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Half-day Symposium: “Blueprint for Decolonisation” – Asian Architects Association in collaboration with Architecture Foundation | Tuesday, March 30, from 14:00 to 17:00 (GMT)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The racialisation of space has its roots in colonial practices that sought to wield control over people perceived as ‘Other’. If the future of practice begins with education, how has the practice of ‘othering’ become absorbed into the structure of education?

Join us for a half-day symposium in collaboration with the recently established Asian Architects Association (AAA) exploring the steps towards a decolonised architectural education. Chaired by AAA co-founder Karl Mok, the discussion will seek to propose a blueprint for the future of architectural education, with panelists and students alike sharing their thoughts and experiences. Karl is joined by Dr Kamna Patel, Associate Professor at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, Ming Cheng, tutor at the London School of Architecture, Sanaa Shaikh, tutor at Oxford Brookes and director of Native Studio, Khensani de Klerk, founder of Matri-Archi(tecture) and researcher at Cambridge, and Shumi Bose, Senior Lecturer at Central Saint Martins.

The symposium invites an open dialogue with those who have felt oppressed now or in the past by traditional architectural curriculm.

Asian Architects Association (AAA) is an emerging forum that promotes, examines and debates the work of asian architects. The AAA was founded by Sumita Singha, Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows, Ming Cheng, Vinesh Pomal and Karl Mok.

Architecture Foundation

For more information, please visit here.

Drawing Matter – Call for Entries: Writing Prize 2021 | Deadline: Midnight (BST) on Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The Drawing Matter Trust is pleased to announce the return of the Drawing Matter Writing Prize. The competition invites participants to carefully look at drawings and to consider what they reveal about the process of design, and the buildings or objects they represent.

We take the word ‘drawing’ to be as much a verb as a noun, and a shorthand for describing any process of design with a purpose – a building or an object – for which it is being made. The drawing itself may be something other than paper and pencil, a plan or section; it may encompass a sequence or series (such as a sketchbook), or a broad range of techniques, such as collage, photography, models, paintings and, of course, digital media.

Last year’s competition attracted a large number of thoughtful texts by participants based all over the world. Read the prize-winning entries here.

The 2021 Competition

This year, the competition is divided into two categories: Autograph and Archive. Participants are invited to enter either or both categories and should submit one text of up to 1500 words per category.

Category 1: Autograph

Autograph offers the opportunity for writers to reflect on a drawing – or drawings – that they have made themselves. The focus of the text might be on the author’s use of particular techniques and materials (analogue, digital, or anything in-between), or a drawing type or representational mode that they have developed personally and has become a key part of their design process.

For examples of texts by architects and designers on their own drawing practices, explore On their Own Work.

Category 2: Archive

This category asks for texts on contemporary and historical drawings held in the Drawing Matter collection and other drawings collections and archives. In these essays participants should focus on the objects themselves and their meaning, balancing considerations of the process of making drawings, context, and the relationships between drawings and buildings – both built and unbuilt.  

For access to the Drawing Matter collection catalogue, register here.

Prizes

Each category has a ‘general award’ and ‘student award’ sub-category. Participants should indicate on their entry form which award they are entering. Entrants to the student prize will be either currently studying an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. PhD research students should enter the general award.

Autograph (General) Prize: £1000
Autograph (Student) Prize: £1000
Archive (General) Prize: £1000
Archive (Student) Prize: £1000

The competition winners, and other participants with outstanding entries, will be invited to publish their texts on Drawing Matter’s website.

Judges

Prof. Adrian Forty and Prof. Briony Fer will be judging the 2021 competition, with support from the Drawing Matter editorial team. We are pleased to be working with two very distinguished scholars whose own writing and interests overlap so closely with our own.

Entry

The Writing Prize competition is open to anyone aged over 18, with or without a background in architecture or design. We welcome a broad range of approaches towards writing, and voices from art and architectural history, the sciences and humanities, alongside practitioners – architects, designers, artists and writers.

Download entry form and instructions

Deadline for entries: Midnight (BST) on Tuesday 1 June 2021.
We hope to announce the winners on Saturday 17 July at the Drawing Matter Archive in Somerset.

Please direct any questions to competitions@drawingmatter.org.

