News – Page 12 – Open Studio Westminster

RIBA Part 1 and Part 2 Bursaries _ Deadline: May 15, 2020, 5pm

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Mirna Pedalo

The aim of the RIBA Part 1 and Part 2 Bursaries is to provide long-term financial support to architecture students who demonstrate talent and commitment to their studies who might struggle to cover the costs of living and course-related expenditure. The schemes have been made possible by generous donations to the RIBA from the Walter Parker Trust, the Rosenberg Memorial Fund and the Ayyub Malik Trust; as well as monies raised through the RIBA Education Fund.
RIBA website

Applications for the 2020 RIBA Part 1 and Part 2 Bursaries are now open.

RIBA Part 1 Bursary

To be eligible to apply for a RIBA Part 1 Bursary, students must currently be enrolled in the first year of a RIBA Part 1 course in the UK. Recipients of these bursaries will receive a maximum of £6,000 distributed in £1,000 termly instalments throughout the second and third years of study.

RIBA Part 2 Bursary

To be eligible to apply for a RIBA Part 2 Bursary, applicants must be in the process of applying for a RIBA Part 2 course in the UK beginning in September 2020. Applicants do not need to have their place confirmed at the time of application, but if successful, proof of enrolment will be required before the bursary payment is made. Recipients of these bursaries will receive a maximum of £6,000 distributed in £1,000 termly instalments throughout the two-year course.

The application deadline for both bursary schemes is 5pm Friday 15 May 2020.

For the full details on the application process and to download the application form and guidance notes, please visit the website here.

Call for entries: RIBAJ Eye Line 2020 Competition_Deadline: Monday, June 8, 23:59

Posted on March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 by Mirna Pedalo

KEY DATES

Deadline: Monday 8 June 2020, 23:59.

Judging: end June.

Winners and commendations announced: August issue of RIBAJ and online.

Exhibition opens: August/September.

Correspondence: eyeline.ribaj@riba.org

It’s back! The 2020 edition of Eye Line, our international free-to-enter competition for drawing and rendering skills, is now open for entries. As ever we ask for images in two categories – student and practitioner – that brilliantly communicate architecture, in any medium or combination of media. It’s the pure art of architecture we’re interested in: ‘New Imagined Worlds’ is the subtitle this year.
We are especially pleased this eighth year of Eye Line to be partnering with Delta Light, the international architectural lighting company. Themselves committed to the art of architectural illustration, they are kindly hosting our judging event.
We are looking for images of all kinds, from hand-drawn concept sketch to technically proficient layered render. For us, ‘drawing’ includes any method by which the power of an architectural idea is communicated. This includes depictions of existing buildings as well as works of the imagination.
Practitioners and students enter in different categories:
• Student category – images made by those in architectural education or who are submitting images made before final qualification.
• Practitioner category: images made by those fully qualified and working in practice, whether for real-life projects or to explore ideas and experiences.
We will exhibit winners and commendations at the RIBA following a winners’ party there, and will publish them in print and online. And our colleagues at the RIBA’s Drawings and Archives Collection, based in the Victoria and Albert Museum, will inspect our winners for potential inclusion in the collections.
Last year’s practitioner winner was Ed Crooks for his series of pen-and ink fantasias on Lutyens’ Castle Drogo commissioned by the National Trust: student winner was Theo Jones from the Bartlett with his series ‘Unfolding Julian Assange’s Home of Diplomatic Containment’ made in Photoshop and Illustrator. Commendations in all media ranged from sparse elegant line drawings via watercolour on cardboard.
Every year we are gratified by the originality, wit and talent represented in Eye Line: a truly international, free-to-enter award conducted online. Practitioners and students – show us your best drawings!
Hugh Pearman, The RIBA Journal

For more details and how to apply please go to: https://www.ribaj.com/culture/enter-eye-line

Featured image: RIBAJ

The School of Architecture + Cities celebrates great success at the RIBA President’s Awards 2019

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

Both MArch students and the SA+C staff excelled in RIBA President’s Medal Awards 2019 / RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2019 earlier this week.

Ruth Pearn won a Dissertation Medal for her MArch dissertation ‘Age Through the Terrace: The Evolving Impact of Age on Social and Spatial Relations in the Home’ (Tutored by Prof. Harry Charrington).

