All articles by Tony Whitehead
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Building StudyLondon's concrete quarter
The transformation of King’s Cross includes some of the UK’s most sustainable office buildings - and concrete is key to all of them
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TechnicalSt Paul's School, London by Nicholas Hare
Architectural standards were slipping at the 500-year-old St Paul’s School in London, but the elegant exposed interiors and concrete colonnades of Nicholas Hare’s new science building augur well for the future
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TechnicalQueen Alia Airport, Jordan by Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners’ new airport in Jordan uses a mix of in-situ and precast concrete techniques to create a mesmerising, repeating pattern of shallow domes, curving beams and gently tapering columns
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Building StudyKisho Kurokawa's Maggie's Centre
Before he died in 2007, the legendary Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa sketched out a swirling, ‘dragon-tailed’ cancer care centre in Swansea. Now the UK’s 13th Maggie’s Centre has been completed in titanium-studded concrete by Garbers & James
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Building StudySolving the panel puzzle
The Maggie’s Centre certainly provided a stern test of the capabilities of precast concrete supplier Thorp Precast. The job involved creating 56 precast panels, and although many of these were similar, very few were identical
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Building StudyThe ‘cosmic whirlpool’ and other Maggie’s Centres
When writer and garden designer Maggie Keswick Jencks was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, together with her husband, the architectural writer Charles Jencks, she set about her creating a charity project to provide cancer sufferers with expert support within a more sympathetic built environment