Open Studio is an interactive project run by the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster to make its design, research and practice-based work available online while it is happening. The site acts as a real time teaching and learning environment in which the work of both students and staff is curated and documented – the work of its design studios, or its other teaching and research groups and workshops. Read more in Blog, follow us on Twitter and like us on Instagram.
Who: Christina Seilern from Studio Seilern Architects
When: Thursday, 11th of October, 18:00
Where: Room M416, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday 4th Of October
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
At the 2018 EAHN conference in Tallinn I gave a paper under the session theme of Architecture’s Return to Surrealism. The session asked how the reanimation of surrealism in the work of architects active in the 1970s and ‘80s – at the ‘tangled, asynchronous juncture of the modern and the postmodern,’ – allowed architecture to ‘formulate a critical project in reaction to the neoliberal economy that was producing its own dreams, needs and desires.’ Based on my conference paper, this presentation looks at Aldo Rossi and the connection to surrealism in his work through the influence of the writer Raymond Roussel. I argue that Rossi used Roussel to make memory an active ingredient in the architectural imagination, hence the reference to surrealism within the formulation of architectural projects after modernism.
Victoria Watson teaches in the School of Architecture + Cities and practices as Doctor Watson Architects.
Technical Studies Lecture Series is back!
During the first semester the School of Architecture and Cities hosts the Thursday evening ‘Technical Studies’ lecture series to highlight new developments in the fields of architecture, engineering and environmental design. The series attempts to capture a contemporary philosophy of architecture and technology and introduce students to current and future trends in the development and understanding of architecture. This years talks include, a glass skyscraper in Southwark, a new ‘rusty’ steel footbridge in Chiswick, self-build housing in South London and a brand new type of ‘deployable’ structure.
The series starts with Jason Flanagan (Flanagan Lawrence Architects) talking about the importance of sound and acoustics in the design of new performative architecture.
When: Thursday, 4th of October 2018, 18:00
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, 35 Marylebone Rd., London NW1 5LS
When: Saturday 23rd June 2018, 19:00
Where: Auditorium de L’Institut du monde arabe, Paris, France
If in Paris on the 23rd of June, don’t miss DS22’s tutor Yara Sharif‘s presentation at “Décoloniser les esprits via le design et l’architecture” event at L’Institut du monde arabe , and as part of the Palest’In&Out Festival.
More info on the event (in French): https://www.imarabe.org/en/rencontres-debats/decoloniser-les-esprits-via-l-architecture-et-le-design
“Decolonizing minds and spirits through architecture and design” will be one of many fantastic events including film screenings, workshops and installations to take place during the festival.
Palest’In & Out 2018: Discover what Palestinian contemporary art has to offer, and reimagine Palestine from a new perspective.
The Festival programme (in French) : http://www.institut-icfp.org/category.php?id=9498y38040Y9498
We are calling on urban visionaries, whether individuals, groups or companies, to submit ideas – strategies, projects, experiments and solutions – to reinstate Grosvenor Square as one of London’s leading squares. The best ideas will form the detailed brief for a design competition next year in preparation for delivery.
We would love to hear from you.
An independent panel of experts convened by Grosvenor and chaired by Yana Peel, CEO, Serpentine Galleries, will oversee the call. The panel will offer challenge and insight to help us shape our thinking and select the ideas we wish to develop further.
Grosvenor Square should be a defining public space for London. However, from our research we know it has a low profile and that as a more welcoming and engaging space it would better reflect the capital’s character and appeal to a broader range of locals, visitors and Londoners.
Following our public polling last year, and with the return to Grosvenor of management responsibilities for the square, we see a chance to gather the best ideas from around the world.
The call’s simple brief can be found here and a short overview of our call here. To find out more, visit cornertocorner.london or watch the short film here.
The results of last year’s crowdsourcing for ideas and poll of Londoners can be viewed here.
This professional call for ideas closes on 26 October 2018.
