Blog – Page 32 – Open Studio Westminster

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 March 7, 2021 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 March 4, 2021 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 February 23, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

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

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

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.

T R A J E C T O R I E S Talk Series: “Community” with Cassie Li and Robert Newcombe, Thursday, February 23, 18:00 GMT | Online

Posted on February 23, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 23rd of February at 6pm GMT

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

Cassie studied her Part 1 at the University of Westminster with a semester abroad at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Whilst studying her BA, she worked with the architectural group CAUKIN Studio on designing and building community projects in Fiji as both a participant and project leader, where she gained hands-on experience in local timber construction. After graduating Cassie went on to work at dRMM Architects for a year before joining CAUKIN Studio full-time in January 2021. She is now working on developing international humanitarian projects as well as UK-based projects with a focus on social impact.

Robert completed his MArch and BSc Architecture degrees in the Bartlett School of Architecture, which culminated in designing spatial interfaces for inclusive participatory processes, to facilitate meaningful community-led design outcomes. During his studies and after having graduated Robert co-directs the Aldea Foundation in Chile, working with an interdisciplinary team to design architectural and public space interventions, organise public city-wide architecture festivals and run educational workshops for young people.

Decolonising Performative Architecture Seminar Series: “Architecture for Automation” Mollie Claypool from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Tuesday, February 23, 2pm GMT | Online

Posted on February 23, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 23rd of February at 2pm GMT

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

Mollie Claypool is an architecture theorist working on issues of social justice including the future of housing, labour and work. She is concerned with the social and economic implications of new technologies and automation on architectural production and disciplinary practices. She is Director of Automated Architecture Ltd (AUAR), a design and technology consultancy and Co-Director of AUAR Labs at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL where she has been a Lecturer since 2015. Mollie is co-author of Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation (Detail Edition 2019) and author of the SPACE10 report “The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now and in the Future” (2019).

T R A J E C T O R I E S Talk Series: “Circularity” with Sharil Bin Tengku Abdul Kadir and Robert Beeny, Thursday, February 18, 18:00 GMT

Posted on February 16, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 18th of February at 6pm GMT

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

Sharil recently graduated from The Bartlett School of Architecture, where he conducted research on rethinking sustainable and collective methods of design. His graduate project, “One Tree Manual”, was awarded the RIBA 2020 Bronze medal as well as the AJ Student’s Sustainability Prize. He is currently working as a Part 1 Architectural Assistant at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in London.

Rob is a Part II Architectural Assistant working for Piercy & Co in London. He completed his BA at the University of Liverpool and then studied for his MArch at the University of Westminster. Graduating in 2020, Rob won the RIBA Silver Medal for his project “Devil’s Valley Geothermal Co-operative”.

BSc Architectural Technology students collaborate with Southwark Council’s Regeneration team to empower communities and address social and environmental issues in Peckham, London

Posted on February 16, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

Tumpa Fellows, Senior Lecturer of Architecture at the University of Westminster and a Southwark Council Design Review panel member, organised a collaboration between Southwark Council’s Regeneration team and students on the Architectural Technology BSc Honours course, where they are exploring the area of Peckham through various methods of community engagement, a process which ensures that communities in Peckham that will be affected by any developments have a voice in the process and can input their opinions and ideas.
Peckham is known for being a very multicultural area, with over 70% of the population being Black or Asian, leading the students’ research to focus on underrepresented demographics in the area. In the context of racial and social inequality and climate injustice, they have been exploring research questions such as: what are the effects of gentrification in the area? In the context of health inequality, how are the communities suffering disproportionately from the coronavirus pandemic? And, how is the burden of environmental crisis disproportionately affecting the low-income communities living in high risk areas?
The students’ projects propose design interventions that respond to the communities’ needs at key civic spaces in Peckham town centre, such as Peckham Rye Station and Peckham Square, with initial research and design briefs also focusing on investigating urban infrastructures that aim to coexist with the natural and built environment.
The students’ findings from their community engagement work in Peckham has been translated to visually represent the research with architectural mapping drawings. They have also produced short films about Peckham and the current issues that communities in the area are facing during the pandemic.
University of Westminster News

