The Architectural Review

‘Psychological considerations influenced the choice of site and the orientation of every part of the building,’ writes Philip Morton Shand in a piece from AR September 1933, on Alvar Aalto’s sanatorium in Paimio. The building is part of the Aalto Works – which includes 13 sites by Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto – now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. https://lnkd.in/e4-QV4ji ‘The patients’ rooms look out on to an uninhabited forest landscape, in which there is no movement to disturb them beyond other patients walking in the gardens below. Water is laid on in these gardens, and fountains play from time to time to distract the patients. All the public rooms offer changes of panorama, and are never simultaneously in full sunlight. It is therefore always possible for a patient to choose between a sunny room and one in shadow.’ Read the full building study: https://lnkd.in/e4-QV4ji

‘Thread’s interventions might be read as part of a broader project to reframe the narrative surrounding this post‑industrial landscape,’ writes Laxmi Andrews, on the adaptation and restoration Boston Lodge Works in Gwynedd, UK. https://lnkd.in/e4XcN_Z4 Slate quarried in North Wales was transported by train and engines were built, stored and serviced at Boston Lodge Works, opened in 1842 and is recognised as the oldest rail engineering site in the world. Since the 1930s, slate is no longer quarried by train and the site’s activities and machine shops have evolved alongside changes in technology. Now, visitors take part in guided tours to learn about the history of the site and Ffestiniog Railway. Thread’s restoration of the old engine shed has transformed it into an exhibition space, displaying locomotives and carriages. The work by Thread also includes a pavilion, that leans against a quarry face and acts as a gathering point to welcome visitors, and a new training and research centre. Read the full building study in the Industry issue: https://lnkd.in/e4XcN_Z4 📸 Luke Hayes for The Architectural Review

Zhemchug, revisited by Oliver Wainwright in the AR’s Universal housing issue, has been inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, alongside nine other modernist buildings and urban complexes in Tashkent. Read the revisit, free for registered users: https://lnkd.in/eppJCjcm

‘Factories became more than utilitarian structures: they were sites where workers enacted revolutionary beliefs,’ writes Shirley Surya on the history of China’s Third Front Construction, and how it recast the country’s mountains as a landscape of industrial production. https://lnkd.in/ez_Bkda5 ‘Architects, too, became part of state‑owned design institutes,’ writes Surya ‘applying their skills to advance socialism through factory planning and design in cities as well as rural areas.’ Read the full essay in the Industry issue: https://lnkd.in/ez_Bkda5 📸 1: Wang Kai / School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology 2: Tan Gangyi, Gao Yizhuo, Cao Xiamao / School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

‘The decline of Milan’s industrial economy triggered a broader decline in culture, architecture and urban development,’ writes Mariana Siracusa in a city portrait, on the influence of financial capital on the decline of industry in Milan. https://lnkd.in/ejdf-Z4P ‘The first generations of the bourgeoisie – including Pirelli – had actively participated in building the city, later generations of entrepreneurs inherited an already constructed urban environment and increasingly focused on preserving their own status and economic power.’ Read the full piece in the Industry issue: https://lnkd.in/ejdf-Z4P 📸 1:Marco Covi / Electa / Mondadori Portfolio / Getty, 2:Fondazione ISEC / Sesto San Giovanni (Mi) / Archivio storico Breda, 3:EmmePi Images / Alamy

‘A perfect setting for a sport whose governing bodies have stopped trying to cover up the fact that they are primarily running an extremely lucrative business,’ writes Marianela D’Aprile in an Outrage, on how this year’s World Cup is a grim mirror to the financialised infrastructure and commercial soullessness that haunts American suburbanism. https://lnkd.in/eitJ5ier Read the full Outrage here, free for registered users: https://lnkd.in/eitJ5ier 📸 John McAdorey / Alamy

‘The result resembles a stacking and linking of Le Corbusier’s Dom‑Ino system, but with more variation, playfulness and complexity,’ writes Christophe Van Gerrewey on Manufakture in Brussels, Belgium by BAUKUNST. https://lnkd.in/ez3EJFrf ‘A compact, concrete temple,’ on Anderlecht’s slaughterhouse site contributes to the vision of Brussels as a productive city. Manufakture stands on the site of a demolished shed, positioned parallel to the 19th‑century market hall. Once the older constructions that remain between these two buildings are demolished, a large and open public square will be created, and the outdoor food market can expand. Read the full building study in the Industry issue:https://lnkd.in/ez3EJFrf 📸BAUKUNST / Maxime Delvaux

AR Reading list 090: football https://lnkd.in/ergWFdec Behind every tournament lies a more complicated story: of infrastructure and inequality, regeneration and speculation, colonial histories, media networks and contested ideas of public space. Curated from the AR archive, these five free-to-read stories ask what football leaves behind once the final whistle blows – and what architecture can reveal about one of the world’s most powerful cultural forces. https://lnkd.in/ergWFdec

‘Together, the three practices triangulate in a formidable, climate justice pincer movement,’ writes Eleanor Beaumont of Tipping Point East in London, by Material Cultures, RESOLVE Collective and Yes Make. https://lnkd.in/ehm-Hhdy Occupying a 1950s depot, Tipping Point East is a newly opened centre for material reuse. The northern end of the depot has been enclosed using salvaged CLT blocks to create a shared office. The surrounding space is used by Material Cultures as a material library and workshop. Furthering this, the southern half is used for storing materials predominantly donated by cultural institutions, such as art crates and glass vitrines. The collective makes these materials available to community groups and those who typically don’t have access to building materials. The TPE yard is already teeming with reused or rescued materials, in particular timber – a solar-powered timber kiln built by students will help prepare timber for reuse (below). Despite a potentially limited lifespan in the face of impending redevelopment, TPE is not limiting its ambition, despite the likelihood that ‘this testbed for social justice will be replaced by thousands of private homes, the majority at extortionate market rate,’ writes Beaumont. Read the full AR exclusive with more unseen images in the Industry issue: https://lnkd.in/ehm-Hhdy 📸 Henry Woide for The Architectural Review

‘All the buildings, including the factories, are built of timber: timber insulation, timber clad, on oak piles,’ writes Steve Webb in the Industry issue keynote, imagining what the building industry might look like in a post-carbon world in 2126. ‘The need to behave within ecological balance is enshrined in every aspect of life, not least the creation of new buildings,’ envisages Webb. ‘In the new world, structures are driven to great degrees of material efficiency by taking more time to do more with less.’ Read the full Keynote in the Industry issue: https://lnkd.in/ec9XQata Buy your copy on the AR shop: https://lnkd.in/enD6FVmy 📸 1: Courtesy of EcoCocon, 2: Steve Webb, 3: Rasmus Norlander, 4:baubüro in situ / photo: Martin Zeller