DS18 celebrated a double-win by their former MArch students:

Rachel Wakelin was the winner of the Serjeant Award for Excellence in Architectural Drawing at Part 2, for her MArch design project project ‘Avian Air – A Tropospheric Bird Sanctuary’

and

Fiona Grieve was given a Commendation in the Dissertation Medal category, for her MArch dissertation ‘The Reception of Refugees in the UK .’ (Tutored by Dr. Davide Deriu).

DS22 celebrated their former MArch student Sun Yen Yee, who won the SOM Foundation Fellowship (UK Award) at Part 2, for his MArch design project ‘SEED of Havana: Dissolving Condensers.’

Prof Kester Rattenbury (DS15 tutor) was shortlisted for the RIBA President’s Award for Research, in History and Theory category for her project ‘The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy Architect.’

Tumpa Fellows (PhD researcher within the Experimental Practices research team and BSc Architectural Technology tutor) received a commendation for the Annual Theme: Building in Quality category in RIBA President’s Award for Research, for her project ‘Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate; making, sharing and communicating design processes.’

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS!

Thomas McLucas’ last year’s project for DS2.6 selected for exhibition at the RIBA Architecture Gallery

Posted on November 28, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

The work of Thomas McLucas, Architecture BA Honours student, was selected from entries drawn across the UK for the exhibition ‘INDUSTRIALISED’ at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
University of Westminster | News

The RIBA exhibition titled ‘INDUSTRIALISED’ shows drawings by over 40 students from 20 schools of architecture across the UK. It parallels another exhibition in the Architecture Gallery called ‘Beyond Bauhaus’, both exhibitions respond to the centenary of the opening of the historic Bauhaus school.
The Bauhaus school was established under the Weimar Republic in 1919 and closed in 1933 under the Nazis. The school’s teaching program cohered around a novel concept of industrial design, which for them meant the production of a universal, totally integrated environment.
This year, the BA Architecture Studio DS2/6 set out to work in a truly post-industrial environment in a project led by Dr Victoria Watson, Senior Lecturer at the University. The project was called CAR PARK to COSMOS, it asked students to remodel a car park in Stevenage for a hypothetical organisation, ‘The International Institute of Cosmism (IIC)’, who plan to develop the car park as a place of post-industrial work, specifically to make Cosmist movies. Students were encouraged to think like Russian Cosmists and to invent their own utopias, just like architects of the Bauhaus would have done.
Thomas McLucas’ approach was heavily inspired by the monumentalism of the Soviet Union, as can be seen, for example, in the Shukov tower or Fernsehturm in Berlin, which the students visited on their field trip.
Speaking about his work, Thomas said: “It is highly exciting to be exhibited at the RIBA as part of the Bauhaus centenary celebrations. It is important to reflect on our industrial past as we are in a new technological revolution, one where what we are producing is less material but no less impactful.
“My project acts as a critique of the post-industrial nature of mass media, aiming to highlight this by pulling the production and transmission into one transparent structure. Transparent, in that activity can be seen through the meshwork form, and that the architecture clearly expresses what it does.”
Talking about his achievement, Dr Watson said: “Thomas McLucas’s project is remarkable for the way it poses questions about the nature of post-industrial work and of the new kinds of media technologies that effect our environment, even though we cannot necessarily see them.”
The exhibition will run until 30 November at the RIBA, 66 Portland Place.
University of Westminster | News

Featured image: ©Thomas McLucas

Prof Kester Rattenbury and Tumpa Fellows from School of Architecture + Cities shortlisted for the RIBA President’s Awards for Research

Posted on November 6, 2019November 6, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

Congratulations to Prof Kester Rattenbury (DS15 tutor) and Tumpa Fellows (PhD researcher within the Experimental Practices research team and BSc Architectural Technology tutor) who have been shortlisted for this year’s RIBA President’s Award for Research, in History and Theory, and Annual Theme: Building in Quality categories, respectively.

The President’s Awards for Research celebrate the best research in the fields of architecture and the built environment and have again attracted interest from around the globe, with entries from China to Peru. The scope of entries continues to illustrate a strong focus on people and community over buildings, featuring parallel themes such as social injustice and climate change.
RIBA website

Professor Kester Rattenbury was shortlisted for her project “The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy Architect.”

