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James Phillips Travel Prize: Proposal Deadline 30th April 2018

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

James Phillips Travel Prize

Background

The James Phillips Foundation is a charity established in 2015 in memory of James Phillips who died, aged 27, on Sunday 27 September 2014.

James was a partner at Make Architects, and studied architecture at the University of Kingston. The day after he died would have been his first day on Westminster’s Part 3 course. His brother Daniel completed his Part 1 BA Architecture here, and is now studying on the MArch.

James cared about architecture, photography and travel, and for his MA ‘Common Ground: An analysis of public space on an International basis’ he travelled to 24 countries to document – and photograph – their most significant public spaces.

The Prize

In 2016 the James Phillips Foundation very generously set up a travel prize of £1000 per annum for a Westminster architecture student in memory of James.

The only conditions are that the prize money must be used to facilitate travel, and that the goal of that travel should be photographed and archived on the James Phillips Foundation web-site within 6 months of the award being made .

Applications & Judging

The prize is open to all students enrolled at the Department of Architecture at the time of application, although the travel can be undertaken after graduating. Students should make a proposal of maximum 300 words + images demonstrating:

  1. How the travel will enable investigation of: either a subject beyond the normal academic requirements of their course, or a specific study for their course that would otherwise be unaffordable (e.g. dissertation, extended essay, studio project).
  2. Why they have chosen a particular destination, or destinations, and what aspect of ‘common ground’ they plan to investigate – and how.
  3. A draft travel schedule (in addition to the 300 words)
  4. How they use photography to enhance their work

Proposals will be judged against the following criteria:

  1. To what extent the proposed travel research will document and enhance knowledge of some aspect of common ground or public space.
  2. Feasibility of the proposed travel
  3. Quality of the proposal

Timetable

Notification of Prize: Monday 26 March

Proposal deadline: Monday 30 April (beginning of term 3) submit to Department Administrator: architecture-admin@westminster.ac.uk

Announcement of Winner: Friday 15 June (OPEN Awards Evening)

Year 2 Detail Design Day Clinic

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Yesterday, as a part of their Detailed Design Study module, 2nd Year BA Architecture students had an opportunity to meet up with practicing architects and UOW staff to discuss their projects and detail design as required per their current brief.

The study is made up of the following 4 sections:

  • To draw/ sketch/ explore a Structural strategy for the building
  • To draw/ sketch/ explore an Environmental strategy for the building
  • Detail Explorations (detailed study of 3 Technical ‘Moments’ from the building envelope)
  • Physical Model (scale no larger than 1:1, no smaller than 1:20)

As a final outcome of the project, the students are invited to present a richly illustrated A3 Landscape Colour PDF Document with appropriate use of diagrams, 2D drawings, 3D drawings, sketches, photographs of the model, research, precedents and references.

The practitioners who came to work with the students during yesterday’s Detail Design Clinic were: Scott Batty Architect (UOW), Jeremy Young (Featherstone Young Architects), Wayne Head (Curl la Tourelle Head Architects), Theclalin Cheung (Curl la Tourelle Head Architects), Jim Potter (Waind Gohil + Potter), Elantha Evans Architect (UOW), Andrew Whiting (HUT), Sangkil Park (MAKE)

 

Call for Papers: International Journal of Islamic Architecture, Special Issue: “Field as Archive / Archive as Field”, Deadline 30th July 2018

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

This special issue of IJIA focuses on the experience of carrying out archival work or fieldwork in architectural research, including research-led practice. How might this experience, with all its contingencies and errancies, be made into the very stuff of the architectural histories, theories, criticisms and/or practices resulting from it?

This question is rendered all the timelier due to recent and ongoing developments across the globe, not least in the geographies relevant to IJIA’s remit. The fallout from the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has escalated social, political, and economic crises and, in certain cases like Libya and Syria, has taken an overtly violent turn. Major countries with a predominantly Muslim population, such as Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia, have witnessed restrictions on civil liberties. Moreover, the word ‘Islam’ has become embroiled in various restrictive measures introduced in countries whose successive administrations have otherwise laid claim to being bastions of democracy and freedom, such as emergency rule in France and travel bans in the US.

Others with significant Muslim populations, such as India and Russia, have seen nationalist and/or populist surges, often with significant implications for their minorities. Such developments have engendered numerous issues of a markedly architectural and urban character, including migration, refuge, and warfare, protest and surveillance, as well as heightening the risk of contingencies and errancies affecting archival work and fieldwork.

Whereas this risk and its materializations are typically considered unfortunate predicaments and written out of research outputs, how might a focus on architecture at this juncture help write them back into history, theory, criticism, and practice? What might this mean for the ways in which architectural research is conceived and carried out under seemingly ‘ordinary’ circumstances – those that appear free from the risk of contingencies and errancies affecting archival work and field work?

Deadline for submissions: 30th July 2018

For more information: https://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=204/view,page=2/

Call for Papers: Architecture and Culture “The AHRA Review of Books”, Deadline: 30th June 2018

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When Architecture & Culture, the Journal of the Architectural Humanities Research Association, was first launched in November 2013, the intention was to include book reviews. We have a designated editor for book reviews, and we have sporadically published essays that review books, when those essays concern the theme of a particular journal issue. What we have not done is to dedicate a regular section of the journal to book reviews, or to solicit new books from publishers (who send them, regardless).