RIBA Part 1 and Part 2 Bursaries open for applications | Deadline: Friday, May 28, 5PM GMT

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The eligibility criteria:

RIBA Part 1 Bursary

To be eligible to apply for a RIBA Part 1 Bursary, students must currently be enrolled in the first year of a RIBA Part 1 course in the UK. Recipients of these bursaries will receive a maximum of £6,000 distributed in £1,000 termly instalments throughout the second and third years of study. Successful part-time applicants will receive the same maximum amount in payments proportionate to the length of studies.

RIBA Part 2 Bursary

To be eligible to apply for a RIBA Part 2 Bursary, students must be in the process of applying for a RIBA Part 2 course in the UK beginning in September 2021. Proof of enrolment will be required before the bursary is paid to successful applicants. 

Recipients of these bursaries will receive a maximum of £6,000 distributed in £1,000 termly instalments throughout the course of the Part 2. Successful part-time applicants will receive the same maximum amount in payments proportionate to the length of studies.

The deadline to apply (for both bursaries) is 5pm on Friday 28 May 2021.

For more information on how to apply please visit here.

Architecture History + Theory Lecture Series: “Papered Spaces: Writing Cultures, Clerks and Provincial Office Architecture in Colonial India” by Tania Sengupta, Thursday, March 25 at 18:30 GMT

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 25th of March at 6.30pm GMT

Link: Click Here to Join

ALL WELCOME!

This talk is about a spatial and experiential world of paper records, files, textual cultures, bureaucracies, officers and clerks. I look at ordinary buildings of British colonial everyday governance in interior areas of India in the nineteenth century. Colonial governance in India was based on global technologies of writing produced by European mercantile capitalism, as well as on the transformation – into paper-forms – of the embodied administrative knowledge held by extant Indian (Mughal) officials. I reflect here on how the material logic of paper and paperwork profoundly shaped and permeated the spaces of the colonial office (cutcherry). I also think about their connection with wider geographies of (colonial) Indian paper and ink economy, as well as how various immaterial processes and information networks in fact subverted colonial paper rule and worked through alternative spatialities.

Dr Tania Sengupta

Decolonising Performative Architecture Seminar Series: “Sustainable Architecture in the Digital Era” Hanaa Dahy, BioMat, ITKE, University of Stuttgart, Tuesday, March 16, 2.00pm GMT | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 16th of March at 2.00pm GMT

Blackboard link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/a1f67e76494344a3ba9b0a002be29c38 

The seminar is organised by Paolo Cascone, Yota Adilenidou and Maddalena Laddaga in the frame of Architecture and Environmental Design DS3A “Decolonising Performative Architecture” seminar series.

Hanaa Dahy is a registered architect, engineer and material developer who established in the frame of her professorship the research department BioMat (Bio-based Materials and Materials Cycles in Architecture) as a Junior Professor at ITKE (Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design) since July 2016 at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning in the University of Stuttgart. She earned her PHD from ITKE in Stuttgart in 2014 with Excellence and earned her Bachelors and Master Degree in ‘Architectural Engineering’ in 2003, 2006 respectively from Ain Shams University in Cairo with Honors. Hanaa developed, designed and manufactured a number of innovative sustainable building products that were widely presented in international exhibitions and attracted a lot of industrial interests. Among other research areas, she is particularly interested in biomimetic principles, sustainability and their impact on architectural practice and applications. She has pending European and international patents, earned the best of Materials and Design award (Materialica) in Munich in 2015 and the Material Prize award (MaterialPreis) in 2016 from the Design Center of the state Baden-Württemberg in Germany, a fellowship for the innovation of university-teaching in 2017, a number of research/industrial project funds and is a member of a number of European and international scientific and professional bodies. Her teaching and training are in the area of architectural design, composites, structure and materials, smart systems, fabrication and biomimetics 

Decolonising Performative Architecture Seminar Series: “Italian Pavillion 2021: Exaptation and Serendipity” Alessandro Melis , University of Portsmouth, Curator of the Italian Pavilion – Venice Biennale 2020/21, Monday, March 15, 2.00pm GMT | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Monday, 15th of March at 2.00pm GMT

Blackboard link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/0c1eb0958d304a78a4b51396245b91fd 

The seminar is organised by Paolo Cascone, Yota Adilenidou and Maddalena Laddaga in the frame of Architecture and Environmental Design DS3A “Decolonising Performative Architecture” seminar series.

