THING OF THE WEEK
LEGO BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER… The world’s biggest bridge made entirely from Lego bricks will soon be on display at The Capital Building on Old Hall Street in Liverpool. At around one thirtieth of the new Mersey Gateway bridge’s river span, the LEGO bridge will be 31 metres long and stand 3 metres high. Designed for the Institution of Civil Engineers, it will be made up of 200,000 individual LEGO bricks and weigh three quarters of a tonne. It was originally built and given the Guinness World Record in September 2016, and will be rebuilt in Liverpool to be open to the public from Friday 11 August. Marvel at the original bridge being built here
FROM THEN… Allied London’s massive Trinity Islands proposals is on the list at Manchester City Council’s planning committee next week. This scheme may be familiar to many on the MIPIM circuit, where the undulating glass towers and sky bridges were first revealed by Allied chief Michael Ingall. The design has been refined somewhat over the last few years, after being reworked last year due to public criticism. Let’s see if the final version by architect Child Graddon Lewis gets the planning seal of approval on Thursday…
- Trinity Islands as first unveiled by Ingall
- Allied revealed these proposals in August 2016
- Earlier designs scrapped and this image released in December 2016...
- But the interconnecting bridges are gone again in time for the planning application.
STONE ME… Galliard Construction was in for a surprise at a resi scheme in Southwark, when it stumbled on an ancient Roman sarcophagus. One of only three sarcophagi to be unearthed in London, the 1,600-year-old stone coffin is believed to contain the remains of a member of nobility. Fortunately, Southwark Council is one of only two London councils to have a dedicated archaeologist, Gillian King, who couldn’t believe her luck. With the coffin filled with soil, she believes it had previously been robbed of valuable items hundreds of years ago. It has this week been transferred to the Museum of London to be analysed.
STIRLING WORK… The RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist was announced this week, with not a North West building to be seen, only three short years after the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool scooped the coveted architecture award. Three regional winners made it to the penultimate stage, winning RIBA National Awards. Here are the three beauties which missed out:
- Liverpool Philharmonic, by Caruso St John
- Maggie's Centre at the Robert Parfett building, by Foster + Partners
- Stoller Hall at Chetham's School of Music, by Roger Stephenson
STRESS LESS… For those who always suspected that moving to Manchester beats the capital, but needed proof, here it is. MoneySuperMarket has crunched the numbers to identify the most and least stressful cities to move to, and London came out top in the stress test. Manchester made the cut as the second least stressful, behind Wolverhampton. The Moving Stress Index scored 30 cities against eight factors, including broadband speed, supermarket proximity, road access, and local ‘happiness levels’.
| Top 5 least stressful cities to move to | Top 5 most stressful cities to move to |
| Wolverhampton | London |
| Manchester | Edinburgh |
| Nottingham | Birmingham |
| Derby | Plymouth |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | Sheffield |
TOP TIME… Bruntwood topped out its latest scheme this week, the £33m Alliance Business School in Manchester. The project includes a hotel, retail, and an executive education centre. Nothing shows how a project comes together quite like a timelapse video, as below:
