Blog

The Westminster Hydro Green Wall Installed in Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

This academic year, several of the BSc Architecture and Environmental Design students [who are part of the Westminster Environmental Society] and academics have been collaborating with Square Mile Farms in the creation of a hydroponic green wall for the production of food.

This project is the result of the successful application to the Westminster Green Fund.

The wall was installed in the entrance of Marylebone campus on Thursday, May 26th and will be ready for the first harvest after 4 weeks. The installation process was lead by students and Square Mile Farms team. The Vice Chancellor Peter Bonfield also visited the site and chatted to the team.

The official launch and the first harvest are scheduled for June 24th. To attend, please register here.

From September, the BSc Architecture and Environmental Design students will take charge of the maintenance and harvesting of the wall.

Congratulations to all involved!

Article 25: Make Design Matter Talk with ZAV Architects | Thursday, May 26 at 13:00 BST | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

ZAV Architects presents the Habitat for Orphans Girls, Thursday 26 May from 13:00- 14:00 BST during Article 25’s Make Design Matter free virtual talk. 

Please find additional information about the talk and how to register on our website: Make Design Matter, May Virtual Talk, Habitat for Orphan Girls, Khansar — Article 25 – Humanitarian Architecture (article-25.org)

ZAV Architects founded in 2007, aims to have a role in the Iranian architectural cycle by consulting projects with a socio-geographical vision. The research-based approach of ZAV assists clients in clarifying their perspectives by providing architectural data. 

MAKE DESIGN MATTER is a series of monthly inspirational talks for humanitarians. Article 25, in partnership with the BRE Trust, brings together outstanding design professionals who work with and support local communities through international development. These inspiring monthly panel discussions consider the pursuit of progressive, sustainable architecture, which focuses on the communities they serve.

Follow Article 25 on Instagram @article_25 for more updates on projects and future lectures.

College of Design, Creative & Digital Industries, University of Westminster: Summer Party | Harrow Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Registration for your college’s Summer Party is now open!

As a final year or postgraduate student at the College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries, your Summer Party will take place at Harrow Campus on Wednesday 15 June, 12–4pm.

If you’d like to attend this free event, please sign up here.

Please bear in mind that attendance is limited, and places will be offered on a first come, first served basis. Also, please bring your University of Westminster ID pass or proof of ID to the event.

The party will provide a fantastic opportunity for you to get together with your college community, enjoy delicious food and drink, and have fun with a range of outdoor activities.

A variety of food options will be available, including a Lebanese salad bar, kebab stall and pie and mash stand – with vegetarian, vegan and halal options. Party goers will also be treated to a free alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink, with a paid bar on hand too.

A host of optional fun activities are planned for the afternoon. If you’ve got energy to burn, why not play some volleyball or take part in our egg and spoon race?

There’ll also be a variety of funfair-style games for you to enjoy. Good accuracy? Test your mettle with the coconut shy, tin can alley or giant football darts.

And if all of this sounds exhausting, the option to simply chill and chat is open to all.

Please take this opportunity to celebrate the end of the year with fellow students, lecturers and other colleagues who have supported your journey at Westminster.

Performance Architecture: Body, Movement, Space | Online Summer School | Deadline for applications: June 22, 2022

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Course dates: 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th of July

Deadline for applications: 22nd of June 2022

Free webinar: 18th of June 2022 at 10am

Performance Architecture Online Summer School is an exciting learning journey designed to inspire, broaden, and challenge the possibilities of spatial representation and design.

Participants are invited to work on ways of designing that use the body as an instrument of thinking, sensing, drawing and sculpting space. It is designed to give an alternative, critical view to the study, use and production of space on both urban and architectural scales.

Architecture has for long been considered a static discipline. This course focuses on applying the toolbox of performance in architectural thinking, to the production of spatial actions and bodily geometries in space.

For more details and to apply please go here.

Call for Abstracts: Prague – Heritages: Past and Present – Built and Social | A Conference on Culture, History, Art and Design | Deadline: July 10, 2022

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Conference dates: 28th to 30th of June 2023

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 10th of July 2022

Organisers: Czech Technical University, with Amps, Intellect Books, and UCL Press

2023 marks the twentieth anniversary of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Heritage. It established culture as a concept to be safeguarded. That event came three decades after the World Heritage Convention. Through that, UNESCO had set up its World Heritage List of protect sites and buildings. The intervening years have seen multiple shifts in how we define heritage – as both material objects and social traditions. Today more than ever before, the distinction is blurred. The streets on which we live, the edifices we design and the monuments we protect are all connected to the lifestyles, traditions and social groupings we celebrate and safeguard.