For more information on her project please visit here.

Wessex ‘through the camera’s eye’, Hermann Lea and Lea’s camera. ©Hermann Lea, Toucan Press

Tumpa Fellows was shortlisted for her project “Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate; making, sharing and communicating design processes.”

For more information on her project please visit here.

The Rajapur Community Building for Women’s Literacy and Healthcare – The Rajapur Centre completed and being used by the community. ©Tumpa Fellows

The winning papers and medallist will be announced at this year’s President’s Medals ceremony at the RIBA, in London, on the 3 December 2019.

Borderline City | Invitation to Summer School in Berlin | Deadline: November 20, 2019

Posted on October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

An opportunity for 4-6 suitable graduate students (and strong undergraduate candidates) from the fields of Architecture, Urban Planning, Urban Design etc. for a Summer School on the topic of the ‘BORDERLINE City‘ that will take place in Berlin from 8-15 May 2020. Participation is free, and accommodation as well as a stipend to cover travel expenses will be provided.

The summer school is part of a broader initiative of colleagues at the Technical University Berlin, which aims to generate impulses for the planned update of the so-called Leipzig Charter of 2007 on the occasion of Germany’s upcoming EU Council Presidency in 2020.

The summer school’s theme is deliberately broad in scope. Amongst other things, the event will deal with:

the disappearance of existing, and emergence of new, borders and ‘borderscapes’, both material and immaterial;
the way both intentional and immanent spatial development contribute to the emergence, dissolving and change of borders and ‘borderscapes’;
the role cross-border territories (can) play in European integration processes;
the qualities and potentials of borders, ‘borderscapes’ etc. (spatial, cultural and otherwise) as well as
the question how built environment professionals should deal with the same.

In short: it promises to be an exciting event! Prerequisite to participate is the willingness to:

deal with the topic (or, rather, one of the topics) the summer school revolves around in the context of a dissertation, a ‘final year project’, or a piece of research in relation to a specific module;
present the (preliminary) findings of the (research) project in the form of a paper, poster or other creative medium; an
beyond that actively contribute to the discussions in Berlin.

There is a lot of scope in terms of both the content and the methodological approach and the format of the work to be produced/presented and our German colleagues appreciate that MA theses/final year projects will not be completed by the time the summer school takes place. What they are after are original and thought-provoking ideas, interventions and reflections that provide ‘novel and unconventional input on urban development and urban planning.’

Should you be interested in participating, please look at the attached document for further information about the project and send an expression of interest of no more than 750 words with an indication of your motivation to apply as well as a description of your project idea to NovyJ@westminster.ac.uk by 20 November. You should also be able to name a member of staff who supports your application and is willing to help you with the project work. Applicants will be informed of the pre-selection results by 25 November and interviews for the final selection will take place shortly after that.

For more information, please feel free to send an email to Johannes Novy. He will also hold two information drop-in sessions on 30 October and 12 November from 13.00 to 14.00 in M222 to provide the students with an opportunity to meet him in person and ask questions.

Last but not least: Especially if you are considering to apply with your thesis/final year project, it is strongly recommend that you discuss your plan with your tutor and/or course director to make sure that they approve of (and are willing to support) it.

To download additional material please click here.

Podcast: A Small Voice Conversations with Photographers

Posted on October 25, 2019October 25, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

Out NOW on A Small Voice podcast: David Moore on representation, the guilt-inducing, transgressive nature of documentary photography, his influential degree project “Pictures from the Real World” and why 30 years after it, he wrote a piece of verbatim theatre to help him deal with his discomfort over all those things. http://bit.ly/2Bg5VKr Go listen! Learnings to made!

David Moore is a London based photographic artist once described as belonging to “the second wave of new colour documentary in Britain”. He has exhibited and published internationally and has work held in public and private collections. David has worked as a photographer and educator since graduating from West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham, in 1988. He is currently the Course Leader of MA Documentary Photography and Photojournalism at the University of Westminster. David’s 2017/18 project ‘Lisa and John’ responds to the archive of his influential 1988 graduation project Pictures from the real world – which was published as a book in 2011 – and employs theatre, installation, and collaboration. Lisa and John was launched at Format International Photography Festival in 2017, and included a theatrical play, The Lisa and John Slideshow, written and directed by David. The entire Lisa and John Project was exhibited and performed in London and Belfast in 2018 and received widespread acclaim.

