• Art Therapy – bringing St Peter’s Seminary back to life

    11 April 2016

    Finally made safe after decades of decay, St Peter’s Seminary, designed by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, is about to begin the next stage of its extraordinary life. Gareth Gardner explores Scotland’s iconic modernist ruin

  • 2016 Furniture Fairs review

    7 April 2016

    We bring you our top picks and designers to watch from four shows this spring: Stockholm Furniture Fair, Maison&Objet, northmodern and Imm Cologne

  • Curated Diary – Ben Wheatley

    7 April 2016

    Ben Wheatley, director of new film High-Rise, picks his top events for spring, including new TV shows, headsets and computer games

  • The effect of colour in the built environment - the scientific evidence

    29 March 2016

    So much waffle is written about how colour affects us. You hear how one hue can create a calming effect, while another will provoke passion, or the like, without a shred of evidence to back up the claims. Blueprint decided to get to the bottom of this and find out just how much measurable scientific proof there is of the effect of colour in the built environment. We teamed up with Milliken Carpets, which commissioned colour expert, Byron Mikellides, Emeritus Professor of the Place, Culture and Identity Research Group at Oxford Brookes University, to tells us what empirical knowledge exists on this subject

  • Out There: Our Post-War Art review

    29 March 2016

    Historic England’s exhibition at London’s Somerset House provides a timely call-to-action to help save the nation’s sculptures and public art, finds Herbert Wright

  • Letter from… San Francisco

    22 March 2016

    Johnny Tucker writes from San Francisco - the home of the digital start-up. But is the tide beginning to turn against these icompanies? Raging wage wars to attract the world’s best staff, mean regular Joe’s are being priced out of the city, unable to afford rocketing rent and house prices...

  • The Woo Building by Haworth Tompkins

    22 March 2016

    A new building by Stirling Prize and Blueprint Award winner Haworth Tompkins completes its ensemble at the Royal College of Arts’ Battersea campus. The practice’s industrial approach embodies advice given by Jim Cadbury-Brown, architect of the original iconic RCA building in Kensington. Herbert Wright reports

  • King’s Cross Gasholders by WilkinsonEyre

    15 March 2016

    The vast, ongoing development of King’s Cross behind the station, led by Argent, has seen major repurposings of industrial heritage, such as the Granary Building. Perhaps the most unusual are three conjoined Victorian gasholders, Grade II listed like their neighbour gasholder no. 8. A WilkinsonEyre project will see them restored, to house three cylindrical-based volumes, rising 12, nine and eight storeys and providing 145 apartments, ready in 2017. Practice founder Chris Wilkinson talks about King’s Cross Gasholders with Herbert Wright.

  • Resilient cities: Bristol

    15 March 2016

    Bristol’s year as European Green Capital has seen this UK city deliver a raft of projects that demonstrate its commitment to sustainable transport, energy, food culture and urban design. But a greater force is being summoned to maximise the programme’s impact: the creativity and enthusiasm of its citizens

  • Listen: Vincent Lacovara on Croydon

    8 March 2016

    Near the end of 2015, the Government backed Croydon Council’s plans to compulsorily purchase the land needed for the £1bn redevelopment of the Whitgift Shopping Centre in the heart of the town. This huge development is a key part of the reinvention and reinvigoration of Croydon. Very many years in the planning, it is now finally coming to fruition through myriad projects and initiatives, according to Vincent Lacovara. Vincent Lacovara was a co-founder of architecture design and research agency AOC, and since 2003 has been working with Croydon Council, where he is now the placemaking team leader