City Hall in London, the brutalist Derby Assembly Rooms and Swindon s Oasis Leisure Centre are among the UK s top 10 buildings under threat according to architectural campaigning charity Twentieth Century Society.
Other buildings at risk include the Bull Yard shopping precinct in Birmingham, the listed Halls of Residence at the University of Hull and the Cressingham Gardens housing estate in London.
Above: the Derby Assembly Rooms features in the Top 10 Buildings at Risk List. Top image: Foster + Partners City Hall is also on the list
The list, which is released every two years aims to illuminate how numerous buildings of various architectural styles are currently under threat in the UK.
Thousands object to Brick Lane brewery development prompting delay
Proposals to redevelop the brewery were first submitted last year. Pic: Samuel Regan-Asante
Redevelopment plans for the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane have been delayed after more than seven thousand objections, forcing developers to redraw their plans.
Proposals to transform the Truman Brewery into retail and office space has come under fire by local residents sparking a record number of 7,051 council complaints. With just 79 letters in support of the build, plans for the remodel have now been deferred until June this year. This is to ensure that consultation exercises with local businesses can be carried out to take account for any concerns.
Is this the year European cities start banning cars?
The pandemic has brought substantial changes in how we see transportation. Big changes may be a coming.
As anyone who’s used the public transportation in Birmingham, UK, can tell you it’s not great. There’s no subway, train stations are few and far between, and buses often find themselves delayed by traffic.
But Birmingham is confident in its ability to compensate for all that and reduce people’s reliance on personal cars. Under plans being considered by the council to reduce emissions, the city would ban private cars from the city center completely, allowing only lorries, buses, and taxis.
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Raising The Internet Drawbridge
If you want to defend a fortress, you start by keeping unfriendly characters away from the gates.
This insight is neither novel nor antiquated. Medieval castles were built with moats and drawbridges for a reason. Our British friends, who know a thing or two about castles, use a modern version of this approach with a guarded gate that seals off access to London’s Downing Street, the seat of executive power in the United Kingdom.
Assuming some intruders make it past the gate, they will find it impossible to pick the lock to gain access to Number 10, Britain’s rough equivalent of the White House. This is because there is no lock on the door to Number 10. The residence has reportedly not been left unattended in centuries. There is always a trusted staff member to admit – or deny admittance to – anyone who reaches the threshold. The blast-resistant door, installed nearly three decades ago after a mortar assault by the Irish Republican Army, cann