Joint online lecture by Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows and Paolo Cascone, Tuesday, February 16 from 3.30pm GMT

Posted on February 16, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 16th of February at 3.30pm GMT

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

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

Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows is a Senior Lecturer and a Course Leader for BSc Architectural Technology (Year 2) at the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster. She’s an award winning British architect who co-founded the inter-disciplinary practice Our Building Design (in 2018), the charity Mannan Foundation Trust (in 2012), and the two organisations that promote and support architects from the ethnic minority in the UK: FAME Collective and Asian Architects Association. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster where her teaching draws on her research methodologies on interdisciplinary approach to design. Her practice-based research focuses on community participatory methods and architectural responses to the changing climate, landscape and social practices in the UK and Bangladesh. Tumpa was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Rising Star Award in 2017 and she has received a commendation for the RIBA President’s Award for Research in 2019. For her architectural work, she received the SEED/Pacific Rim Community Design Network Award 2018 and Architecture Sans Frontieres Award 2017 (commendation). In June 2019, Tumpa was appointed to be on the Design Review Panel for the Southwark Council Planning Department in an advisory role.

Paolo Cascone was born in Italy and grew up between West Indies and East Africa. He started his research between urban ecologies, digital fabrication and self-construction during his Master’s at the AA-School in London, and continued it while accomplishing a PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of Rome. Paolo has started to teach ecological design at ENSAP – Malaquais and ESA schools of architecture in Paris where he founded CODESIGNLAB. His work has been exhibited widely and published in international design magazines. Paolo is a scientific director of the African Fabbers School and a Senior Lecturer in Environmental and Architectural Design at the University of Westminster.

MORE 2020 Online Exhibition Launch and Webinar | Friday, January 22 at 17:00 GMT

Posted on January 15, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday 22 January 17:00 GMT

Where: More2020.net

The School of Architecture and Cities cordially invites you to attend the opening of our graduating students’ online degree show, MORE 2020, an online exhibition of the University of Westminster’s Master’s students thesis projects featuring work from Architecture MA, Interior Architecture MA, Architecture and Environmental Design MSc, Urban Design MA, International Planning and Sustainable Development MA and RIBA Part III.

The exhibition will launch with a webinar at 17:00 on Friday 22^nd January with contributions from participating courses staff and students, presentation of awards for work in the show and a live performance. A link to the webinar will be available on the MORE2020.net website from 17:00 on the day, and can also be accessed directly here

The degree show is part of the School of Architecture and Cities and the first online edition of its annual Exhibition of work, following on from the hugely successful OPEN 2020.

PLEASE SEE ATTACHED INVITATION FOR DETAILS AND TO REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE.

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

Archisource Drawing of the Year 2020 | Deadline: January 10, 2021

Posted on December 23, 2020March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

The aim of the competition is to celebrate the amazing talent of architecture and design students around the world through the drawings that they create.

For 2020 Archisource is collaborating with an exciting number of partners to provide a collection of prizes worth total £4,750 to be won across four categories including:

Drawing of the Year
Narrative Award
Architectural Award
Environmental Award

Get your best drawings ready and enter here!: https://archisource.org/

The competition is now open and entry closes 10th January!

The aim of the competition is not to create new works but to celebrate what has already been produced – unless you want to!

This year the partners are providing prizes worth £4,750 (triple the value of last year!!) The prizes include beautifully crafted physical awards designed by The New Raw, designer furniture by Case, an Innovator 16 Pen Display and an Artist Display 13.3 Pro (Holiday Edition!) graphics tablets by XP Pen, brand new ‘Rebelle 4’ software licenses, creative books by gestalten, a huge supply of art and design materials by London Graphic Centre, edding and Pink Pig, with designer bags by QWSTION to carry it all!

Archisource truly believes in the power of a drawing to communicate and represent more than what you see on the surface and are excited to judge an array of innovative and high quality works. The competition is in no way limited to architecture and Archisource very much welcomes those from other arts and design industries.