seat in the bedrooms while providing clever storage compartments, and the spruce contributes to the warm atmosphere. The all-timber interiors, more common in Scandinavia than in the UK, slightly worried the client at first but he was reassured as soon as the units were put on the market. And, for obvious reasons, the name Nordic Lofts was preferred to the original Spruce Apartments.


When shortlisting the project for the Stirling Prize, the jury pointed out that ‘inside, the feeling is of a large house split into many homes’, a sensation heightened by the vertical circulation void and deliberately emphasised on the exterior with the almost cartoon-like pitched roof. Wrapping the CLT superstructure is a protective lattice made of double-stacked brick with an open stretcher bond – a slightly oversizedA controversial dolphin hunt which takes place in Japan every year is underway.

Fishermen in Taiji in western Japan drove more than 200 bottlenose dolphins into a secluded bay ready to kill them or sell them into captivity at marine parks.

On Monday they killed at least 30, hiding the activity from animal rights activists, reporters and TV cameras behind a tarpaulin.

Fishermen waiting in the shallow waters by the shore, some in wet suits with snorkelling masks on their faces, wrestled the dolphins into submission and tied their tails with ropes to stop them from escaping.

A large pool of blood seeped under the tarpaulin and spread across the cove.

Activist, Melissa Sehgal, from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, called the slaughter process brutal.

“The process is called pithing, where they hammer a