Nick reviews Sam Jacob's Against Nature for Building Design:

'Jacob makes the point that all landscapes are constructed, deliberate fictions and his overpainting draws attention to this fact by inserting another fiction into what has now become a slightly more obvious, albeit ambiguous, construction.'

Nick reviews Edwin Heathcote's book 'On the Street' for Building Design:

'With traces of these histories marked throughout our cities there is a sense that these objects have the potential to embody a kind of public memory, that we would be able to relate to in individual, personal ways – such is the corporeality and utility of street furniture.'

Nick reviews Ruth Lang's Building for Change for Building Design:

'Lang’s book comes as a timeous insertion into this debate, offering both rigour and imagination, daring the profession to do more with less.'

In our third newsletter, we consider experiential travel, AI, art-themed hotels and authenticity.

Our second quarterly newsletter takes in climate and the environment, adaptive re-use of existing buildings, changing travel habits, food waste and low carbon construction innovation.

Just before everyone heads off on a well-earned summer break, we thought we’d share our first newsletter in which we will talk a little about what we’re working on, thinking about, reading and listening to, and things that inspire us at Translation Architecture. The second part of the newsletter will be a slightly more in depth look at a topical issue - this time heat, and what we are doing about it on our current projects.

... this blend of tourism and the idea of a hotel as a kind of community asset or a social condenser, answers the both the demand for authenticity from guests and the relevance or utility for its local community. As our work, life and leisure patterns continue to shift, this is a version of the hotel whose time has come, and it is great to be finally creating the spaces that we have been talking about for so long.

A piece written for the industry title Hospitality Interiors on the story behind the refurbishment of the The Relais Henley, outlining the design and heritage approach, some of the challenges and how the unique quality of the Grade II listed hotel has developed through the collaborative approach of the client and design team.

A significant design intervention in the refurbishment of The Relais Henley (formerly The Red Lion Hotel) was the opening up of the corridor between the reception and what is now The Clipper Restaurant.

Over the last fortnight, I have taken part in two panel discussions as part of the Festival of Hospitality, a month-long series of events in London put together by the team at Always Thinking.

The site of The Relais at The Red Lion (Henley) includes architectural elements that extend from the fifteenth century through to the present day. The construction of the Chantry House, situated between St Mary’s Church in Hart Street and the Thameside courtyard of The Relais, has been dated to 1461 by means of dendrochronology. Historical layering is also evident in a wall painting which dates to 1632, during the reign of Charles I, and is in fact the monarch’s coat of arms.

We wanted our visual and typographic identity to foreground the connections that Translation Architecture makes between writing, design process, collaboration, dialogue and building. Conscious of how important writing is to translating abstract ideas into design concepts, we explore new projects and develop ideas through writing, which we see as a crucial aspect of dialogue and collaboration.