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Call for Papers: DMJournal – Architecture and Representation | Deadline: Monday, November 22, 2021

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

DMJournal–Architecture and Representation is a new publication dedicated to the exploration of practices, histories and material cultures of drawing in architecture and related fields. Initiated by Drawing Matter in collaboration with the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), it builds upon the kind of wide-ranging inquiry into architecture’s graphic forms evident in the rich array of texts that has accumulated over recent years on the Drawing Matter website. This is a resource that now attracts some 15,000 readers each month, from a broad range of disciplines. DMJournal will extend this content by providing a complementary publishing platform that is peer-reviewed and able to host full-length articles. It will promote scholarship that is rigorous, engaging and supple, and that approaches drawing as an expansive and vital area of cultural production.

  1. About
  2. Call for Papers 2021/22
    Architecture and the Geological Imagination (Guest Editor: Kurt Forster)
    Drawing Instruments: Instrumental Drawings (Guest Editor: Paul Emmons)
  3. Submission Process
  4. Issues
  5. Editorial & Advisory Committees

Join the Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce (ArCCAT)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce (ArCCAT) was formed in May 2021. It comprises staff and students from the School of Architecture + Cities, the Westminster Business School and members of the University Estates team committed to meeting climate, biodiversity and planetary
system challenges. Over the next three years it aims to:

  • develop short, medium and long term strategies for the school to address the climate crisis
  • build collaborative relations between staff and students to collectively develop a more climate, biodiverse and planetary conscious curriculum
  • establish links between disciplines in the school around climate change
  • raise levels of climate change literacy in the school
  • promote climate conscious practice

ArCCAT comprises four working groups – Strategic Planning, Curriculum Change, Climate Conscious Practice and Events, Campaigns and Communications and works collaboratively with student societies – Westminster Environment Society, Westminster Architecture Society and WestCAN.

In the autumn semester of 2021 ArCCAT activities and events will include:

  • A student competition for the design of an ArCCAT logo (see below)
  • Climate Action Week (25-29 October), part of a month-long series of special events on sustainability across the university to coincide with the start of COP 26 in Glasgow
  • The launch of a Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Dispose Campaign in partnership with the Fabrication Lab and the Marylebone Estates Team
  • An exhibition on the Learning Platform as part of Climate Action Week
  • A student competition for the design of a material reuse station for the studios

To join ArCCAT contact Lindsay Bremner at L.Bremner@westminster.ac.uk , or through Westminster Environment Society, Westminster Architecture Society or WestCAN.

MArch DS15 graduate Michelle Barratt’s painting selected for this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Huge congratulations to Michelle Barratt, a DS15 graduate from 2020 whose painting Room was selected to be featured in this year’s Royal Academy Summer Show. The painting was a part of Barratt’s MArch project Technical College, Barking.

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021 features over 1, 000 works selected by the coordinator Yinka Shonibare and a panel of artists under the theme of ‘Reclaiming Magic’.

The exhibitions will be open from the 22nd of September 2021 to the 2nd of January 2022.

Open Call | Architecture LGBT+ presents: DESIGNING ‘OUT’ | Deadline for submissions – Monday, August 16, 2021

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Architecture LGBT+ are launching an OPEN CALL for an exhibition of talent from beyond professional practice to be exhibited at the Roca London Gallery for the month of September. The exhibition will be part of the Open House festival, London Design Festival and within the Pride In London month. Alongside the opportunity to be part of the physical exhibition, selected participants will be invited as guests onto our upcoming podcast and featured on our website. All work submitted to the Open Call will be presented in an online showcase that chronicles LGBTQIA+ voices emerging across the built environment. A panel of judges (listed below) will make a selection of submitted work to be part of the physical exhibition at Roca London Gallery and all those that submit will be invited to an exhibition opening event at the gallery. We hope this will be a great opportunity to show off the remarkable talent in our community and a chance to come together and reflect on the importance of LGBTQIA+ perspectives in architecture; especially given all those that have missed out on the opportunity to show their work physically over the past two years as a result of lockdown restrictions.  

We are looking for work across architectural academia from Undergraduates, Postgraduates, PhD candidates, Tutors and independent researchers who identify as LGBTQIA+ or community allies who have created work pertaining to the wider Queer community.

To be eligible you must meet the following criteria:

  1. The project must be concerning the fields of architecture and the built environment and must have been created outside of professional practice.
  2. If produced at Undergraduate or Postgraduate level priority will be given to academic year 2019/2020 and 2020/2021, projects from outside of these years will be judged on their merit.
  3. If produced at PhD level, by an Independent researcher or by an academic tutor it must be from the past ten years or an ongoing project.
  4. Those applying must identify as LGBTQIA+ (there is no requirement for the project to include LGBTQIA+ themes) or be an Ally who has created a project directly pertaining to the LGBTQIA+ community.

