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Professor Richard Sennett – Book Launch of “Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City”; Monday 5th March, 19:00, Southwark Cathedral

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

An evening with Professor Richard Sennett will be hosted on Monday 5th March by Southwark Cathedral and Penguin Random House, to mark the release of his new book Building and Dwelling: Ethics for a City. This event is a part of a series of events on the theme of creating ‘A Good City for All’.

The evening will begin with an introduction by Richard Sennett on the creation of cities in the future, followed by a panel discussion looking at how cities are built and how people live in them. The panel will be chaired by the Revd Canon Giles Goddard, Vicar at St John’s Waterloo at the heart of the South Bank Centre, and joining Professor Richard Sennett on the panel are two of London’s leading practitioners on the urban environment, Mike Hayes CBE and Professor Noha Nasser.

When: 5th March, 7-8.30pm

Where: Southwark Cathedral

Booking and further info: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-and-dwelling-ethics-for-the-city-panel-discussion-tickets-39729007531

Architecture Research Forum: “Accounting for Alognon Pragma: Recent work in the Studio and On-site” Alessandro Ayuso, Thursday 1st March, Erskine Room, 5th Floor, 13:00-14:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

ALESSANDRO AYUSO: Accounting for Alognon Pragma: Recent work in the Studio and On-site

My work explores the intersection of human bodies and architecture by envisioning non-ideal, deviant, playful, and personal images of embodied conditions. It is de ned by artefacts generated in the pursuit of three interconnected strands. The first investigates the potential of representations of human figures, or Body Agents, to embed subject-positions in architectural de- sign through their depiction in drawings, models, and ornament. The second, the Agent Bodies drawing series, envisions imagined body-like assemblages ‘from the inside-out,’ revealing a fictional spatiality of the posthuman body. The third strand, Leaky Embodiment Alter-ego Personas, are full-scale constructions of figures that I see as tragicomic actors with uncooperative bodies. They are provocations, presenting a monstrous, ridiculous subjectivity. These pieces are steeped in idiosyncrasies and intuition, and could be considered as alognon pragma, or ‘things without account’. Their discursive value is presented here through a framing and recounting of the underlying questions, processes, and precedents integral to their conception.

Alessandro Ayuso is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, where he teaches design and theory on the Interior Architecture and Architecture courses.

Where: Erskine Room (M523), Marylebone Campus

When: 1 March 2018, 13.00–14.00

ALL WELCOME

Joseph Grima’s Talk at Sir John Soane’s Museum, Wednesday 28th February, 19:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Sir John Soane’s Museum will be hosting a talk by Joseph Grima on Wednesday 28th February at 7pm.

Joseph Grima, Creative Director of Design Academy Eindhoven, will speak as part of the talk series ‘Architecture on Display’. In this series, Sir John Soane’s Museum and James Taylor-Foster are inviting curators and thinkers to reflect on the meanings, implications and varying strategies behind the display of architecture.

Tickets are £10 (adult price) and £5 for students.

Event runs 7pm-8pm. Doors open at 6:45pm. For more information visit the museum’s website.

Monsoon [+Other] Waters Symposium: 12th and 13th April, University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, Room M416

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Monsoon Waters is the second in a series of symposia convened by the Monsoon Assemblages project. It will comprise inter-disciplinary panels, key-note addresses and an exhibition. It will bring together established and young scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines, knowledge systems and practices to engage in conversations about the ontologies, epistemologies, histories, politics, practices and spatialities of monsoon waters.

Confirmed key note speakers at the symposium are:

Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha: landscape architects based in Philadelphia, USA and Bangalore, India, whose work is focused on how water is conceptualised and visualised in ways that lead to conditions of its excess and scarcity, and the opportunities that its ubiquity offers for new visualisations of terrain and resilience through design.

Kirsten Blinkenberg Hastrup: environmental anthropologist based in Copenhagen, Denmark, whose work deals with social responses to climate change across the globe, currently centred in the Thule Area, NW Greenland.

When: 12th and 13th April 2018

Where: Room M416, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

For full programme and bookings please go to Eventbrite page.

“The Social (Re)Production of Architecture” Book Launch – Thursday 1st March, 6.30pm, Central St Martins

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

An evening symposium celebrating the launch of The Social (Re)Production of Architecture co-edited by Doina Petrescu and Kim Trogal will take place on Thursday, 1st March.

MArch DS22 studio leaders and tutors Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari will present their contribution to the book followed by discussion.

