A PUBLIC architecture competition should be held to give Island firms the chance to design the new Les Quennevais School building, says an Islander who practices in the UK. Nick Socrates said that inviting companies to show how they would design the building in an ‘ideas competition’ would lead to a range of approaches to the £40 million project. In September the Education Department revealed three possible sites for the school, proposing that it could be built on land next to the sports centre or on fields off Rue Carrée. An eight-week public consultation followed and the Education Department recently announced that Education Minister Rod Bryans was due to make a final decision on the location of the project before Christmas.

It's London but not as we know it. This artist's impressions of a future London was a shortlisted winner of a competition launched by estate agent Cluttons and property news magazine Estate Gazette. Will the metropolis of tomorrow be a land of aquacities, sky gardens and huge alien-looking domes? “A great dome construction of vast, interconnected mega-structures: a city above the city, a city in the sky. The Dome would provide mixed-use city infrastructure, able to exist above any city, with offices, living and retail spaces. Inspired by the harmonious, closely integrated communal living of bees, the Dome comprises of hexagonal structures which allows for a column-free, curved formation enabling the building to span further distances. This curving provides a natural, flowing counterbalance to the Dome’s geometric, hexagonal structures.”