What we mean by heritage today then, is an open and diverse question. Our buildings and environments, our cities and neighborhoods, our memorials and our artworks, our cultures and communities are all component parts of what we understand as ‘preservable’ history. The dynamics at play are however complex. Conserving architectural heritage can conflict with development models. Community traditions are threatened by globalization. Monuments are often focal points for cultural contestation. Archeological sites are valued in themselves and simultaneously erased conflict and ‘progress’.

However, the past and the present also overlap and mutually support. Placemaking sees built and cultural heritage as key to urban practice. Contextualization is central to planning laws. Museums are site for communities and display. Heritage organsiations preserve buildings and educate the public. Galleries present historical art while debating meanings in contemporary terms.

Reflecting this scenario, this conference seeks papers on heritage from various standpoints: art and architecture historians concerned with preservation; architects and urban planners engaged with placemaking; cultural theorists and social historians documenting objects, places, people and events. It welcomes case studies that are specific and place-based. It embraces theoretical frameworks that function globally. It is interested in variegated methods of research and analysis.

For more details please go here.

RIBA Scott Brownrigg Award for Sustainable Development | Deadline: Friday, June 24 at 5pm

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The RIBA Scott Brownrigg Award for Sustainable Development provides £5000 funding for research to address environmental and ethical issues and enhance the quality of life of communities across the globe.

The award is open to individuals or teams of architecture graduates and practitioners for projects lasting between three and 12 months. At least one candidate in the team should:

  • – have successfully completed a RIBA-validated Part 1 course or with candidate course status in the UK or abroad, and
  • – be enrolled, or have been granted a place of study, in a RIBA-validated Part 2 or 3 course or with candidate course status in the UK or abroad by the beginning of the period covered by the award, or
  • – have graduated from a RIBA-validated Part 2 or 3 course or with candidate course status in the UK or abroad

For more information please go here.

Featured image via RIBA.

Urban Inclusion in Middle Eastern Cities | Contribution by Nasser Golzari (UoW) to “HABITAT: Embracing Change in the Post-2030 Future”

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Congratulations to Dr Nasser Golzari on his contribution to “HABITAT: Embracing Change in the Post-2030 Future”

SDG 16: “URBAN INCLUSION IN MIDDLE EASTERN CITIES”

https://www.gstic.org/expert-story/urban-inclusion-in-middle-eastern-cities/

Credits to all authors, The Global Sustainable Technology & Innovation Community G-STIC, Thames & Hudson and HABITAT Coalition.

The exhibition in the press: urbanNext the Photographic Atlas of Cities Series: https://urbannext.net/habitat/. urbanNext is digital multi-format platform by @actar.publishers expanding architecture to rethink cities New York & Barcelona.

Featured image: Multi-storey buildings made from mud in Shibam, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2012 Yemen became a site of civil conflicts which still continue. © dinosmichail, Shutterstock

OPEN2022 | Thursday, June 16, 17:30-20:30 (BST) at Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The University of Westminster’s School of Architecture and Cities invites you to OPEN2022

When: Thursday, 16th of June 2022 from 5.30pm to 8.30pm

Where: Marylebone Studios, Marylebone Campus, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Head of School Harry Charrington cordially invites you to attend the opening of the graduating students’ degree show, OPEN 2022, featuring work from

  • Architecture BA
  • Architecture and Environmental Design BSc
  • Architectural Technology BSc
  • Designing Cities BA
  • Interior Architecture BA
  • MArch

Preview

Thursday 16 June, 5.30pm

Show opened by Kate Macintosh MBE, 6pm

Exhibition continues

Friday 17 June – Monday 11 July

PLEASE SEE ATTACHED INVITATION FOR DETAILS AND TO [open2022.eventbrite.co.uk]REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE.

You can also RSVP to DCDI-Events@westminster.ac.uk

“Monsoon as Method” Book Launch | Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 13:00-14:30 (BST) | Online event

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Monsoon Assemblages will launch Monsoon as Method: Assembling Monsoonal Multiplicities (Actar 2022) online on 8 June, 13.00 – 14.30 (BST). Do join us to celebrate the publication of the book.

At the launch, Lindsay Bremner, Christina Geros, Harshavardhan Bhat, Anthony Powis and John Cook will be joined by Edd Wall, Alfredo Ramirez, Karen Coelho, Pamila Gupta and Jonathan Cane to discuss the book and its methods.

To attend, register using the Eventbrite.

New Charrette call: Issue 9(1) | Beginning Architecture: Contextualising thresholds in architectural education

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The latest call for contributions to issue 9(1) of Charrette, under the theme Beginning Architecture: Contextualising thresholds in architectural education, is now live, with Raymond Quek (Norwich University of the Arts), Angeliki Sioli (TU Delft), Jodi La Coe (Marywood University) as guest editors.

The deadline for Call for expressions of interest (500 words) is 8th July 2022, and the deadline for Submission of full contributions 31st October 2022, for publication in Spring 2023. 

For more information please check the attached document.

C.9.1.Call_FinalDownload