Tony Whitehead

  • London's concrete quarter
    Features

    London's concrete quarter

    2014-02-28T11:43:00

    The transformation of King’s Cross includes some of the UK’s most sustainable office buildings - and concrete is key to all of them

  • The concrete balconies are shaded with bronzed aluminium louvred screens
    Features

    Aires freshener

    2013-12-06T00:00:00

    Foster + Partners brings something new to Buenos Aires, with an apartment block that uses fair-faced finishes to redefine the Argentinian capital’s idea of luxury living

  • St Paul’s School, London
    Features

    St Paul's School, London: Best days of its life

    2013-09-06T00:00:00

    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

  • Queen of the desert
    Features

    Foster + Partners' Queen Alia airport

    2013-06-07T00:01:00

    Foster + Partners’ new airport in Jordan uses a mix of in-situ and precast concrete techniques to create a mesmerising pattern of shallow domes, curving beams and tapering columns

  • Invisible touch
    Features

    Co-op’s Manchester HQ: Invisible touch

    2013-03-01T00:00:00

    Hidden within its structure and deep underground, concrete has played a central role in turning the Co-op’s new Manchester HQ into the UK’s greenest office

  • Biophilia: Natural resources
    Features

    Biophilia: Natural resources

    2012-11-16T00:00:00

    Big windows, natural light, pot plants… Sometimes the simplest things in life make the most business sense. We explore the value of biophilia in the office environment

  • Whirl pool
    Features

    Whirl pool

    2012-09-07T09:40:00

    From the swirling, curving walls and diving boards to the pools themselves, concrete makes a big splash at Zaha Hadid’s awe-inspiring aquatics centre

  • The six boards were all based on a single original mould
    Features

    Star jumps: how the diving boards took shape

    2012-09-07T09:40:00

    Variously likened to the stamens of an exotic flower, a splash or even poised cobras, the dramatic lines of the aquatics centre’s six diving boards have attracted much interest – not only as a natural centre of attention during the Games, but because they are visually fascinating in themselves.

  • The walls have been left exposed and uncoated
    Features

    Wall-to-wall coverage

    2012-09-07T09:40:00

    The curving concrete walls of the aquatics centre are one of its defining characteristics. They are first seen in the centre’s welcome area and provide a top and tail to the competition pools, as well as a stylish backdrop to television coverage of the diving.

  • Architects: Kisho Kurakawa, Garbers & James; Contractor: Sir Robert McAlpine; Precast concrete: supplier Thorp Precast; Structural engineer: Arup; Landscape architect: Terra Firma
    Features

    Kisho Kurokawa's Maggie's Centre

    2012-07-18T01:00:00

    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

  • The exterior is set inset with hundreds of triangular titanium plates
    Features

    Solving the panel puzzle

    2012-07-17T01:00:00

    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.

  • Other architects have made extensive use of concrete in their Maggie's designs, including Roger Stirk Harbour + Partners, Rem Koolhaas and Snohetta
    Features

    The ‘cosmic whirlpool’ and other Maggie’s Centres

    2012-07-17T01:00:00

    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.

  • Features

    Ideal for swimming pools

    2005-03-18T00:00:00

    Paints should do exactly what they say on the tin. But in the celebrated case of Bath Spa, they didn't - and the result was a public disaster for everyone involved. We report on what went wrong

  • Features

    The gain in panes

    2004-06-18T00:00:00

    After seven years in development, the European Window Energy Rating System is ready to roll, and it's intended to be a better test of performance than U-values. We report on a scheme that's coming soon to a glazed area near you

  • Features

    Ticking away

    2001-06-22T00:00:00

    Housing associations have three years to become Egan-compliant if they want funding for their schemes. Does this herald a real change in culture – or just a bureaucratic obstacle course?

  • Features

    The good life

    2001-05-18T00:00:00

    They feud about tea bags and rodent rights, they take afternoon tea together every day and have cycle paths in the office. Meet Feilden Clegg Bradley, the firm that won Building's best practice award.

  • Features

    Becoming unattached

    2001-01-12T00:00:00

    BT claims its new cordless workstations will halve companies' space requirements and slash their overheads – Laing says they have cut one of its firms' rental costs 40%. Here's how they work.

  • Features

    Spot the difference?

    1999-04-30T00:00:00

    There is some confusion over their exact powers, but with £800m a year, the eight new regional development agencies could change the face of regeneration in England.