#southport-pier-restoration

#southport-pier-restoration

Brockwell Lido was crowned London's best swimming spot by Time Out last year and was even named the best in the entire country just a month later.

"Those panels really only last about 40 years maximum. These panels were covered in lichens, so the station was very, very dark."

The city has rebuilt large stretches of East River Park and raised portions of the shoreline to blunt storm surges and future sea-level rise. The elevated terrain now does double duty as public playground and flood barrier, with new courts, lawns and pathways taking over much of the old footprint.

Urban Renaissance, the real estate development group that partly owns the mall, has a vision for what comes after demolition. The group's Lloyd Center Central City Master Plan wipes the venerable mall from the map in favor of development that will be familiar to most Portlanders: an intersecting street grid with green space and mixed-used architecture.

The plans would affect an area known as Royal Victoria Dock West, which is the end closest to London City Hall and the Cable Car. If carried out, the two biggest changes will be a range of floating walkways reaching into the dock, lined with water plants. The other change will be the introduction of walkways on the south side of the dock for long-term residential boat moorings.

RED HOOK - A SPECIAL EXHIBITION - "Brooklyn Marine Terminal: Past, Present, & What's Next for Red Hook?" - will hold its opening Friday night from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Compere Collective, 351 Van Brunt St. in Red Hook. The display, hosted by Resilient Red Hook in collaboration with Pratt Institute's School of Architecture, features student work that explores alternative visions for the BMT, bringing academic insight, community priorities and design innovation together.

The national rail bridge that spans Balham High Road, next to Balham station, has been given a deep clean and a new lighting scheme to improve its appearance. The bridge is the latest to benefit from Wandsworth Council's £2m schedule of improvements to rail bridges and underpasses, which is being funded by its contributions from local property developers.

Battersea Power Station is a former coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames in London, originally designed by architects J. Theo Halliday and Giles Gilbert Scott. Notable for its appearance on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 studio album Animals and in Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film Sabotage, the station is one of the world's largest brick buildings and is known for its Art Deco interior fittings and décor.

A Gothic cathedral can take centuries to complete. A world exposition pavilion may stand for six months. A ritual structure in Kolkata rises and vanishes within five days. Yet each draws pilgrimage, shapes collective memory, and reorganizes urban life. If heritage has long been defined by what endures, architecture repeatedly shows that cultural authority can also belong to what gathers people.

Not many chefs working in small, family-run restaurants expect global megastars to turn up for dinner and to design them a menu from scratch. But that's what happened to Simona Di Dio last weekend, when she cooked dishes inspired by her Italian grandmother's recipes for Madonna, who sat on the single wooden dining table in their cosy, candlelit Italian restaurant in Margate's old town.

The dinghy slowed to a stop at a long line of black bobbing baskets and David Lawlor reached out to inspect the first one. Inside lay 60 oysters, all with their shells closed, shielding the life within. They look great, beamed Lawlor. So did their neighbours in the next basket and the ones after that, all down the line of 300 baskets, totalling 18,000 oysters.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The world's oldest surviving gasholder is to be restored and repurposed as part of a housing development in west London. Hammersmith & Fulham Council has approved plans that will see the Grade II* listed Gasholder No.2 at King's Road Park restored, securing the future of a structure that will soon reach its 200th birthday. Built between 1829 and 1830, Gasholder No.2 is believed to be the oldest surviving gasholder in the world.

The government said the plans would increase the number of England's official bathing sites to 464. An official bathing spot on the Thames in London would mark a "vast transformation" in water quality in the river which was declared biologically dead in the 1950s due to pollution, officials said. Water minister Emma Hardy said rivers and beaches were "at the heart of so many communities, where people come together, families make memories and swimmers of all ages feel the benefits of being outdoors safely".

Heritage sites constitute complex spatial archives in which architecture, history, and collective memory converge. They encompass a wide spectrum of contexts-from archaeological remains, ancient and historic townscapes, UNESCO-listed landscapes, to early modern civic structures and industrial infrastructures. Yet these environments confront challenges: climate change, urban transformation, disaster, shifting social needs, and the gradual erosion of material fabric. Revitalization and restoration projects respond to these conditions by positioning architectural and spatial practice as an active mediator between preservation and the contemporary topologies.

a unique health offer, with nothing similar in London, the UK or Europe

The world-famous high street, that has appeared in hit films such as Notting Hill and Paddington, will have wider granite pavements, new lighting and greening after Kensington and Chelsea councillors approved the plans during a meeting on Tuesday night. Other improvements include more dropped kerbs for wheelchairs, more parking bays and replacing concrete anti-terror barriers with sliding bollards. Works are expected to begin in January 2027, according to the council.

The row of shops (and pub) here used to be known as Butchers' Row as it was lined with, well, butchers of course - and they would hang their meat outside their stores on rows of metal hooks. Most of the buildings have since been redeveloped, but the gap between shops on Aldgate High Street has been there since shortly after WWII. The gap wasn't due to bomb damage, but for some reason, one building was cleared, and later its neighbour as well.

Every time a boat passes through a canal lock, thousands of litres of water are released and must be replaced, usually from other sources. To reduce water loss, engineers sometimes build side ponds next to canals with several locks in succession. These side ponds allowed water to be "put aside" rather than lost. When a lock chamber was emptied to lower a boat to the next level, paddles were opened to divert the water into an adjacent side pond.