“The Smile, designed by architect Alison Brooks, is the most complex structure ever to be made out of cross-laminated timber”

“If the 19th century belonged to iron and steel and the 20th century belonged to concrete, could timber be the building material of our age?”

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CNN

The Smile featured as the headline image of CNN’s illustrated guide to the London Design Festival 2016.

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CNN

Italian website Divisare featured Alison Brooks Architects’ installation, The Smile – a collaboration with The American Hardwood Export Council, Arup and the London Design Festival.

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Divisare

Alison Brooks was interviewed on this BBC Radio London programme about LDF landmark project, The Smile. In the link below, she begins speaking at 02:06:54.

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BBC Radio London

“Before this week, few people truly believed you could use hardwood cross-laminated timber (CLT) to support an entire habitable building – not least the construction business. That’s why ‘The Smile’, on view in the courtyard of the Chelsea College of Art until mid-October, has become a landmark project for the London Design Festival.”

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The Spaces

“alison brooks architects’ ‘the smile’ installation is an attractive and interactive landmark monument for the 2016 london design festival. together with the american hardwood export council (AHEC) and arup, the collaboration has resulted in a spectacularly curved, tubular structure made from cross-laminated tulipwood (CLT). on display from the 17th september to 12th october, designboom was present for the preview opening of the festival’s highlight project.”

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Designboom

“Architect Alison Brooks’ Landmark Project for the London Design Festival could be described as an unidentified flying object: a 34m long, 3m high upside down arc poised on the urban horizon. Her project is also a spectacular urban pavilion that takes the shape of a Smile.”

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Casabella

ABA’s The Smile was profiled in an article entitled ‘Is hardwood the future of timber construction?’

“As Alison Brooks Architects’ gravity-defying installation at the London Design Festival shows off the structural benefits of cross-laminated hardwood, Amanda Birch examines the growing uptake of CLT solutions”

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bdonline

“According to Arup engineer Andrew Lawrence… “The Smile is the most complex CLT structure that has ever been built,””

“”Not only does it have a double cantilever, but the entrance door is placed right at the centre where the stresses are highest. You’re effectively looking at two 15-metre cantilevers,” he continued. If you turned the structure vertically and added the weight of 60 visitors at one end, it’s equivalent to the core stabilising a five-storey building. Nobody has ever built a core that slender in timber.””

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Dezeen

“At Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground, Millbank, you’ll find this extraordinary 36-metre-long ‘megatube’ installation by architect Alison Brooks. Despite only balancing on a single point, the curved structure is safe to stroll along. At night, it will be lit from within, with its glow bright enough to be seen from across the River Thames.”

Elle Decoration featured The Smile in its highlights of the London Design Festival 2016.

The Smile is a collaboration between Alison Brooks Architects, The American Hardwood Export Council, Arup and the London Design Festival. It is a cross-laminated tulipwood structure that will be on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground of the Chelsea College of Arts from 17 September until 12 October 2016.

“Canadian artist Alison Brooks has designed a huge wooden structure called “The Smile” for London Design Week, located in the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground of the Chelsea College of Arts.

This unusual urban object is, in fact, an arc-shaped 34-meter long and 3-meter high pavilion with open ends that flood the inside with light. Visitors can even take a stroll inside.”

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Hindustan Times

The Metro newspaper featured Alison Brooks Architects’ landmark LDF project, the Smile, as their top highlight for the London Design Festival.

The Smile is a collaboration between Alison Brooks Architects and The American Hardwood Export Council, Arup and the London Design Festival. It is a cross-laminated tulipwood structure that will be on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground of the Chelsea College of Arts from 17 September until 12 October 2016.

“A regular favourite is the installation created with the American Hardwood Council. In recent years we’ve seen dRMM Architects’ Escher-inspired Endless Stair and Amanda Levete’s Endless Wave.

“This year, The Smile has been created by architect Alison Brooks. It’s a 34 metre curved wooden structure that you can walk in and around.”

“Its two ends sitting three metres off the ground will offer viewing platforms and a new perspective to see surrounding buildings.”

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Design Week

The proposals for the Olympicopolis produced by Alison Brooks Architects’ team, led by Aecom, were featured in this summary of the competition.

Alison Brooks Architects were on one of six teams shortlisted to design a new cultural quarter at the London 2012 Olympic Park, expected to include new outposts of the V&A and Smithsonian museums. On a team with AECOM, Stanton Williams, AKT II, Asif Khan, Carmody Groarke, Charcoalblue and Haworth Tompkins, ABA designed the Sadler’s Wells and Smithsonian.

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Architects' Journal

“for AHEC, the project is one of the most important developments in a decade of research and development into structural timber innovation. ‘this structure proves that hardwoods have a role to play in the timber construction revolution,’ says david venables, european director of AHEC. ‘the smile is the most challenging structure ever constructed in CLT,’ adds andrew lawrence, associate director at arup. ‘every aspect is pushed to the absolute limit. it really shows the potential for hardwoods in construction.’”

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Designboom

“On the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground, architect Alison Brooks has created a 34-metre rectangular tube arcing upwards at either end. “The Smile”, one of the festival’s landmark projects, is designed to be an immersive pavilion. The tube forms an open-air balcony at either end, framing particular views of the sky, and its perforated walls mediate a dappled light throughout the interior. The gravity-defying structure, with its curving internal landscape illuminated at night by sweeping light strips, is also “crying out for someone to skateboard on it”, says Brooks.”

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Financial Times

Wallpaper Magazine featured The Smile in its review of the highlights of London Design Festival 2016.

The Smile is a collaboration between Alison Brooks Architects and The American Hardwood Export Council, Arup and the London Design Festival. It is a cross-laminated tulipwood structure that will be on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground of the Chelsea College of Arts from 17 September until 12 October 2016.

Icon published this 6-page interview with Alison Brooks, looking at 20 years of the practice’s work.

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Icon

This article titled ‘Brent Council’s plan to rebuild 1,200 social homes in South Kilburn’ features Alison Brooks Architects’ three projects within the South Kilburn Estate Regeneration Masterplan.

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Architects' Journal

“Alison Brooks Architects’ RIBA Award-winning Ely Court sets a precedent for the rest of the masterplan to follow.”

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Architects' Journal

This article proposes two developments featuring Alison Brooks Architects’ projects as exemplars for architects’ collaboration with developers and stakeholders to form new communities.

“A few simple lessons can be learned from the approach at North West Cambridge and South Kilburn: put the detail in the planning application and stay on top of the contractor, ensuring they build to the architect’s specification and design; keep the original architect involved, preferably novated; don’t fall into the viability trap by partnering with a developer who will overload your site and ruin the project to boost their profits; and make sure you are building a community, not just homes.”

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Architects' Journal

Alison Brooks Architects’ Veteran Oak Quarter featured in this article about the wider North West Cambridge Development, titled ‘How the University of Cambridge is building a community for its staff’.

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Architects' Journal

“The totem of this year’s London Design Festival (September 17-25) is a great big grin. The architect Alison Brooks has designed a pavilion in cross-laminated American tulipwood, in the shape of an 11ft-high, 110ft-long smile. The installation at Chelsea College of Arts could “transformthe way architects and engineers approach timber construction”, says David Venables, European director of the American Hardwood Export Council. The confident curve echoes the organisers’ bullish portrayal of London as “design capital of the world”.”

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The Times

“A gravity-bending structure by Alison Brooks Architects at the London Design Festival highlights the flexibility of cross-laminated timber.”

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Azure

The Smile gave the headline image to this article entitled ‘The 10 top installations and exhibitions at London Design Festival 2016′.

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Dezeen

Ely Court features as an exemplar project in the 2016 edition of Building for Life 12 (BfL12), a leading guide for creating well-designed homes and neighbourhoods.

Endorsed by government and managed by three partners – Design Council CABE, Design for Homes and the Home Builders Federation – BfL12 is integral to the UK’s commitment to build more and better homes.

