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LFA Digital Festival: Falling Away – a prelude, 01 June – 30 June

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

This event is organised by Dr Davide Deriu (School of Architecture + Cities) and Dr Michael Mazière (CREAM), under Ambika P3 as a London Festival of Architecture partner institution.

This online event is the prelude to an exhibition of Catherine Yass’s films at Ambika P3. The exhibition, titled Falling Away, showcases a selection of Yass’s vertiginous films of architectural structures from the past 20 years. Initially scheduled in the LFA 2020 ‘Power’ programme, it has been postponed to the summer of 2021. Seven films will be brought together for the most comprehensive show of Yass’s work to date. The buildings in her films are undergoing demolition or construction, some are falling into disrepair: as they crumble, so too do the powers behind them. The viewer is drawn into dizzying spaces as the camera is turned upside down, plunged into water, lowered from cranes, buried under falling rubble. The exhibition addresses our society’s ambivalent relationship with modernity and the material structures that give it form. By addressing urgent issues around architecture and the institutions it embodies, it will contribute to current debates about how built environments shape our lives. In anticipation of this Ambika P3 show, we present one of Yass’s films, Royal London (2018), together with an essay written for the upcoming exhibition catalogue by Christopher Kul-Want.

To view this event please visit here.

Featured image: Still from Royal London (2018). Copyrights: Catherine Yass.

VirtualOPEN 2020, launch on July 2, 6pm!

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Due to exceptional circumstances caused by COVID-19 and the impossibility of holding our annual OPEN exhibition in our Marylebone Studios, we will conclude this academic year by launching VirtualOPEN. This will be the first online annual Exhibition celebrating the work of the School of Architecture + Cities. It has been envisaged as a navigable online show in which visitors will be able to view the work of all our design studios and year groups, as well as interact with each other. 

VirtualOPEN will celebrate the amazingly innovative output that has been created this year under the most difficult of circumstances. It will promote the collective endeavour of our students, staff and support staff, and give us a positive and celebratory end to the academic year after all the gloom of recent months. VirtualOPEN will feature the energy and talent of more than 750 students, re-tuned to the possibilities of a virtual environment to produce something experimental, unexpected and exciting. 

We look forward to welcoming you all to the opening at 6pm, Thursday, July 2!

Details of how the show will work and how you can contribute can be found here.

University of Westminster Virtual Skills Academy from 1st to 12th of June [online]

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

From 1st to 12th June, the Careers and Employability Service is organising a series of informative and up-to-date online talks and workshops to help you to maintain your employability during the current time. 

Topics will include: 

  • how to make the most of free online development opportunities
  • how to use LinkedIn effectively
  • job search
  • virtual assessment processes

and many more!

You will need to register for individual sessions in advance, and follow the instructions in able to participate online:

https://engage.westminster.ac.uk/students/events/Detail/653220/virtual-skills-academy-1-12-ju

Performance Architecture Online Summer School 2020, from 20/06 to 11/07

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

3-hour classes every Saturday from 10:00 to 13:00 (BST)

4 weeks in total

Independent pop-in participations are also welcomed.

Run by StudioSyn, VIPA and RIPS

Apply NOW

FREE WEBINAR with Q&A

Sat 23/05 at 10:00am – 10:45am (BST)

Register Now! for a small taster of the course

Discover the interconnections of architecture

Performance Architecture Online Summer School is an exciting learning journey designed to inspire, broaden and challenge the possibilities of spatial representation and design. Architecture is combined with other disciplines including art, cinematography and performance. 

Architecture is a dynamic discipline

The course is applying the toolbox of performance in architectural thinking, towards the production of spatial actions and bodily geometries in space. It is taught by a team of London-based interdisciplinary and international architects and artists including Ursula Dimitriou (StudioSyn), Aliki Kylika (VIPA) and Eliza Soroga (RIPS).

Play with the city; be curious, be caring, be resourceful

This is an incredible opportunity for students / professionals who want to learn new skills, extend their thinking, emerge to an urban cultural landscape, be part of an interdisciplinary and international team, and diversify their project portfolios.

MORE INFORMATION

HomeTown international drawing challenge by Archisource

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

HomeTown is a new stay-home international drawing challenge!

A free, open-to-all, collective drawing challenge that aims to create a giant tessellated isometric drawing from creatives around the world!

Draw your insight into staying at home during lockdown and join this international collaboration!

The challenge aims to show how we can remain connected in these unprecedented times and that whilst we’re all ‘only a room away’, regardless of the country or distance apart, we are united by creativity.
Using the template provided, we want you to get creative and show us something about your experience working from/ staying home. Archisource will then piece the individual drawings together live on their website archisource.org to collectively build HomeTown.

Website: https://archisource.org/

Instagram:@archisource

AHRA 2020: “Housing and the City” Conference _ Deadline for Abstracts: June 30, 2020

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

AHRA 2020 Housing and the City conference online only. Information on fees and registration will be communicated at the end of the month. 

