Author: Mirna Pedalo

Architecture Research Forum: MONASS “Reporting from the Field” with Lindsay Bremner, Beth Cullen and Christina Geros_19th October, Erskine Room, 5th Floor, 13:00-14:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

MONASS: Reporting from the Field

With: Lindsay Bremner, Beth Cullen and Christina Geros

Monsoon Assemblages is a five-year-long European Research Council funded research project investigating relations between rapid urbanisation and changing monsoon climates in South Asian cities. The MONASS team spent six weeks in Chennai over the summer conducting field work for the project. In this seminar, we will briefly sketch out the monsoon assemblage thesis and the questions that framed this field work. We will take you to a number of the sites we studied and discuss how our engagement with them has both challenged and extended our thesis and shaped future work.

Lindsay Bremner is a Professor and Beth Cullen and Christina Geros are Research Fellow at the University of Westminster

Where: Erskine Room (M/523), Marylebone Campus

When: Thursday 19 October, 13:00–14:00

ALL WELCOME!

Call for Papers: “Spaces of Tolerance”, Architecture and Culture Journal – Deadline 15th January 2018

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Call for Papers for the next themed issue of Architecture and Culture journal.

Spaces of Tolerance
Vol. 7, Issue no. 1, March 2019
Igea Troiani and Suzanne Ewing, Editors.

 

Academic journal publishing worldwide has become increasingly watched over and policed by funding bodies and institutions demanding that scholarship be seen to have direct and maximized impact for economic gain or return. As Wendy Brown notes, “the move to judge every academic endeavour by its uptake in non academic venues (commerce, state agencies, NGOs), as the British Research Excellence Framework (REF) does, is […] damaging” because “academic practices have been transformed by neoliberal economization”.3 This monitoring, counting, measuring and quantifying frames assessment of the validity of architectural research and limits the exchange between architectural practice and publishing. Within academic institutions, organizational adjacencies of disciplines create conditions of more or less tolerance in judging the value of a wide and diverse range of architectural outputs and the limits of the form/s original and creative architectural research may appear beyond a building design or a traditional 7,000 word scholarly journal article about a building’s history or performance that is double-blind reviewed by expert peers in architecture.

In an effort to recover architectural publishing as a more liberal, yet rigorous, space of production and imagination, this issue of Architecture and Culture seeks to reveal nuances in publishing and associated academic practices which might exceed or distil conventional and accepted disciplinary limitations. It seeks to instigate more open-ended relationships, interpretations and iterations between theory and practice – between textuality, visuality and aurality – to sway between and across more or less disciplinarity with empathy and insight. Contributions are sought from a range of cultural and geographical positions and perspectives that examine any aspect of the discourse, practice and research of architecture as an exploration of spaces of tolerance.

To download full version of call for papers:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hs3jqampgpnx5zz/AACDK59VbnNJmSeV-pBNMJ5ba?dl=0

Image: John Hejduk, 13 Watchtowers of Cannaregio, 1978.

Premier: “A Story of Dreams” film about Jaime Lerner – RIBA, 17th October, 19:00-21:00

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On Tuesday 17th October, RIBA will host a European premiere of “A Story of Dreams”, film on Jaime Lerner’s groundbreaking work as a mayor of Brazilian city of Curitiba.

Jaime Lerner is a community architect and transformational city leader who believes ordinary people, with their positive energy can upgrade their environment. As Parana State Governor, Curitiba Mayor, and practicing architect within the America’s and Africa, he believes sustainability succeeds by releasing ordinary people’s latent energy to survive and prosper.

To find out more and book tickets: https://www.architecture.com/whats-on/premier-a-story-of-dreams-a-film-about-jaime-lerner# 

Designing Buildings Wiki Competition: Deadline 2nd November

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

How can buildings be designed today to ensure they are resilient to the challenges they will face tomorrow?

Students and professionals are invited to offer innovative, unusual and radical ideas in response to this question.

This is a great opportunity to:

  • Engage with a vitally important subject
  • Apply developing technical and theoretical knowledge
  • Be featured in BSRIA’s Delta T magazine and on Designing Buildings Wiki (with your university and course being acknowledged)
  • Win £500 in BSRIA publications, training and membership

Find out more:                           https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_challenges_in_today%27s_buildings

 

Paolo Cascone: About Urban Fabrication Laboratories – AA Lecture Series “What’s Next?”, 23rd October, 18:30

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

 

The lecture will tell the story of COdesignLab, from its theoretical background to its experimental practice, oscillating between COllaborative design, COmputational thinking and self-COnstruction. After a decade of engagement in both professional and academic practices around the world, Paolo Cascone started to investigate how to redefine the role of urban designers and independent researchers in order to bridge technological and social innovation. These investigations have generated a series of urban fabrication laboratories between Africa and his hometown of Naples in Italy. 

Where: Architectural Association, Lecture Hall

When: Monday, October 23rd, 18:30

More info: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=3726

Habitat: Applying the Lessons of Vernacular Architecture to our Changing Planet – Wednesday 11th October, 18:00-20:00, The Hogg Lecture Theatre, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

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Please join us for the second session in the series of HABITAT events which are taking place in New York, London, Brussels, Milan, COP23, Bonn, Paris, Abu Dhabi and Novosibirsk, aimed to explore global socio-economic and cultural potentials of technology development and transfer.

The culmination of years of specialist research, HABITAT: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Planet is a once-in-a-generation large format publication. It gathers together an international team of more than one hundred leading experts across a diverse range of disciplines to examine what the traditions of vernacular architecture and its regional craftspeople around the world can teach us about creating a more sustainable future.

