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: Monday, 21st of October 2024, 13:00-14:00
Where: Online
The next Architecture and Cities Research Seminar will take place on Monday 21 October, 13.00 – 14.00, online, when Prof Lindsay Bremner will present “Urban Aerography.”
You can access the Teams link here.
All are welcome, including students.
On Friday, June 23 an ‘experimental walk’ organised by ArCCAT (Corinna Dean and Diana Periton), as a part of London Festival of Architecture 2023, took place along the River Lea.
The walk started at Bromley-by-Bow and ended at Cody Dock, where the group gathered in the newly built ‘Growing Space’, a project designed and realised this year by MArch DS20 students led by Maria Kramer and Corinna Dean.
The walk was jointly led by Corinna Dean, Lindsay Bremner, and Diana Periton, all from the University of Westminster’s School of Architecture and Cities. The group was joined by a Pakistani performance artist, Abuzar Madhu, whose performance practice embodies a profound communication with nature, becoming an act of resistance against prevailing power structures.
When: Friday, 23rd of June 2023, 15:00 – 18:00
Where: Meet at Bromley-by-Bow tube at 3pm (BST)
Rowland Parker’s book The Common Stream tells the history of a Cambridgeshire village through the stream that sustains it. The stream is water source, sewer, communication channel, and common element around which the village coheres.
On this walk from Bromley-by-Bow to Cody Dock along the River Lea, we open a conversation about how bodies of water enact their common presence, raising provocations to be discussed as we walk. What is water as a material – what does it mean to drink it, contaminate it, remediate it? What is water as an entity – what is its legal status, what are its rights? How does water connect – how does the River Lea speak to the creeks of Manila or Chennai and the River Ravi? We will gather our discussions in the Cody Dock Open Air Classroom.
The walk will be jointly led by Corinna Dean, Lindsay Bremner, Stroma Cole and Paolo Zaide, all from the University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities.
The performance artist Abuzar Madhu will be joining, who’s performance practice embodies a profound communication with nature, becoming an act of resistance against prevailing power structures.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-common-stream-tickets-607394602607?aff=oddtdtcreatorPlease contact Corinna Dean directly with any event queries
When: Tuesday, 14th of March, 13:30 (GMT) – Wednesday, 15th March, 16:30 (GMT)
Where: School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Gender Ecologies is a programme of the British Council launched to support the development and delivery of projects that explore the intersection of women, climate change and arts, demonstrating how arts can be a catalyst for positive change, action and impact in environmental issues. The programme promotes collaboration and mutual exchange of crossdisciplinary knowledge and skills between Pakistan and the UK.
Book your tickets on Eventbrite
Please note: when booking your tickets for the conference, please note you will need to reserve tickets for both days (14 and 15 March) if you intend to be present at both.
Should you be interested in attending the Cody Dock event on 12th March, please contact Corinna
ITINERARY: OFF SITE/ON SITE WORKSHOP
Sunday 12 March 11 am – 4.30 pm
Location: Cody Dock, Lower Lea Valley
Grounding Landscapes: embodied mapping led by choreographers Claire Burrell and Carolyn Deby from Sirenscrossing with a response from Pakistani based Performance Artist Abuzar Madhu. The Cody Dock resident ecologist will draw observations of the local primary species as part of the workshop.
Tuesday 14 March 1.30 pm -4.30 pm
Location: University of Westminster, Marylebone Road, London, Room 204.
Roundtable symposium where Marvi Mazhar (architect) with Zohaib Kazi (filmmaker) and Abuzar Madhu (performance artist) will be discussing their recent filming of activist fisherwomen, around the Indus River, Pakistan. The documentary will be a visual investigation to open questions about the significance of land and water protection in times of climate crisis. Corinna Dean will respond with her research along the River Lea which looks at the role of contamination and remediation as agency.
Wednesday 15 March 1.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Location: University of Westminster, Marylebone Road, London, Room 204.
The Gender Ecologies team will be joined by Lindsay Bremner, (Professor, architect, writer, head of research UoW) Carolyn Deby, (Sirenscrossing), Claire Burrell (Choreographer) and Kate McMillan (artist, author, King’s College) to discuss how art and research methodologies can raise awareness of environmental issues and environmental justice.
When: Friday, 24th of February 2023 at 1pm
Where: Regent Street Cinema, 307 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW
To book tickets please go here.
Join the University of Westminster’s Schools of Architecture + Cities, the Humanities, Law, and the Social Sciences for a screening of the new film The Oil Machine on 24 February, 13.00 – 14.30 at the Regent Street Cinema, 307 Regent St., London W1B 2HW for an inspiring screening and conversation on our energy future.
