Craig Ailey

There are plenty of websites which focus on particular historic houses here and abroad, but one of the more comprehensive and useful ones relates to Craig Ailey, a Romanesque-style Victorian villa to the west of Glasgow by the Scottish architect Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson. It includes a superb image gallery; relevant extracts (reproduced with permission) from books about Thomson; fine measured drawings by the website’s creator; and reproductions from the 1876 volume ‘Villa and cottage architecture’ which featured Craig Ailey, and which can be viewed in the library at Glasgow School of Art.
Link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ken.owen
Access: Free

UNStudio

The work of the Amsterdam-based international architectural practice UNStudio is a source of continuing interest amongst staff and students here, and their website is worth a visit for the amount of images, drawings and text that it contains. Unusually, it also includes downloadable full-text articles (requiring Adobe Acrobat) from architectural magazines that have featured their work, complete with plans and other illustrations.

Link: www.unstudio.com
Access: Free

RIBA President's Medals

The RIBA has been awarding the President's Medals since the 1850s to promote excellence in the study of architecture, and they are widely regarded as the best student awards for architecture in the world. The President's Medals website features all the nominations since 1998, and includes a searchable database of projects and statements of intent from the students, a definition of their educational policy and aims from the relevant schools of architecture, a justification of their nominations by tutors, and an judging panels explanation of the decision-making process by the judges.

Link: www.presidentsmedals.com

Access: Free

Clip/Stamp/Fold

The Intute Arts and Humanities service has picked up on a fascinating online exhibition created by Princeton University's School of Architecture. 'Clip/Stamp/Fold: the radical architecture of little magazines 196x-197x' showcases 70 radical and independent 'little magazines' from the 1960s and 1970s that were broadly concerned with architecture and architectural practice. A timeline is used to display the magazine covers, and an explanatory text provides further information about each publication. Hard copies of some of the magazines featured in the exhibition can be viewed in Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Library.
Link: www.clipstampfold.com
Access: Free

England's best streets?

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment's (CABE's) website has named two streets in Newcastle's regenerated Grainger Town as among England's best and most innovative examples of street design. The relevant section of the website includes some excellent images and a description of the work that has been undertaken, including an evaluation and an account of the design process.
Link: www.cabe.org.uk/default.aspx?contentitemid=1922
Access: Free

Internet civil engineer

Architects may be interested in a new, free internet tutorial covering civil engineering, and available on the Intute Virtual Training Suite. The specially-written tutorial looks at the range of civil engineering information available, and provides tips on effective searching and links to key websites.
Link: www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/civil
Access: Free

Web Journal on Cultural Patrimony

The Web Journal on Cultural Patrimony is the first multi-disciplinary academic journal to focus on the safeguarding and conservation of the material and immaterial cultural heritage. Its coverage includes architecture and urban planning, and as such, it usefully fills a gap in existing literature. The contents of the journal are fully searchable, and each article can be downloaded as a PDF.

Link: www.webjournal.unior.it

Access: Free

Athens resources: now easier to use!

We've now made it even easier to use and access your Athens resources! Now when you log in to your Athens account you'll see we've rewritten all the resource descriptions, so it's crystal clear exactly what each resource provides. You'll also see that all the resource titles in your A-Z list now incorporate 'Use For' text. This shows you exactly what you can get from each resource, whether it's journal articles, images, sound, video, maps or statistics.
Log in to your Athens account via My Athens at the link below.
Link: http://www.athens.ac.uk/