Technical Studies Lecture Series: Armor Guttiérez [UEL] “Sugarcrete” | Thursday, October 17 at 18:00 (BST), M416 Robin Evans Room + Livestream

When: Thursday, 17th of October 2024 at 6pm (BST)

Where: M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online

“The main innovation with Sugarcrete™ is to challenge the common understanding of biomaterials having low structural performance and to develop a system that can be self-supporting.

Armor Gutiérrez Rivas

The development of Sugarcrete™ is a wonderful example of a local collaborative initiative, albeit with a necessary international connection. The University of East London’s (UEL) Master of Architecture and Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), with the support of local manufacturer Tate & Lyle Sugars and architectural firm Grimshaw, has developed an innovative low-carbon construction material employing an arable waste product and the clever use of geometry.

Armor is an architect, researcher, and maker, interested in how innovation through sustainability can have a positive impact in our built environment. Prior to joining the University of East London as a Senior Lecturer, he gained extensive professional experience working for some of the world’s most distinguished architecture firms such as Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen, MVRDV in Rotterdam, or KPF in London, where he attained the level of Associate Principal.

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com

Lecture Archive

w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk – For details contact Will McLean

Architecture + Cities Research Seminar: Prof Lindsay Bremner “Urban Aerography” | Monday, October 21 at 1pm | Online

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.

Technical Studies Lecture Series: Jonathan Smales + Cany Ash [Human Nature + Ash Sakula] “The Pheonix Project, Lewes” | Thursday, October 10 at 18:00 (BST), M416 Robin Evans Room + Livestream

When: Thursday, 10th of October 2024 at 6pm (BST)

Where: M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

“This looks like the beginning of the future.”

The Phoenix is the redevelopment of a 7.9-hectare brownfield site within the South Downs National Park, brought forward by Human Nature a campaigning development company led by Jonathan Smales, working with some of the UK’s leading architects, designers, and engineers. The scheme seeks to turn the imperatives of the climate and natural emergencies into opportunities for better design, better placemaking and ultimately healthier and better living. 

Planned to prioritise people over cars, constructed primarily in sustainable timber, powered by renewable energy, and designed to encourage a culture of sharing, it represents a new and regenerative way to make a place, build a community and create a productive and circular local economy. The development will transform a neglected former industrial site into a beautiful green place, providing much-needed homes and jobs, community spaces, a river walk, flood defenses and health centre.

The masterplan for the Phoenix comprises 18 different housing blocks designed by 12 different architects, giving the neighbourhood diversity, character, and housing choice. Architects Ash Sakula are one of the design practices and Jonathan Smales will be joined by founder / partner Cany Ash. Ash Sakula is a thought-leading architectural studio, based in central London. They specialise in working with challenging sites and complex briefs, where fresh thinking and inventive design can most benefit clients and users.

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com

Lecture Archive

w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk – For details contact Will McLean

Robin Evans Memorial Lecture 2024: Mario Carpo “Generative AI and architectural design, problems and perspectives” | Monday, October 14 at 18:30 (BST) | M416 Robin Evans Room, Marylebone Campus & Online

When: Monday, 14th of October 2024 at 6.30pm (BST)

Where: M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

Register on Eventbrite

We are pleased to be joined by Mario Carpo for the 2024 Robin Evans lecture, Generative AI and architectural design, problems and perspectives both in-person and as an online streamed event.

Generative AI and architectural design, problems and perspectives

The unexpected and phenomenal rise of Generative AI has rekindled many old and new polemics for and against the use of technology in the design professions, as well as endless–and timeless–tirades on the nature of creativity. Yet in order to try to anticipate the range of design applications of Generative AI, and their consequences, we should first try to figure out what AI is, and how it works; and based on that, what it can, and cannot do.

About the Speaker

Mario Carpo is an architectural historian and critic, currently the Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett, University College London and the Professor of Architectural Theory at the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts (die Angewandte) in Vienna (emeritus since end 2023). His research and publications focus on history of early modern architecture and on the theory and criticism of contemporary design and technology.

About the Robin Evans Lecture Series

This series supports outstanding scholarship in the history of architecture and allied fields, building on the work of Professor Robin Evans (1944-1993). It encourages scholars working on the relationship between the spatial and social domains in architectural drawing, construction and beyond.

Evans’ work interrogated the spaces that existed between drawing and building, geometry and architecture, teasing out the points of translation often overlooked. From his early work on prison design and domestic spaces, through to his later work on architectural geometry, Evans sought to articulate the multiple points at which the human imagination could influence architectural form. His first book, The Fabrication of Virtue, analysed the way that spatial layouts provided opportunities for social reform via their interference with morality, privacy and class. In The Projective Cast: Architecture and its Three Geometries, Evans traced the origins of the humanist tradition to understand how human form influenced architectural drawing and construction, focusing on aesthetic dimensions in the production of architectural space.

This series will provide opportunities for the creation and/or dissemination of work by scholars working on similar questions of space, temporality, and architecture. In particular, it supports work that breaks the boundaries of traditional disciplines to think though these complex networks involved in the space between human imagination and architectural production.

Architecture + Cities Research Seminar: Gerald Gurtner and Luis Delgado “The place and use of AI in a human society, and vice versa” | Thursday, October 10 at 1pm | Online

When: Thursday, 10th of October 2024, 13:00-14:00

Where: Online

The next Architecture and Cities Research Seminar will take place on Thursday 10 October, 13.00 – 14.00, online, when Gerald Gurtner and Luis Delgado will present “The place and use of AI in a human society, and vice versa.

The link to the seminar is here.

All are welcome, including students.