Dr. Alessandro Melis RIBA ARB AOU, is a full professor of architecture innovation at the University of Portsmouth and the Director of the Cluster for Sustainable Cities in the UK. In 2019, he was appointed by the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage (MIBAC) as the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Biennale of Architecture in Venice 2021, and in 2020 Ambassador of Italian Design on behalf of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Previously, at the University of Auckland, he was the head of the technology area and director of postgraduate engagement at the School of Architecture and Planning. In the period 2010-2013 he has been the Director of Urban City Lab at the Institute of Architecture of the university of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte, Vienna) and visiting professor at the Foster Foundation, and in Germany (Anhalt University, Dessau). He holds a PhD in architecture design from the University of Florence. He has been an honorary fellow at the Edinburgh School of Architecture. He has also been invited as a to speak at the China Academy of Art, the University of Cambridge, the MoMA New York, TED, the Italian Institute of Culture in London, and the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. He is a visiting critic at UCL Bartlett, Architectural Association London, SCI-Arc Los Angeles, RMIT Melbourne, TU Berlin, Florida International University, and New York Institute of Technology. In 1996, he founded Heliopolis 21, a multi-awarded architecture practice based in Italy, Germany, and the UK. The SR1939 Institute of the University of Pisa, the Stella Maris Hospital, and the Auditorium of Sant’Anna, inaugurated by the president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, are acknowledged both in scholar publications and in popular magazines as examples of excellence in sustainable design. The recognition of Alessandro’s research is corroborated by a record of over 150 scientific publications and by as many citations, including in popular periodicals such as Wired, the New York Times, the Independent, Reuters, and the Conversation. His work was the object of several exhibitions and of a recent monograph (Rome, 2020) edited by Giuseppe Fallacara Chirico, titled “Alessandro Melis, Utopic Real World.” 

Decolonising Performative Architecture Seminar Series: “Earthen Towers” Stephanie Chaltiel , MuDD Architects, Tuesday, March 9, 2.30pm GMT | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 9th of March at 2.30pm GMT

Blackboard link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/a1f67e76494344a3ba9b0a002be29c38

The seminar is organised by Paolo Cascone, Yota Adilenidou and Maddalena Laddaga in the frame of Architecture and Environmental Design DS3A “Decolonising Performative Architecture” seminar series.

Stephanie Chaltiel is a French architect and interior designer working with innovative techniques and natural materials offering unique designs for each project. She began her career in Mexico and French Guyana building by hand with local dwellers houses. After working for Bernard Tschumi in New York, OMA and Zaha Hadid she started her own practice. Her award winning projects marrying cutting edge technology and raw materials (ACADIA, MIT 2017, part of the ICON Design 100 talents 2019 and Dezeen Awards Winners Highly commended mention) has been presented and exhibited worldwide. She taught at SUTD Singapore, Westminster London, AA London, Ravensbourne London, and at the architectural school of Brighton and more recently at Elisava Barcelona. She was also during 4 years an EU Marie Curie scholarship recipient when she developed the drone spray technology for sustainable architecture and refurbishments. She’s a partner at www.muddarchitects.com .

Decolonising Performative Architecture Seminar Series: “Think Global, Act Local” Farzana Gandhi, New York Institute of Technology – School of Architecture and Design, Monday, March 8, 2pm GMT | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Monday, 8th of March at 2pm GMT

Blackboard link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/0c1eb0958d304a78a4b51396245b91fd

The seminar is organised by Paolo Cascone, Yota Adilenidou and Maddalena Laddaga in the frame of Architecture and Environmental Design DS3A “Decolonising Performative Architecture” seminar series.

Farzana Gandhi is Registered Architect in New York and a LEED Accredited Professional. Her architecture and planning practice, Farzana Gandhi Design Studio, focuses on sustainable and socially conscious solutions, both locally and abroad. Recent work includes a primary school in Senegal, Africa; community visioning and streetscape design in East Harlem, NY; resiliency strategies and NYCHA campus connectivity in Inwood, NY; and replicable, modular infrastructure for Puerto Rico. Farzana is most interested in how widespread social impact can be achieved at the intersection of architecture and its environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic framework. Her deep commitment to community outreach is driven by deep inquiry, investigation, and integration. Early this year, Farzana also cofounded Collective Infrastructures, a multidisciplinary design lab confronting complex societal challenges with unique comprehensive response. To build a community based on social and environmental resiliency, the team creatively coordinates a rethinking of social, economic, cultural, environmental, educational, medical, and technological infrastructures in disaster hit and/ or disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Farzana frequently lectures about her work, which has been recognised globally through publications, exhibitions, awards and honours. Farzana is also tenured Associate Professor of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology, where she teaches across the design studio and visualisation sequence and pursues multidisciplinary design research focused on social impact design. Farazana earned a Master in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. At the University of Pennsylvania, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish with Distinction. 