When: Tuesday 19th June 2018, 18:30-20:30
Where: The Architectural Association Bookshop, 32 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES
by Kester Rattenbury, Published by Lund Humphries, 2018
Who is the most famous member of the Architectural Association, past or present? Rem Koolhaas? Richard Rogers? Peter Cook? Or maybe Thomas Hardy: poet, novelist, architect; and creator of one of the most famous part-real, part-imagined realms the world has seen?
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect by Kester Rattenbury is the first in-depth study of Hardy’s work by an architectural critic, and it opens a startling new perspective on this world-famous author. Through it, we begin to see Hardy as someone who never gave up architecture: not just as a highly architectural writer, but as someone experimenting in all kinds of representation, including drawing, mapping, photography, stage design and writing; not just as a seminal English storyteller, but as England’s most influential conservation campaigner too; not just as a leading voice in literature, but as the creator of one of the greatest ever conceptual architectural projects.
Kester Rattenbury is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster. This book offers both a new way of looking at Hardy’s great works and an exploration of the how architects see, imagine, and work.
Here Lies Geoffrey Barkington by Patrick McEvoy, Jubilee Gardens
Geoffrey Barkington was a Square Mile dog whose final resting place is within Jubilee Gardens, Houndsditch. Houndsditch marks the route of a ditch outside part of the London Wall, first dug in Roman times, and known for the disposal of deceased dogs. Several dog skeletons were discovered here in 1989 during construction works. Geoffrey’s gravestone was made with the help of Solid Geometry, Tarmac, Kilnbridge, University of Westminster and Prewett Bizley Architects.
When: Saturday 30 June, 9:00 – 16:45 (with a break for lunch)
Where: St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in New Street, Lymington
Tickets are £15 (£12.50 concs) and include refreshments.
DS2.5 tutor Camilla Wilkinson, is the Keynote Speaker, presenting her Dazzle research, at the Southampton University Study Day in Lymington.
For more info and bookings please go to: https://www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk/discover/news.php?p=2018-05-09-dazzling-event-to-mark-centenary-of-first-world-war
The exhibition, “Dazzle: Disguise and Disruption in War and Art”, is at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in New Street, Lymington, from 16 June – 23 September. It includes work by Norman Wilkinson, Edward Wadsworth, Montague Dawson, John Everett and many more artists, on loan from national, regional and private collections, including the Imperial War Museum and British Maritime Museum.
Tower blocks have had a chequered history and their survival in the UK remains uncertain. In this one-day event, we look at their history, their changing technical characteristics, the reception of them by residents and the public, the maintenance and upkeep of them by their owners, their safety and their prospects for the future.
Among our speakers will be:
For more info please go to: https://www.docomomo.uk/copy-of-11-nov-ticket-page
Featured image: Grenfell Tower via https://goo.gl/images/Tz12ZS
Plans are currently underway for the 2018 RIBA Research Matters conference, with this year’s event to run over two days in Sheffield, co-hosted by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University.
As you may already be aware, the Research Matters conference has been developed to provide early career stage researchers an opportunity to present their work in a format similar to that of a peer-refereed conference, but without the usual preparatory processes of submission, selection, and rewriting. Research Matters aims to support PhD students and early career researchers in the development of their work. The event adopts the rigour of an academic conference but with papers to be presented in a constructive, supportive and non-confrontational atmosphere.
This year, we have decided to include shorter, PechaKucha-style sessions in the programme to encourage those with less developed research work to present. We intend to open these sessions up to local practices and more established researchers to present their work. We see this as a good opportunity to facilitate potential collaborations between practice and academia, and to support the development of relationships with the practice research community.
We kindly ask you to promote this event to your post-graduate students and staff, as well as to any practices who you think may be interested. Please encourage submissions for both the paper and the pecha kucha presentation slots.
At this stage, applicants for the paper presentation will need to submit:
For the PechaKucha slots, simply a name and a theme will suffice for now. Booking and venue information will follow shortly and attendance at the event is free.
Please email your submissions or any queries to research@riba.org by 31st July, 2018.
Featured image Sheffield Hallam Students Union, credit Ken Kay / RIBA Collections via RIBA