The Oil Machine explores our economic, historical and emotional entanglement with fossil fuels by looking at the conflicting imperatives around North Sea oil & gas. This invisible machine at the core of our economy and society now faces an uncertain future as activists and investors demand change. Is this the end of oil?
The film brings together a wide range of voices from oil company executives, economists, young activists, oil workers, pension fund managers, and considers how this machine can be tamed, dismantled or repurposed
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by Lindsay Bremner, School of Architecture + Cities with discussants Lucy Bond, School of Humanities, Julia Chryssostalis, Westminster Law School and member of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty campaign, Ruth MacKenzie, Westminster Law School, Wojciech Ostrowski of the School of Social Sciences and architecture students Antoni Canyelles and Maja Kurantowicz.
The screening is free, but booking is required as cinema numbers are limited.
Monsoon Assemblages will launch Monsoon as Method: Assembling Monsoonal Multiplicities (Actar 2022) online on 8 June, 13.00 – 14.30 (BST). Do join us to celebrate the publication of the book.
At the launch, Lindsay Bremner, Christina Geros, Harshavardhan Bhat, Anthony Powis and John Cook will be joined by Edd Wall, Alfredo Ramirez, Karen Coelho, Pamila Gupta and Jonathan Cane to discuss the book and its methods.
To attend, register using the Eventbrite.
When: Friday, 13th of May 2022 from 10am to 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, University of Westminster, Marylebone campus, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Register via Eventbrite.
The ‘Emerging Territories’ research group hosts a one-day symposium on current research initiatives of the School of Architecture and Cities, which contributes to the global agenda of sustainability of the University of Westminster. We work at the interface between London-based explorative practices, and globally-relevant projects, with the aim to promote and design more resilient and inclusive communities, places, and territories, around the following priority emerging areas: Climate Urbanism; Health & Wellbeing; Urban-Rural Interfaces; Anthropocene Territories; Public Space and Diversity.
Urban and Architectural research, in recent years, is confronted with new challenges affecting cities and the built environment: the unexpected outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic, the increasing evidence of the tangible impact of climate change, and the rising tensions among nation states in a changing global scenario. This has resulted in unprecedented social and environmental vulnerabilities, and new rapidly evolving phenomena, such as the digital transition of the way of living, residing and working.
Taken together, these challenges pose serious questions that scholars in the field of architecture and planning should face, in primis the redefinition of the notion of local vs global, and the very idea of scholarly engagement across different places in the new normal. On the other hand, this can be taken as an opportunity to define new ‘emerging territories’ of research where problems can be captured, solutions can be tested, and ideas can be shared more effectively across multiple scales and contexts.
The aim of the symposium is therefore to bring together interdisciplinary research between architecture and planning, based at the School of Architecture and Cities and to share new ideas and approaches to tackle city problems and their vulnerabilities in the new global context.
Krystallia Kamvasinou, Giulio Verdini (Co-Chairs), with Roudaina Alkhani, Lindsay Bremner, Sabina Cioboata, Corinna Dean, Shengkang Fu, Ripin Kalra, Kon Kim, Tony Lloyd Jones, David W. Mathewson, Michael Neuman, Mai Sairafi, Ben Stringer, and others to be confirmed.
For queries on the symposium, please contact:
Giulio Verdini G.Verdini@westminster.ac.uk or Krystallia Kamvasinou K.Kamvasinou01@westminster.ac.uk
Lindsay Bremner and an interdisciplinary and intersectoral team of researchers from India, the UK and Canada have been awarded a British Council Knowledge Frontiers: International interdisciplinary Research 2022 grant for a two-year project titled ‘Reimagining the Good City from Ennore Creek, Chennai.’
Ennore Creek is a coastal wetland and backwater of the Kosasthalaiyar River in north Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Rich with mangroves, salt flats, canals and the myriad life-forms that thrive in them, it is home to numerous fishing communities and serves as a buffer against floods and sea level rise. After the 1950s, when Chennai began associating the idea of the ‘Good City’ with industrialisation and modernisation, Ennore was rezoned for heavy polluting industries. Land-use changes and lax environmental controls resulted in pollution, coal ash leakage and dumping of toxic material into the creek, degrading its ecosystem and impacting the health and livelihoods of its communities. This project will bring together diverse communities of knowledge and practice to reimagine and rearticulate the future of the creek in the interests of local communities, in the context of permanent weather extremes, climate challenges and a state-led creek eco-restoration proposal.