17th Annual International Conference of the Architectural Humanities Research Association

Hosted by the Architecture, Culture and Tectonics Research Group, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham 

Given the changes to our lives brought about by the current Covid19 pandemic, we are sending a short additional call for papers for this year’s AHRA International Conference, Housing and the City, as follows:

Housing and the City After the Pandemic 

The primary question asked by the original AHRA 2020 conference call was this: what does it mean to be at home in the city in the twenty-first century? As the world continues to fight the rapid spread of Covid19, we might not yet be in a position to substantively rethink this question, let alone to predict a new urban reality of segregation and containment. However, we invite you to reflect and speculate on how the effects of the pandemic will shape our lives, how it challenges our conception of the home and the city, and how it affects the complex relationships between the individual and the collective, the public and the private. We ask how it might affect the dynamism of the urban.

We invite contributions in the form of individual papers or roundtable discussions, as well as submissions in a range of media, for example film, artwork or photography, that reflect and speculate on how the pandemic will shape our urban lives into the future. 

Expressions of interest should take the form of an abstract of 300 words, be submitted via the conference website, by 30 June 2020. 

You should submit your abstract by visiting our EasyChair account here: 
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/conference/fac-eng/ahra-2020/index.aspx

Conference dates: 19, 20, 21 November 2020  (Virtual Conference)

Featured Image: © Atelier Z+& Ye Xu

SOS_20: A New 1 Month Critical Design Residency for London _ Deadline: midnight, Saturday, May 30, 2020

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

London’s newest FREE independent design residency SOS_20 is now open for applications!!!

SOS_20 runs 27th July – 21st August

SOS is a growing network of students, graduates, practitioners and academics that are committed to the pursuit of critical thinking in art, design and architecture. Established in 2018, SOS is a not-for-profit organisation set up to help kick-start careers for those looking for alternative career paths in art and design. Established for truly accessible collaboration in higher education, the residency encourages all backgrounds and disciplines to participate.

Hosted by some of London’s leading public institutions such as the Design Museum and South London Gallery, 20 participants will join a 4 week long programme of lectures, workshops, public exhibition and tutoring geared to help develop projects in original creative thinking. SOS is proud to announce that there is a £0 fee this year thanks to the continued support of its sponsors as well as Arts Council England.

This year we are joined by author of Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work economist Nick Srnicek, writer and author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family Sophie Lewis as well as artists Anna Bunting-Branch and Aliyah Hussain, with more tba.

Download the application form: https://schoolofspeculation.xyz/Apply-Now 

Applications close Midnight Saturday 30th May!

The course is under continuous revision and adjustment due to the ongoing uncertainty relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. For now, the course retains its original physical format but is subject to remote substitutions as enforced by a continued UK lock-down.  

AMS Stephen Croad Essay Prize 2020_Deadline: Monday, June 29, 2020

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The Ancient Monuments Society (AMS) is pleased to announce that submissions are now invited for the 2020 Stephen Croad Essay Prize.

The Prize was established last year in honour of Stephen Croad, former Head of the National Buildings Record and a great supporter of the AMS. It is intended to encourage and reward factually verifiable, documented new discoveries on the historic buildings of England and Wales, whether part of the established canon or hitherto less examined.

Full details can be found here.

In 2019 the Prize was awarded to James Sims for his outstanding essay Lost in Time: John Outram’s warehousing at Poyle, which has been published in the AMS’s 2019 Transactions.

RIBA Student Support Fund for Spring/Summer 2020_Deadline: Monday, May 11 at 5pm

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The RIBA Student Support Fund is now open for applications for Spring/Summer 2020. The Fund welcomes applications from students of architecture enrolled in RIBA Part 1 and 2 courses in the UK who are experiencing financial hardship, and would benefit from financial support.

Students can apply for a maximum of £3,000.

The full details and application form can be found on our website here

The deadline for receipt of applications is 5pm Monday 11 May 2020.

Congratulations to Charlotte Penny, former MArch student in the SA+C, on receiving the “Highly Commended” IHBC Gus Astley Award for her MArch dissertation “Conservation Theory and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Manifesto: The Red House and the Contest between the Theoretical and Practical Nature of Conservation”

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Charlotte was mentored by Dr Kate Jordan, Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture + Cities.

Dr Kate Jordan, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Westminster, said: ‘Charlotte mined a variety of sources to produce a thought-provoking analysis of contemporary conservation practice and theory. Her work makes a valuable contribution to the scholarship of architectural heritage.’

Charlotte Penny said: ‘I am delighted to have received the ‘Highly Commended’ Gus Astley Student Award. I would like to sincerely thank the IHBC for the recognition and the opportunity to attend the Brighton School, as well as Dr Kate Jordan from the University of Westminster for her uplifting support and shared enthusiasm for my research.’

‘I very much enjoyed researching and writing my dissertation, in particular delving into archives and finding fascinating resources. The question of ‘the contest between the theoretical and practical nature of conservation’ was the subject of the dissertation, which centred on the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings’ Manifesto and more specifically with the ongoing conservation of the historic fabric at William Morris’ Red House.’

‘I learned that philosophy and practice appear to only touch the surface of conservation and as such, conservation cannot solely be considered as three dimensional; the fourth dimension of time must be taken into account. Many factors are involved in the consideration of conservation work and custodians have to balance a wide range of often conflicting constraints, whilst also acting as faithful guardians of the United Kingdom’s shared heritage.’

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