Reinvented in 2012 to reflect the National Planning Policy Framework, BfL12 was also designed to support the Government’s commitment to:

• Building more homes
• Building better designed homes and neighbourhoods
• Creating a more creative and collaborative planning system
• Involving local communities in shaping development proposals

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Building for Life

Ely Court was featured on ‘the world’s most visited architecture website’.

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ArchDaily

The Journal of the American Institute of Architects featured this article about The Smile.

“Twenty minutes into our discussion about the Smile—Alison Brooks Architects’ forthcoming seesaw of a building in the courtyard of London’s Chelsea College of Arts—I’m still trying to determine what makes the upward curvature of the unusual, namesake form structurally feasible.”

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Architect Magazine

The Architect’s Journal showcased Alison Brooks Architects’ urban installation, ‘The Smile’. The practice collaborated with The American Hardwood Export Council, Arup and the London Design Festival to present a cross-laminated tulipwood structure on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground of the Chelsea College of Arts from 17 September until 12 October 2016.

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Full Article

“The Landmark Projects are a key part of the Festival’s commissioning programme. They are at a scale that gets noticed and are always in major public places reaching a very wide audience,” says Ben Evans, the Director of LDF. “The choice of architect is key and Alison Brooks Architects are known for their innovative use of materials. Alongside a strong commitment to ambitious ideas they made an ideal choice for this year’s Landmark project with AHEC.”

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World Architecture News

“Should Severn Place deliver everything promised at planning stage, the scheme has the potential to contribute an exciting addition to Cambridge’s built environment… Good development sometimes means breaking the norm, as exemplified by schemes such as Accordia or Severn Place.”

“Alison Brooks Architects is helping to work some magic at the once neglected and run-down South Kilburn Estate in north-west London”

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Blueprint

“Working with Arup, [Alison Brooks Architects] has designed a large, arching tunnel which lifts at each end (hence its name, Smile) made from American tulipwood; it is the first ever use of industrial-sized panels of hardwood CLT. As such, it heralds a new product, which could transform the way architects and engineers approach constructing in timber.”

“Thanks to the enlightened thinking of Brent council and Alison Brooks Architects, a notorious London estate that featured in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth is now the site of some of the best housing in the neighbourhood,” writes Rowan Moore in his review for the Guardian / Observer.

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Guardian article

In an article titled “Architects around the world are tackling a huge range of uncomfortable truths”, Alison Brooks reflects on her time at this year’s Venice Biennale.

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Architects' Journal

“For The Smile, Alison Brooks and the American Hardwood Export Council will present an installation in the form of a smile-shaped tunnel. 

“The 118-foot-long installation aims to showcase the structural potential of cross-laminated timber (CLT), and will make use of American tulipwood to create an arch-shaped tunnel that rises off the ground to 11 feet. The images revealed already indicate an astonishing architectural achievement that will delight attendees.”

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Interior Design

At the 15th Biennale di Architettura in Venice, ABA’s exhibit City (e) State at the Global Art Affairs Foundation’s TIME – SPACE – EXISTENCE explores the civic role of housing and the state as urban patron.

This book is the catalogue of that exhibition.

“In their exhibition ‘City(e)State’ Alison Brooks Architects documents the evolution of state-sponsored housing architecture as a reflection of the social, economic and political values of the day.”

“The exhibition uncovers qualities found in Britain’s monumental urban housing estates, and how these have become synonymous with economic and social segregation. These are examined in relation to four specific urban paradigms found in a north London neighbourhood: 1890s suburb; 1960s modernist estate; contemporary masterplan; and intensified, ‘ideal’ future.”

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Inexhibit

At the head of an article that summarises highlights from La Biennale di Venezia Exhibition 2016, Dezeen featured an image from ABA’s City(e)State exhibition with the Time Space Existence event at Palazzo Mora.

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Dezeen

“The winner will create a daytime events space on the fourth and fifth floors of the museum’s historic Richard Allison-designed main building.

“According to the contract notice, the planned facility will ‘evoke the spirit of the museum and capitalise on the spectacular views across the London skyline.'”

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Architects' Journal