Co-investigators on the project, which will run from April 2022 – April 2024 are historians Dr Bhavani Ramesh (University of Toronto), and Dr Aditya Ramesh (University of Manchester); anthropologist Dr Karen Coelho (Madras Institute of Development Studies); environmental chemist Dr Asif Qureshi (Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad); community activist and writer Nityanand Jayaraman and K. Saravan and Pooja Kumar (Coastal Resource Centre, Chennai).
This research is supported/funded by the British Academy’s Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary research 2022 Programme.
Featured Image: Ennore Creek with the North Chennai Thermal Power Station in the background by Shafeeq Ahamed S, Age 17, 2022.
Where: Online
When: Wednesday, 30th of March 2022 from 6.30pm to 8pm
Eventbrite booking here.
The University of Westminster and Lund Humphries are delighted to celebrate the launch of Revolution? Architecture and the Anthropocene, a new book that asks why architecture has lagged behind the environmental curve for the last fifty years.
Susannah Hagan in conversation with Harry Charrington, University of Westminster; Brian Ford, University of Nottingham; Ricardo de Ostos, NaJa & deOstos and the AA School of Architecture and Lindsay Bremner, University of Westminster.
The online event will take place online on Microsoft Teams, and attendees will automatically receive a joining link upon completion of Eventbrite Registration.
Susannah Hagan is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster. Prior to Westminster, she was Head of Research and the Doctoral Programme at the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art. She has published extensively, and has drawn together architectural design, history and theory to examine environmental practice in four books: Taking Shape: A New Contract between Architecture and Nature (2001), Digitalia: architecture and the environmental, the digital and the avant-garde (2008), Ecological Urbanism: the nature of the city (2015), and now Revolution? Architecture and the Anthropocene (2022).
Lindsay Bremner (Chair) is Director of Research at the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, and was Principal Investigator of Monsoon Assemblages, a European Research Council-funded project to investigate the impact of changing monsoon climates on four Asian cities. Previously, she was Professor and Chair of Architecture, Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia (2006-11), and Chair of Architecture, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1998-2004). Her most recent publication is Monsoon Solidarity: A Global Approach to Climate Justice (2022).
Harry Charrington is an architect and Head of the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster. He worked for Alvar Aalto & Co. in Helsinki, and later practiced in Newcastle and Bristol. He has taught at the Universities of Newcastle, UWE Bristol and Bath in the UK, and Helsinki and Aalto Universities and Vaasa Institute of Technology in Finland. His research focuses on the histories of modernism and on design practice. These include the exhibition Alvar Aalto: Process & Culture (RIBA Heinz), and his book Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand, co-authored with Vezio Nava, which won the 2012 RIBA President’s Medal for Research.
Brian Ford (RIBA FRSA) is an architect, an environmental design consultant and Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham. He was in private practice for over 25 years, including Peake Short & Partners and Short Ford Associates, where he worked on innovative low carbon projects in Europe, USA, India, Australia and China. He initiated a series of multi-partner EU-funded research projects on natural ventilation and passive cooling and was until recently Vice President of the Passive and Low Energy Architecture organisation (PLEA). His most recent book is The Architecture of Natural Cooling (2020, 2nd edition).
Ricardo De Ostos is a director of NaJa & deOstos, a London-based studio developed as a platform for experimental architectural design, before that working for Peter Cook, Future Systems and Foster + Partners. He is a Unit Master at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, director of the AA Madrid Summer School and guest professor at Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. Most recently, he is co-author of the book Scavengers and Other Creatures in Promised Lands (2017).
When: Wednesday, 19th of January, 4pm-6pm (GMT)
Where: Online event
Book tickets via Eventbrite here.
The Sustainable Cities and the Urban Environment Research Community and the Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce invite you to a panel discussion to reflect on the successes and failures of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow in November and its implications for the future of the planet. Participants will reflect on their experiences in Glasgow, give their assessment of the outcomes of the meeting and discuss potential avenues of urban and environmental research and action they call for.
Discussants
Melanie McGlone (Westminster Law School)
Radha D’Souza (Westminster Law School)
Martin Matthews (Westminster Business School)
Tom Cohen (Active Travel Academy)
Jamie Williams (former MArch student, School of Architecture and Cities)
Moderators
Andrew Smith (SCUE)
Lindsay Bremner (ArCCAT)
![Book Launch: Revolution? Architecture and the Anthropocene by Susannah Hagan | Wednesday, March 30 at 18:30 (BST) [Online discussion / Launch]](http://www.openstudiowestminster.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/https___cdn.evbuc_.com_images_241049589_152922538654_1_original.jpeg)