After checking your eligibility and collecting information about you and your project we will ask you to submit an A1 Portrait presentation board no larger than 15MB. The board must include your project title and your name. The presentation board will be used in the judging process and in the online showcase of all submissions. A selection of submitted projects will be made by a panel of judges for participation in the physical exhibition.

The Open Call for submissions will close on 16th August 2021, selected participants will be contacted from 19th August via email. 

OPEN 2021 – School of Architecture + Cities and Hamza Shaikh : ” Does university prepare you for practice?” | Online event | Friday, July 2, 2021 from 17:00 to 19:00 (BST)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Please join us on Friday, 2nd of July from 5pm to 7pm (BST), for the last in the series of events around our graduating students’ virtual degree show OPEN2021. We will host our last year’s graduate, Hamza Shaikh, the founder and the host of the Two Worlds Design podcast, and a maker at Make Architects.

Through recounting his architectural education journey, as well as the ways in which he explored and expanded his interests in relation to the architectural profession and beyond, Hamza will help us tackle the difficult, yet important and timely question: Does university prepare you for practice? 

The event will be streamed live on the School of Architecture + Cities’ YouTube channel and Hamza Shaikh’s Two Worlds Design YouTube channel.

5pm Introduction + short film

5.30 – 6.30pm Drawing and the evolving practice

6.30 – 7.00pm Audience Q&A

Hamza Shaikh Bio

Hamza Shaikh is currently a Part 2 Architectural Assistant and Partner at Make Architects, London. He is also the founder & host of the Two Worlds Design podcast series which explores the hidden potential of Architecture by speaking with leading practitioners both within and outside of the field. In 2020 he co-founded the MAD Collective (@the_madcollective),which held multiple symposia to highlight broad issues within the field of architecture and university. He also shares experimental drawing techniques on his popular Instagram page @hamzashaikh.design. More broadly, he shares architectural guidance on his fast-growing YouTube Channel, and he has been described as an ‘Architectural Influencer’ on social media.

Recording of the “How will we live together? Westminster at the Venice Biennale” event is now available online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Recording of the online event that celebrates University of Westminster‘s work exhibited at the prestigious 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale (22nd May-21st Nov), which took place on the 9th of June 2021, is now available for viewing here.

Academics based within the College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries have co-produced three different installations to respond to the theme: How will we live together?

At the event, we hear more about the ideas underpinning each piece of work, and – given the fundamental themes they address – discuss how architecture and practice based research can help us to better understand the world’s most pressing challenges.

Following an introduction to the three installations, Ifor Duncan, an academic based at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, responds to the work. These contributions are followed by a panel discussion and questions from the audience.

More details about the installations and the academics involved are provided below.

Monsoon Assemblages (led by Lindsay Bremner) and Office of Experiments (led by Neal White) have created an immersive installation that challenges and redefines ideas of border, scale and agency. It draws on climate data and field work to convey how climate change and the Anthropocene are resulting in increasing monsoon volatility, shorter rainy seasons and more frequent extreme weather events. The installation investigates these events through the flight of the Globe Skimmer dragonfly that follows the monsoon from east Africa to southeast Asia and back again. Video footage of the dragonfly collected during field work is projected into the exhibition space highlighting the vulnerability of the dragonfly to shifting monsoonal dynamics.

In a collaboration with the V&A Museum, Shahed Saleem’s Pavilion looks at the self-built and often undocumented world of adapted mosques to explore contemporary multiculturalism in London. The work explores three different case studies that illuminate stories of immigration, identity, and community aspiration. The cases are the Brick Lane mosque, a former Protestant chapel then Synagogue; Old Kent Road mosque housed in a former pub; and Harrow Central mosque, a purpose-built space that sits next door to the converted terraced house it used to occupy. The Pavilion is partly carpeted, as in a mosque, and these stories are explored through 3D architectural reconstructions, filmed interviews and photographs.

The African Fabbers School video-installation project, curated by Paolo Cascone and Maddalena Laddaga, proposes an innovative research by practice agenda for the next generation of European and African architects. The African Fabbers School [AFS] is an itinerant laboratory of ecological design and self-construction for community-oriented projects between Europe and Africa. This ecosystem of site-specific projects has structured an abacus of paradigmatic design to build modus operandi based on a learning by doing methodology. Thanks to the interaction between people from different backgrounds (including African artisans, local communities, European students) the [AFS] investigates the relationships between traditional knowledges, advanced design processes and digital manufacturing.

Respondent

Ifor Duncan is a Post-doctoral fellow in Environmental Humanities at the Center for the Humanities and Social Change, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He is a writer and inter-disciplinary researcher, with a PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths. His research concerns the relationships between political violence and watery spaces and materialities. Previously Ifor taught at the CRA and in the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art.

SA+C & LFA: Thinking, Practising, Listening; Exploring Inclusion in Architecture | Monday, June 21, 2021 from 9:30 to 13:00 (BST)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

This online symposium will focus on the importance to architectural practice and research of listening. To listen effectively is not just to hear: it means actively seeking perspectives from those people in society whose voices are often the least audible. In exploring a wide range of voices in architectural practice, theory and history, the symposium intersects with the themes of decolonisation and inclusion, which are embedded in the teaching and research culture of the University of Westminster.

