Paris has some fantastic bridges, here’s one shot on last week’s trip.

Also from the Berlin trip, the Neues Museum by David Chipperfield. Quite an extraordinary space.

Architect: David Chipperfield

Suffice to say that Foster’s Reichstag looked exceptional under the Berlin night.

More shots to come.

Architect: Norman Foster

Shot this superb conversion of a Victorian house, incorporating the original side-return bring the old exterior wall, inside.

Designer: Tim Newbold/Domus

Fantastic conversion of a disused workshop/garage in North London, making fantastic use of light and space in an unusual setting.

Developer: Kube

Hidden behind an inconspicuous entrance on Clerkenwell Green, photographed this brilliant space set around an outside-in courtyard topped by a sliding roof.

Architect: Unknown

Beautiful stone lodge on the bank of Ullswater, Lake District. Storm building in the distance.

Architect: unknown

Main elevation of the Dome House, Lake District overlooking Windermere.

Designer: Robert Gaukroger

Returning from Edinburgh to London, couldn’t resist a detour through the beautiful Lake District and a quick view of this incredible house as featured on Grand Designs. Weather was typically seasonal.. strong winds and hail storms, but this inspiring larch clad house seemed to offer a warm retreat no matter.

Designer: Robert Gaukroger

(* thanks to Robert for permission to wander around the site)

And some more from the Grand Designs feature:

When Robert and Milla Gaukroger find a plot overlooking Lake Windermere in the Lake District National Park, they reckon they’ve hit gold.

The site already has a rather ugly 1980s house on the site but rather than knock it down, Robert plans to incorporate this into a new design which will quadruple its size.

Three large linked extensions will be added, and to cap it, an enormous and very complicated domed grass-covered roof will be constructed over the whole house.

Passionate about sustainability, Robert also designs his own system of heating.

In a build full of risks, the biggest of all is starting with only £100,000 of the £400,000 budget in place.

The original house is going to be pulled, screaming and kicking, out of the 1980s and thrown somewhere into the future. The new home will engulf the old, into a building four times its present size. It should provide a home for Robert’s children that will last them into adulthood.

The roof and the back wall of the existing house will be removed to make way for a rear extension. There’s a home office, playroom, music room and store rooms. On the first floor, there will be three family bedrooms and a large living room.

Robert’s designed a new double height entrance with an enormous, ingenious, six and a half metre high slate wall containing a matrix of hot water pipes heated by a wood burning stove and 80 solar vacuum tubes. It will act like a giant storage heater… or so Robert hopes.

The other half of the house – designed so it can be shut down in the winter to save on heating – will provide three en suite guest rooms for Milla’s family when they visit from Malaysia… and a naturally filtered swimming pool. Upstairs will be a huge open plan studio and kitchen with spectacular views of Lake Windermere.

To soften the impact of this huge house, Robert plans to clad it in locally sourced larch. But it’s its domed roof that will do the most to camouflage this gigantic house into its hillside setting. A complex pattern of wooden frames will form a super-strong structure while the grass will provide excellent insulation.

When Kevin first visits, Robert’s budget is already down from £400,000 to £300,000 because he’s relying on the sale of two other houses. Depending on those, he might also have to sell his motor home, boat and possibly his cars, too.

And to save as much money as possible, the family will need to move into the 1980s house while the building work goes on around them.

Today’s shoot, a stunning barn conversion in deepest Essex..

A few more interior + exterior views of the wonderfully utilitarian Hackney Marshes Centre by Stanton Williams. (see the others below..)

Architect: Stanton Williams

This is the temporary portfolio.

As our trusty Applepads-pods-phones will never see eye to eye with Flash.. Whilst a bigger, better, faster, stronger offering is in the making, this is my temporary portfolio.

If you wish to get in touch, please contact:

e: dominic@dominicfrench.co.uk

t: (+44) 07899 797021

Photographed during the summer, fantastic house designed by DSP Architecture (formerly Douglas Stephen & Partners), sitting on an awkward site backing onto one of London’s many rail cuttings. Interesting sweeping roof, excellent interior detailing and materials.

Architect: DSP Architecture (formerly Douglas Stephen & Partners)

Too close-by not to see, the Corten clad Hackney Marshes Centre by Stanton Williams. First of many sporting projects in East London leading up to the 2012 Olympics.

Architect: Stanton Williams

From the architects:

Hackney Marshes is best known as the London home of amateur Sunday League football. Stanton Williams was commissioned in 2008 to provide a new ‘Community Hub’ at the South Marsh, comprising new changing rooms, a café, and an education facility. They are housed in a welcoming, inclusive structure that recognises the special qualities of this place and connects with its wider setting, including the adjacent Olympic Park.

The Centre is embedded within the landscape, avoiding the ‘tabula rasa’ approach of many sports venues. Plugging a gap in the trees that surround the pitches, its massing minimises its impact on the site. The overall impression is one of horizontality, with changing rooms arranged in linear fashion at ground level.

The café and education spaces are placed above at one end, merging into the taller trees of the adjacent coppice. The layout fuses practicality and flexibility with the desire to celebrate the ritual aspects of football: not least the way that the act of changing fuses individuals into teams.

Materials have been chosen for robustness and for their ability to blend into the structure’s surroundings. Gabion walls provide a vandal-resistant envelope and function as a framework for climbing plants, creating a ‘green wall’. Weathered steel is used for cladding, shutters and louvres, offering a rich texture. Changing in colour over time, it emphasises the combination of nature and artifice that permeates the scheme.

Minimalist architect-designed apartment by Mark Guard (Guard Tillman Pollock) overlooking the River Thames, set within the New Concordia Wharf development. Shows reflections of a Pawson-esque aesthetic.

Architect: Mark Guard (Guard Tillman Pollock)