Architecture Update: A home for MPs

PROPOSALS for a new parliamentary building at Westminster to provide much-needed accommodation for MPs and their staff are to be considered by Westminster City Council next month. The council has not yet decided whether to support this application (the first one, made at the end of last year, was never resolved), but is still concerned about 'the logistics of construction' in such a busy part of the borough. English Heritage, meanwhile, has written to the council saying that while it supported the earlier designs by Michael Hopkins, it is unhappy with the latest revisions and would like to see the scale of the building reduced. English Heritage believes that it is now too bulky and the roofline will have a detrimental effect on nearby listed buildings.