a peak of 9 floors the buildings are typical Alsop style with one in particular baring a striking resemblance to part of is much criticised proposals for the fourth grace.
The developer Isis is a partnership involving British Waterways, Amec and Morley Fund Management who between them have budgeted £50 million for this scheme.
Meanwhile Urban Splash have aquired the nearby Ancoats Hospital which is also set for development, combined with Islington Wharf, regeneration and some creative architecture not to mention the potential of 12,500 new homes looks set to make New Islington one of the most vibrant and happening places in Manchester.