When: 1st March 2018,  6.30pm

Where: LVMH Lecture Theatre, Central St Martins, Granary Building, 1 Granary Sq, London N1C 4AA

RSVP: The event is free no RSVP is needed, however seats can be reserved via Eventbrite, doors open at 6.15PM

Speakers include:

  • Doina Petrescu & Kim Trogal (Editors) – Introduction to The Social (Re)Production of Architecture;
  • Kathrin Böhm & Michale Smythe – Phytology National Park: strategies to keep public spaces complex;
  • Helge Moohshammer & Peter Mortenbock – Tent Cities, peoples kitchens, free universities: The global villages of occupation movements;
  • Yara Sharif & Nasser Golzari – Cultivating spatial possibilities in Palestine: searching for sub/urban bridges in Beit Iksa, Jerusalem;
  • Rory Hyde – Ways to be public

The Social (Re)Production of Architecture brings the debates of the ‘right to the city’ into today’s context of ecological, economic and social crises. Building on the 1970s’ discussions about the ‘production of space’, which French sociologist Henri Lefebvre considered a civic right, the authors question who has the right to make space, and explore the kinds of relations that are produced in the process. In the emerging post-capitalist era, this book addresses urgent social and ecological imperatives for change and opens up questions around architecture’s engagement with new forms of organisation and practice. The book asks what (new) kinds of ‘social’ can architecture (re)produce, and what kinds of politics, values and actions are needed.

The symposium will be followed by drinks.

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA): MArch DS23 visit to Brunel Building in Paddington

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Yesterday morning, MArch Design Studio 23 visited Brunel Building construction site.

Brunel Building is an innovative new workplace located on the Grand Union Canal opposite Paddington Station. The scheme includes significant improvements to the public realm, and when complete will create a new section of canal towpath to link the Paddington Basin with Little Venice. (Fletcher Priest)

The architects behind the project are Fletcher Priest and the contractor is Laing O’Rourke.

This visit was part of a 3-stage programme with Laing O’Rourke under the theme of DfMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly), which links with DS23‘s design brief this year.

The programme, which also included a seminar with students and Laing O’Rourke on DfMA at the University of Westminster, as well as an upcoming visit to the Laing O’Rourke Explore Industrial Park Workshop, has been organised by Scott Batty.

Architecture Research Forum: “On the Estate” Julian Williams, Thursday 15th February, Erskine Room, 5th Floor, 13:00-14:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

JULIAN WILLIAMS: On the Estate

What makes an estate, and what does it mean to be part of one? What do estates embody and how do they act as vehicles for change, or resistance to change? These questions form the research context for an emerging networking project which examines the concept of the estate as a model for developing and managing housing. The plan is to set up a network of academics, professionals and users with the aim of developing a deeper understanding of the estate from history and from current developments, and to then disseminate this knowledge and help shape more informed future practices in the field.

Julian Williams is an architect, Principal Lecturer and BA Architecture Course Leader at the University of Westminster.

Where: Erskine Room (M523), Marylebone Campus

When: 15 February 2018, 13.00–14.00

ALL WELCOME!

PLAYweek: Westminster Construction Society Educational Trip to BRE Innovation Park

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Fri 16 February 2018 11:00-17:00

BRE Innovation Park

Launched in 2005, the Park at BRE’s headquarters in Garston, Watford, continues to set the standard for BRE’s Innovation Parks across the world. The Park started life as a small-scale demonstration of modern-methods-of-construction (MMC) and quickly developed in a facility rich in innovation.

The Innovation Parks feature full-scale demonstration buildings that have been developed by industry partners. These buildings display innovative design, materials and technologies which combine to address the development challenges facing regions across the world.

Travel Details

Date of Visit: 16 February 2018

Coach pick up at 11am – 11:30 am in front of Madame Tussauds

Journey time – approx. 1 hour 30 min

Arrive at BRE around 12:30 – 1:00pm

Audio Tour commences around: 1.30pm (lasting approx. 90min)

Coach to leave between 3.30-4:00 back to Marylebone Campus.

25 students, 5 members of staff, £5 each.

Students log in to buy tickets: https://www.uwsu.com/ents/event/197/

Organised by Scott Batty, Will McLean, Hussain Tawanaee

 

 

Prix W 2018: Competition for Students and Young Architects – Deadline 16th April

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Prix W 2018: Competition for Students and Young Architects

For 12 years, the Wilmotte Foundation has promoted the positive interaction between architectural heritage and contemporary design through the W Award, dedicated to students and young architects.

For this 8th edition, the Willmotte Foundation is pleased to ask the participants the opportunity to give a fresh start to the Fort de Villiers, located in the Parisian inner ring. They will have to use the “architectural grafting” and turn it into a complex dedicated to innovation, sport and culture. The projects will have to be in line with the organization of the Paris 2024 Olympics but not limited to it.

The best projects, selected by an international jury, will be remunerated, exhibited in Venice at the Gallery of the Wilmotte Foundation, and published in a book dedicated to the competition.

All information related to this competition can be found on www.prixw.com

The submission deadline is April 16, 2018.

Featured image: Gallery of the Wilmotte Foundation in Venice.