Category: Events

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.

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

 

 

PLAYweek Workshop Proposal: Let us take you by the hand….

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Let us take you by the hand … : Feeling anxious or stressed? We can help.

The Architects Benevolent Society will talk about AnxietyArch – a free, quick, and confidential mental health support service for architects and students.

Sign up to AnxietyArch and you also get a free subscription to Headspace.

Organised by Westminster Architecture Society.