Writer, Sean O’Hagan, wrote:

Moore is such a master of colour that he made me think more than once what William Eggleston’s photographs would have looked like had he been born in the north of England rather than the American south.

David’s current practice addresses agency and a critique of documentary as a genre using installation and theatre as a means posing questions around the production of knowledge through photography.

In episode 115, David discusses, among other things:

His formative years growing up in Derby
Why he messed up his exams as a teenager,
Being politicised by the music press and the miners strike,
Music photography and Management Today magazine
Being early photographic inspiration
His graduation project, Pictures from the real world
The Velvet Arena
How The Lisa and John Slideshow became a piece of verbatim theatre

Referenced:

Brian Griffin (Ep. 61)
Joel Meyorwitz
Bill Brandt
Ruth Orkin
Lewis Baltz
Paul Searight
Anna Fox
The Echo of Things by Christopher Wright

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Call for submissions: LFA and Network Rail announce design competition for train station benches_Deadline, November 11, 12:00pm

Posted on October 22, 2019October 22, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

LFA and Network Rail (NR) have announced ‘Sitting Pretty’ – an open call for new ideas for seating for the capital’s mainline train stations, to be installed next spring ahead of the London Festival of Architecture 2020.
As the Festival strives to promote positive change in our everyday open spaces, this design competition seeks an engaging new solution to transform station seating, and to brighten the experience of London’s stations for Londoners, commuters and visitors alike. Architecture and design students, recent graduates and emerging practitioners are invited to submit proposals that showcase a creative vision for these seating provisions and can inform a prototype for how a future of station seating might look.

For more information and to submit entry please click here.

DEADLINE: midday on Monday 11 November 2019

“Secrets of a Digital Garden: 50 flowers, 50 villages” curated by DS22 tutors Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, 19 September 2019 – 5 January 2020

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

Dr. Yara Sharif and Dr. Nasser Golzari from the School of Architecture + Cities will be taking part in the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

In a collaborative project with Riwaq: centre for architectural conservation, Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari will be curating the exhibition entitled Secrets of a Digital Garden: 50 flowers, 50 villages.

Secrets of a Digital Garden is a future imaginary scenario set up in rural Palestine in the form of a digital garden with 50 interactive flowers representing 50 Palestinian villages. The work draws on their collaborative work with Riwaq on revitalising 50 Palestinian historic fabrics and their on-going research by design as founders of NG Architects and Palestine Regeneration Team (PART).

Nothing is conventional in this garden. 50 slices of earth containing ‘digital’ flowers will be brought to Chicago to narrate the absurd dis-connectivity of Palestine and the attempt to reclaim it through the 50 Villages Project. Underneath the surface, a process of production is in place. Capsules containing physical and digital DNA is trapped in each flower to capture and share the story of the 50 Villages.

The exhibition explores new means to navigate the landscape of Palestine using digital fabrication and film.

https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/news

The 2019 edition of Chicago Architecture Biennial is directed by Yesomi Umolu and is titled ‘ …and other such stories’.

The opening will take place on September 19, 2019, and will stay open till January 5, 2020.

The event promises to form an expansive and multi-faceted exploration of the field of architecture and the built environment globally. Developed through a research-led approach, the curatorial team Paulo Tavares, Sepake Angiama — led by Umolu — draws on the spatial, historical, and socio-economic conditions of Chicago to consider questions of land, memory, rights, and civic participation…’

Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari are award-winning architects and academics with an interest in design as a mean to facilitate and empower ‘forgotten’ communities, while also interrogating the role of architecture politics and social commitment. Combining research with design, their work runs parallel between the architecture practice NG Architects, London and the design studio at the University of Westminster and their design-led research group Palestine Regeneration Team (PART). Their work has been exploring new means to rethink the Palestinian landscape through speculative scenarios and live projects.

Their work has won the RIBA President’s Award for Research amongst other awards.

The installation is done with the support of the University of Westminster and the Fabrication Lab, Golzari NG Architects, London and Palestine Regeneration Team (PART).