The publication has been reviewed in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/19/habitat-vernacular-architecture-changing-planet-sandra-piesik-review 

Speakers:

  • Professor Harry Charrington, Head of Department of Architecture, University of Westminster Moderator
  • Professor Marjan Colletti, Professor of Architecture and Post Digital Practice, The Bartlett School of Architecture
  • Dr Louise Cooke, Building Conservation, The University of York
  • Dr Nasser Golzari, Architect, University of Westminster
  • Lucas Dietrich, Editorial Director of Thames & Hudson
  • Henry Fletcher, Associate Director at BuroHappold Cities Consulting in London
  • Dr John Hemming, Explorer
  • Alexander Maitland, Architect and Sir Wilfred Thesiger Official Biographer
  • Dr Sandra Piesik, General Editor of HABITAT, and Director, Architect of 3 ideas Ltd Convenor
  • Dr Beniamino Polimeni, Architect, De Montfort University Leicester
  • Professor André Singer, President of The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI)

Where: The Hogg Lecture Theatre, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

When: Wednesday 11th October, 18:00-20:00

RSVP: info@3ideasme.com

Register on the Eventbrite: www.thamesandhudson.com I thamesandhudson.com/events Iwww.westminster.ac.uk I www.3ideasme.com I #HABITAT:Coalition I #HABITAT:London

Purchase book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Habitat-Vernacular-Architecture-Changing-Planet/dp/1419728806

To download full programme: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gtgsz9fzzhd8l7g/AAD6vPZj2cS1Uxt0HvXiGgfaa?dl=0

 

Technical Studies Lectures: Amin Taha + Jason Coe, Thursday 5 October, 6pm, M416

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Technical Studies Lectures are back!

Join us for the first in the series of lectures starting next Thursday 5th October at 6pm, with Amin Taha and Jason Coe of Amin Taha Architects.

159-168 Upper Street and other Projects

Replacing a gap site which was never redeveloped after WWII, Amin Taha architects have reconstructed an extraordinary but ‘misremembered’ facsimile of the bookend of a late 19th Century terrace opposite Islington Town hall. All external mouldings, window surrounds and features as well as internal skirting, dado rails, cornices and anglypta wallpaper were 3D modelled and then robotically routed into an expanded polystyrene formwork. The entire façade (including roof) was then cast insitu in a special terracotta/concrete mix. The walls are half a metre thick, are load-bearing, and perform as thermal barrier, and internal/external finishes. The terracotta structural skin was then filled with a series of cross laminated timber floors threaded through the outer shell. Up close the remarkable and innovative process of construction is revealed in the subtle ‘cast’ quality of eccentric details and features in a structural shell, which also contains secret panels and openings only visible on closer inspection. Amin Taha architects were established by Amin Taha in 2005 and the practice have recently been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize for their brick and wicker housing project in Barrett’s Grove, London.

when: Thursday 5th October, 6pm

where: Marylebone Campus, Room M416

Postgraduate Architecture Exhibition PG2017 Launch: 15 September from 18:00 to 21:00, Marylebone Campus

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And just before we start the new academic year, we will say goodbye to yet another excellent generation of MA students who have worked tirelessly over the last year, and especially over the summer, to put together the final exhibition for the 2016/2017 academic year.

Join us for the opening of PG2017, tomorrow, Friday 15 September, from 6pm to 9pm in our Marylebone studios. The exhibition will be on show until Friday 22 September, and is open to public from 9am to 9pm every day, with the exception of Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 September (10am – 5pm)

The versatility and the impressive breadth of work will be shown by students from five different master programs: Architecture MA, Architecture and Environmental Design MSc, Interior Design MA, International Planning and Sustainable Development MA and Urban Design MA, alongside work from Westminster Working Cultures and recent sustainable Urban Design Charrette Florence in Italy.

Drawings by former DS18 students, John Cook and Ben Pollock, to be exhibited in Michigan and Toronto

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Two former DS18 students, John Cook and Ben Pollock, will have their drawings featured at the upcoming international conferences and exhibitions in Michigan, USA and Toronto, Canada in September / October 2017.

John Cook’s drawing “CSP Plant Jupiter Overview 3000” was produced for his project “Camdeboo Solar Estate” located in South Africa in 2014/2015 for Design Studio 18, and will be exhibited as a part of the Ambiguous Territory: Architecture, Landscape and the Postnatural, an exhibition and symposium, which will take place at the University of Michigan’s Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning from 25th September to 19th October 2017.

Ben Pollock‘s drawing “Global Flows” was produced in 2015/2016, also for Design Studio 18, the year when the studio worked on projects situated in the Maldives. This drawing will be shown as a part of EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation and Technology, a festival which will take place in Toronto from 28th September to 8th October 2017.

Find out more here: https://geoarchitecture.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/drawings-by-former-ds18-students-to-feature-at-exhibitions-in-michigan-and-toronto/ 

Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender and Identity – Exhibition in Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, 28th July-5th November

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Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender & Identity

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
28 July – 5 November 2017

The Walker Art Gallery will mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexual acts in England and Wales (1967 Sexual Offences Act) with a major exhibition drawn from the Arts Council Collection and its own collections.

Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender and Identity will bring together a diverse range of artists who have used their work to explore sexuality and gender identity since 1967. The exhibition will reveal the findings of over two years of research by the Gallery into LGBT history, visual culture, its collection and the Arts Council Collection, revealing hidden queer histories and institutional blind spots that will be addressed through the exhibition’s programme of events and performances.

The exhibition will include artists David Hockney, Steve McQueen, LINDER, James Richards and Sarah Lucas among others, as well as new acquisitions to the Walker’s collection, including work from Alien Sex Club, generously funded by the Art Fund New Collecting Award scheme. The show will travel to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in December 2017 where it will be re-presented within the major Gas Hall exhibition space.