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 ¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ'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.