Open Studio is an interactive project run by the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster to make its design, research and practice-based work available online while it is happening. The site acts as a real time teaching and learning environment in which the work of both students and staff is curated and documented – the work of its design studios, or its other teaching and research groups and workshops. Read more in Blog, follow us on Twitter and like us on Instagram.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 2nd of May
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Sean Griffiths is Professor of Architecture at Westminster and currently practices as Modern Architect. He is a former director of FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste).
The Architecture Research Forum is a seminar series hosted by the Architecture + Cities Research Group where staff present work-in-progress for discussion.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 28th of March
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Scott Batty is a practising architect mainly designing one-off homes. He studied and previously taught at the Bartlett, and is now a part-time Senior Lecturer at SA+C.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 7th of March
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Shahed Saleem is a practising architect and teaches both Design Studio and History & Theory at SA+C. He is also a Senior Research Fellow on the Survey of London.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 7th of February
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Sarah Milne is a Lecturer in the History and Theory of Architecture at Westminster. She is currently leading an M.Arch. seminar group centred on Cullen. Sarah is also a historian at the Survey of London, the Bartlett, UCL.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 13th of December
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Alessandra Cianchetta is an architect and founding partner of AWP, an architecture practice working across scales and genres.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 22nd of November
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Lindsay Bremner is Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture + Cities and Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded Monsoon Assemblages project.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 15th of November
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Jane Tankard (ARB/RIBA) teaches full-time in the School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 1st of November
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
Peter Barber is a founding director of Peter Barber Architects. He is a Reader and MArch Studio tutor at the University of Westminster. In 2017 he won the Royal Academy Grand Prize for Architecture.
When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday 4th Of October
Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus
At the 2018 EAHN conference in Tallinn I gave a paper under the session theme of Architecture’s Return to Surrealism. The session asked how the reanimation of surrealism in the work of architects active in the 1970s and ‘80s – at the ‘tangled, asynchronous juncture of the modern and the postmodern,’ – allowed architecture to ‘formulate a critical project in reaction to the neoliberal economy that was producing its own dreams, needs and desires.’ Based on my conference paper, this presentation looks at Aldo Rossi and the connection to surrealism in his work through the influence of the writer Raymond Roussel. I argue that Rossi used Roussel to make memory an active ingredient in the architectural imagination, hence the reference to surrealism within the formulation of architectural projects after modernism.
Victoria Watson teaches in the School of Architecture + Cities and practices as Doctor Watson Architects.
Westminster has an amazing body of active, diverse, internationally recognised staff teaching our students design. Their outputs – your outputs – include buildings, competition designs, exhibitions, books, collaborations, products, blogs, new ways of working. This work is recognised locally, nationally and internationally. But is it research?
Arguably in all case, and demonstrably in some, yes, it is. And when the next national University research appraisal, the REF, takes place, all staff will be considered to see what their ‘research outputs’ have been, and will have to make submissions demonstrating this.
In the last REF, Architecture was able to submit Design Portfolios of selected staff projects for the first time. This Research Forum opens the discussion on how this will work – and whether we can in any way shape the process so as make the work of our remarkable staff a more more visible part of our School.
This is a short, three part event to open the discussion:
*Professor Lindsay Bremner and Professor Susannah Hagan will give short accounts of how the process worked last time;
*Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani will give short presentations of the range of work they do, as an example of the range of our staff work
*Open discussion chaired by Kester Rattenbury on how we might approach Design Folios in the next REF and whether we could turn any part of the exercise to our advantage.
When: 17 May 2018, 13.00–14.00
Where: Erskine Room, 5th Floor
The Architecture Research Forum is a seminar series hosted by the Architecture + Cities Research Group where staff present work-in-progress for discussion.
ALL WELCOME