MORE 2024 | Friday, September 20 at 18:00 (BST), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

When: Friday, 20th of September 2024 at 6pm (BST)

Where: Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Rd, NW1 5LS

THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER’S SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND CITIES INVITES YOU TO MORE 2024

Register for the launch on Eventbrite

Join us on Friday 20 September for the launch of MORE 2024, an exhibition of the University of Westminster’s School of Architecture + Cities Postgraduate student thesis projects, across the following disciplines:

  • MA Architecture
  • MA Event Design & Management | MA Tourism Management
  • MA Interior Architecture
  • MA International Planning and Sustainable Development
  • MA Urban and Regional Planning
  • MA Urban Design
  • MSc Architecture and Environmental Design
  • MSc Logistics and Supply Chain Management
  • MSc Transport Planning and Management
  • PhD
  • Research
  • RIBA Part 3

The exhibition will launch in the 4th Floor Architecture Studios at 18:00 on Friday 20 September at the Marylebone Campus

The celebratory event will be followed by contributions from each of the participating courses and the School’s annual student awards.

The physical exhibition will be supported by an online iteration – MORE 2024 – which will also launch on the evening of Friday 20 September at:

www.more2024.net

The show will be open until Friday 27 September.

SA+C Tutors’ and Students’ Work Featured in Dezeen Magazine: “Architects for Gaza creates fragments of demountable clinic for Gaza”

As a part of the London Festival of Architecture, on June 25, 2024, Architects for Gaza, led by the Senior Tutors Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari (MArch DS22 and MA Architecture), displayed sections of an experimental clinic in Marylebone Campus that it plans to build in Gaza as soon as soon as the conditions allow for access. The prototype was designed and built in collaboration with the Senior Tutors Paolo Cascone (BSc Architecture and Environmental Design) and François Girardin (Fabrication Lab and MArch DS23) and a number of students from the above courses.

The prototype was on display until the end of June and the exhibition was covered by the Dezeen Magazine:

“On show at the University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities, the full-scale segments were designed to demonstrate how structures could be built to provide primary care in Gaza where 70 per cent of all health infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed since the most recent escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict in October.

Named Experimental Lab/Clinic, the project by Architects for Gaza was designed by curators Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari, Francois Girardin and Paolo Cascone to be built using the scarce materials available in Gaza. The clinics would also act as a kind of “atlas of possibilities” to demonstrate construction techniques that people can use to rebuild their homes and neighbourhoods.”

Dezeen, 17.07.2024

You can access the full article here.

SA+C at London Festival of Architecture: “Gaza Experimental Lab” | Tuesday, June 25, 2024 at 18:00 (BST) in Robin Evans Room, Marylebone Campus

When: Tuesday, 25th of June 2024, 6pm (BST)

Where: Robin Evans Room (M416), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

Please join us on Tuesday, 25th of June at 6pm (BST) for the opening of the Gaza Experimental Lab. 

This 1:1 installation is a fragment of an off the grid experimental lab typology for the context of Gaza. It brings to the surface alternative materials and techniques built out of urgency and scarcity, challenging the consumer-driven construction industry, both in UK and the Global south by re-appropriating its discards. The room in its complete form can be used as a healthcare clinic, class room or Home.

The Lab, being ongoing process of testing and making, suggests alternative use of materials including crushed concrete, R-bars, corrugated sheets, sandbags, fired/unfired clay panels and other components. The outcome may suggest a new and unfamiliar aesthetic inspired by the local context and needs.

The exhibition is hosted by University of Westminster, School of Architecture, 25-30 June. Access need assistance available at the reception.

Key partners: University of Westminster (MA Architecture + BSc Architecture and Environmental Design, Fabrication Lab), Architects For Gaza and Mobile International Surgical Team.

This event is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2024 and it was supported by Quentin Hogg Trust (QHT).

ProBE Lunchtime Talk: “Energy retrofitting strategies for tackling energy poverty” by Prof Jacopo Gaspari, University of Bologna | Tuesday, July 17, 2024 at 13:00 (BST) in M612, Marylebone Campus

When: Tuesday, 17th of July 2024, 1pm-2pm (BST)

Where: AED Studio M612, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

You are invited to the lunchtime talk by Prof Jacopo Gaspari, visiting from the University of Bologna under the Erasmus plus agreement. The lecture will be on one of Jacopo’s research topics, which very much resonates with the work done in ProBE and in the UK.

The transition towards zero carbon is calling for more effective retrofitting solutions to maximize energy savings while reducing construction time and disruption for tenants. In the background, the rise of energy costs, the disparities in spending capacity, and the cost of living are exacerbating differences, fostering energy poverty as a more diffuse issue. A cross-scale and cross-disciplinary approach is needed to address more responsive solutions. The lecture will review examples and case studies from the Italian context and identify opportunities for future strategic solutions.

Jacopo Gaspari is an Architect and Professor of Architectural Technology at the University of Bologna where he teaches Building design for climate change and Technologies for energy efficiency, and he also runs his research activity in the field of building and district renovation; high performing building envelopes; adaptation and climate responsive strategies; LCA and service life of buildings and components. He also leads the NEXTBUILT observatory aimed to report promising facts, events, and trends that give a contribution to a future-proof built environment. 

Meet University of Westminster Architecture Graduates at “Hello Practice” on Friday, June 14, 2024 from 16:00 to 20:00 (BST), Marylebone Campus

When: Friday, 14th of June 2024 from 4pm to 8pm (BST)

Where: Architecture studios, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

Book you place here.

An invitation from University of Westminster Architecture graduates to an end of year show viewing with events, presentations and drinks, and the opportunity to meet our fresh graduates.

ALL WELCOME!