Principal, Farzana Gandhi Design Studio |  www.farzanagandhi.com Associate Professor of Architecture, New York Institute of Technology 

T R A J E C T O R I E S Talk Series: “Craft: From Sketch to Building” with Alice Hardy and Yannick Guillén, Thursday, March 4, 18:00 GMT | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 4th of March at 6pm GMT

Join via Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZmI1MzhkYTAtYTA3Zi00MDdkLTg0M2ItNDRmYzdiMWE4ODdi%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22bb3c97ff-11b5-4b37-92cf-1897b2d8766b%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%220ca04870-4816-4cbc-81f3-221d818f2d11%22%7d 

T R A J E C T O R I E S  TALK SERIES | THURSDAYS from 6PM GMT

A new series of talks inviting architecture graduates to reflect on their time as students and their exciting next steps. Each week two speakers will explore personal creative aspirations, ideas and agendas, and present the somewhat unexpected trajectories of their early careers. Looking forward to seeing you all there! 

This Thursday Alice Hardy and Yannick Guillén will speak about projects on site. They will share stories of getting bespoke buildings off the ground to ideas of shaping the public realm. Hopefully inspiring for your current design projects and the ideas materiality and types of spaces that you are exploring! Please come and bring friends along. 

Alice worked at Jan Kattein Architects for two years and will continue to do so through her practice placement. Through JKA she developed her interests in making and self-build projects. She has just completed a self-build project where she worked as a full time Site Manager. Alice has been involved in a number of independent self-built projects such as festival installations and pavilions and a competition with Raumlabor in Munich. 

Yannick has worked for Crossboundaries Architects in Beijing, Sauerbruch Hutton in Berlin and Herzog de Meuron in Basel. In 2015 he started working for Witherford Watson Mann Architects in London, where he was architect on the Stirling Prize nominated Nevill Holt Opera, a complex adaptation of a 16th century stable block into a state-of-the-art opera theatre. In 2019 he set up Guillén Esteras Architects and has since worked on a number of architecture projects of various types and scales, including a feasibility for a hospital campus in Lagos, Nigeria, a competition for a public library in Madrid and a single-family home in Wales. 

Decolonising Performative Architecture Seminar Series: “Six strategies for a more participatory architecture” Giancarlo Mazzanti, El Equipo Mazzanti, UCL, Thursday, February 25, 3pm GMT | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 25th of February at 3pm GMT

Blackboard link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/0c1eb0958d304a78a4b51396245b91fd

The seminar is organised by Paolo Cascone, Yota Adilenidou and Maddalena Laddaga in the frame of Architecture and Environmental Design DS3A “Decolonising Performative Architecture” seminar series.

Giancarlo Mazzanti is the founder of El Equipo Mazzanti, social values are at the center of Mazzanti’s architecture. He seeks to realize projects that give value to social transformations and build communities, and has dedicated his professional life to improve quality of life through the design of the environment and the idea of social equality. His work has become a reflection of the current social changes occurring in Latin America and Colombia, showing that good architecture manages to build new identities for cities, towns, and inhabitants, and transcend reputations of crime and poverty.  

Amongst some of his most relevant projects are the International Convention Center, Biblioteca España, and the South American Games Coliseums, all in Medellín, Colombia. Works in other areas of Colombia include the Tercer Milenio Park, El Porvenir Kindergarten in Bogota, Timayu Kindergarten in Santa Marta, Pies Descalzos School in Cartagena, and Marinilla Educational Park. Mazzanti graduated from Javeriana University in Colombia, with postgraduate studies in industrial design and architecture in Florence, Italy. He has experience as a visiting professor in Colombian universities, as well as in world-renowned universities such as Harvard University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. He is also the first Colombian architect to have his works in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in the Centre Pompidou in Paris.