The symposium will also focus on the role of universities in developing and promoting the practice of listening and will feature workshops and lightning presentations from students that explore reciprocal dialogue between teachers and learners within architectural education.

The keynote lecture will be delivered by Dr Huda Tayob, Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on migrant, minor and subaltern architectures, the politics of invisibility in space, and the potential of literature to respond to archival silences. She is co-curator of the open access curriculum Racespacearchitecture.org and the digital podcast series and exhibition Archive of Forgetfulness (archiveofforgetfulness.com).

Huda will be speaking on Transnational Architectures of Care, through her research on Somali malls in South Africa and the US.

09:30 Introduction and opening

Kate Jordan & Shahed Saleem

9.45 Session 1

Jane Tankard & Design Studio 3.1

A collaborative visual and verbal presentation emerging out of conversations with students over 7 years. The meetings were structured around speaking and listening to thoughts on pedagogy, studio, reciprocity and notions of home.

Christine Wall

How are architectural histories silenced? This question is explored with reference to two ongoing studies, one a 1970s architectural collaborative in London, and the other the Little Aden Cantonment, the 1960s extension of British colonial military accommodation which became the largest fully modular project in the world.

Tumpa Husna Fellows

Through her practice based research, Tumpa asks how can architecture amplify the voices of underrepresented communities to enable spatial justice and create social value in places, buildings and neighbourhoods? How can designing inclusive spaces help us respond to the climate injustice?

5 min break

11.15 Session 2

Maria Kramer

Leyton Community Hub; a description of the ongoing process of negotiating the complex mix of stakeholders in this project, from student engagement, public consultations & council requirements. How are these various needs and aspirations understood and managed through processes of listening and engaging?

Davide Deriu

‘Beautiful idea; beautiful building; beautiful materials…but I have problems with vertigo.’

Do practising architects listen to prospective users? How can different perceptions and experiences of space be accounted for? Drawing on his ongoing research on architecture and vertigo, this presentation shall discuss how embodied subjectivities are often neglected in the design process.

Through selected examples, this presentation will situate the issue of vertigo in relation to a broad understanding of spatial experience, and argue that a more inclusive approach might be developed through listening and care.

Elantha Evans & Design Studio 11

An introduction to an experimental research session to re-frame design studios with the empathic imagination in mind.

5 min break

12.15 Session 3

Introduction by Samir Pandya, Assistant Head, School of Architecture + Cities

Keynote

Huda Tayob, University of Cape Town

Transnational Architectures of Care

Conversation

Click here to register for the event via Eventbrite

Congratulations to our MArch DS12 tutor Peter Barber on being awarded an OBE for services to architecture!

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Massive congratulations to architect and our MArch DS12 tutor Peter Barber who was awarded an OBE for his services to architecture.

He is in great company of architects named in Queen’s Birthday Honours, which include Steve Tompkins of RIBA Stirling Prize-winning Haworth Tompkins, author, academic and architect Sumita Singha, and Peter Murray, curator-in-chief at New London Architecture.

Read more here.

Featured image: Architects’ Journal

London Festival of Architecture | Hackney Wick: Free Spaces in Desirable Places | Tuesday, June 15, 19:00-20:30 (BST)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Hackney Wick is changing fast. Is it ‘the new Shoreditch’? What does that mean and why should we care? Who controls the story as the post-Olympic new-builds radically change the face of what was once the biggest artist colony in Europe? Where does its industrial past fit in? Is the culture and heritage of this unique location valued, or instrumentalised to drive property development? Why might we all have an interest in how this pans out?

As we emerge from a period of intense isolation, what is the role of cultural and informal spaces in our re-socialisation process and what’s its place in the new Hackney Wick? Why do these liminal areas matter and why are they disappearing?

Writer/guide Simon Cole (Hackney Tours) has been documenting the changes for a decade and been involved with local community activism. Echoing Anna Minton, he asks us to consider who the new ‘quarter’ is for? The past is uncertain, so what’s its future here?

Maja Jović is a lecturer in Architecture & Cities at Westminster University who looks at places of conflict and explores how we construct placemaking and memorial narratives. She juxtaposes the built environment with notions of national identity to explore their connection with elements like branding and power dynamics.

Together yet apart, they will lead a socially distanced group walk/conversation, drawing on pre-recorded content that will be sent to attendees ahead of the event. Bring your curiosity, an open mind – and your own thoughts.

After this one-hour walking conversation (all wheelchair accessible) we will then sit down for a 30 minute discussion (location TBC, Covid-dependent) where you will be invited to reflect on what we’ve seen and heard, or just to listen to the debate. To care, we have to be able to appreciate just why these spaces matter so much.

To book tickets and for more details please go here.