Here, we broach the issue of book reviews by foregrounding the suggestion that to review is more than to formulate a critique of something, it is “to look at or to examine again … to look back upon” (Collins English Dictionary). Our interest is to re-view the book review, to study its different roles and explore its possibilities for architecture’s various modes of production, dissemination and reflection.

Deadline for submissions: 30th June 2018

For more information: http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/pgas/rfac-cfp-book-reviews

The Expanded Territories Reading Group: “Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet”, Tuesday 2nd May, M330, 17:30

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The Expanded Territories Research Group in the Department of Architecture has started a reading group, which will meet at 17.30 on the first Tuesday of every month in the Monsoon Assemblages Project Office, Room M330, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS.

We will read one agreed book or essay per month related to the anthropocene, more-than-human ontologies, climate change or any other topics the group puts forward, and discuss it in relation to architecture, landscape, art and design.

All are welcome – staff, students, friends, even if you are not a member of Expanded Territories or have done no prior reading in these areas. All we ask is that you read the book agreed each month!

The inaugural reading will be:

Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan and Nils Bubandt (eds.)
Introduced by Corinna Dean and Victoria Watson

When: Tuesday 2nd May 2018, 17.30

Where: Room M330, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

Accompanied by wine and nibbles

 

About Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet

Living on a damaged planet challenges who we are and where we live. As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies live-ability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene.

The book is available on Amazon or in other bookstores or downloadable chapter by chapter here: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/52400

BAIA: Lecture by Stepan Martinovsky, Heatherwick Studio, Monday 26th March, MG14, 18:00

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BA Interior Architecture presents a lecture by Project Leader Stepan Martinovsky on The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (the MOCAA project) by Heatherwick Studio.

When: Monday, 26th March, 6pm

Where: Room MG14, Marylebone Campus

Detail Design Clinic: Monday 26th March, All Day, M416

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Detail Design Clinic offered to 2nd Year students on their Des2B:Design and Detail Module is taking place today in M416.

The Detailed Design Study (DDS) is an investigation into materials and technology, at both detailed and strategic level, supporting the development of the Des2B developed design project.

The making of architecture – its construction and the experience of it – will be explored as strategic sketches and also a series of ‘Technical Moments’ or ‘Human Scale Details’ which make up part of the building envelope and together develop its design.

The lectures, seminars, tutorials and symposium serve as an introduction to the practice of ‘architectural detailing’; the process and rigour required to design the details of a building and the relevance of material choice to construction and environmental considerations.

Morning Session with:

  • Scott Batty Architect_UOW
  • Jeremy Young_Featherstone Young Architects
  • Wayne Head_Curl la Tourelle Head Architects
  • Theclalin Cheung_ Curl la Tourelle Head Architects

Afternoon Session with:

  • Scott Batty Architect_UOW
  • Jim Potter_Waind Gohil + Potter
  • Elantha Evans Architect_UOW
  • Andrew Whiting_HUT
  • Sangkil Park_MAKE

Alumni Lecture Series: Stirling Prize Winner and Alumnus Michael Wilford “What It Takes To Produce Meaningful Architecture”, Monday 19th March, Robin Evans Room M416, 18:00

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When: Monday 19th March, 6pm

Where: Robin Evans Room [M416], Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

Free drinks after, as always!

Stirling prize winner and alumnus Michael Wilford will be the last guest in our popular Alumni Lecture Series!

Composition and character are primary aspects of the art of architecture. To demonstrate how these aspects have influenced and supported both finished buildings and competition designs, renowned architect Michael Wilford will describe his architectural objectives and the strategies he uses to achieve them.

There will be time for the audience to ask questions of the speakers both during the Q&A and informally after the event with refreshments and networking.

RSVP: https://your.westminster.ac.uk/form/what-it-takes-to-produce-meaningful-architecture

MICHAEL WILFORD CBE, MICHAEL WILFORD ARCHITECTS

Michael Wilford is an architect of international renown, having won multiple international prizes, including the Stirling prize for the Lowry Building in Salford. For 35 years he was principal in an architectural practice based in London with satellite offices in Berlin and Stuttgart, Germany. He was in partnership with James Stirling for 21 years.

He teaches extensively in schools of architecture including posts at Yale, Harvard, Rice, the University of Cincinnati in USA, the University of Toronto, McGill University Montreal in Canada, University of Newcastle, Australia, the Architectural Association, and the University of Sheffield, England. He is currently Visiting Professor at Liverpool University School of Architecture. His work is published internationally and the subject of numerous exhibitions, films, TV and radio programmes. In 2001 he was awarded a CBE for services to architecture.

Volunteering Opportunity – Caukin Studio’s “Design, Build, Travel” Project

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Caukin Studio is still looking for volunteers to fill a couple of places on their Masama Project in Sierra Leone in November 2018, and the last four weeks of Savundrodro project, Fiji in August / September 2018.

More information along with the briefing documents can be found on the Caukin Studio’s website.

Christine Cai of DS22 Winner of the 125 Fund Award at the University of Westminster Alumni Awards

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Christine Cai’s final project with the MArch Design Studio 22 is titled the “Journey of Object [X]”. The project is based on an open research strategy used to study the communities of Persian Gulf particularly of the Strait of Hormuz.

As a part of the initial brief Christine was asked to design and make a device, which would help raise awareness of the silent communities surrounding the periphery of the Strait of Hormuz. Her design comprises series of lenses assembled with laser-cut components into a cloaking device that renders ‘Object [X]’ visible and invisible as it passes through the lenses. The device symbolises the informal trading communities of the Strait.

The 125 Fund helped pay for the materials and transport costs.