When: Thursday, 26th of October, from 9.30am to 2.30pm (BST)
Where: Marylebone Podium (ground floor), University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS
Tag: School of Architecture + Cities
Technical Studies Lecture Series: Ana Gatóo “Regenerative Design for Planetary Wellbeing” | Thursday, October 26 at 18:00 (BST), M416 + Online
When: Thursday, 26th of October at 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online
Dr Ana Gatóo is a recent graduate of the doctoral programme at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation (CNMI) in the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge where she is a Cambridge Trust Scholar and an Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership scholar. Ana had previously worked as a researcher at the CNMI for three years developing structural bamboo products as well as improved social housing with natural materials for informal settlements.
Ana is a partner at Light Earth Designs a practice focused on environmentally sensitive architecture and innovative engineering and whose work most notably includes the Rwanda Cricket Stadium in Kigali, which was awarded the 2018 A+Awards Popular Winner in the Stadium category. Ana is also a Board Advisor for Prospectives Journal, and a Committee Advisor for REDER Journal and she has worked for several years with NGOs on emergency architecture, disaster response and development with the use of natural materials and sustainable technologies in various countries.
Ana’s research develops flexible interiors with engineered timber and digital tools for affordable housing, creating a sustainable and adaptable living environment that cares for the planet and the people.
- Engineered timber acts as a carbon sink.
- Flexibility of interior spaces has become crucial with social, economic, and environmental benefits.
- Mass customization, and with the growth of digital factories and open-source designs, interior walls can become affordable, sustainable and creative.
This research, exhibited at the London Design Biennale 2021, has received a prestigious Design Exchange Partnership from AHRC and was exhibited at the Design Museum in London. Ana collaborated with PLP Architecture and colleagues at Cambridge.
Ana has recently joined us at the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster as a lecturer in Regenerative Technical and Environmental Design
For details contact Will McLean – w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk
“Mental Health, Design, and Wellbeing; A Co-design Workshop” one of the finalists for 2023 Green Grown Awards UK & Ireland
The Mental Health, Design, and Wellbeing: Co-design Workshop, led by the Assistant Head of School and the ArCCAT lead Dr Ro Spankie, was one of the three projects from the University of Westminster that were named finalists for prestigious 2023 Green Grown Awards UK & Ireland.
Dr Spankie said: “All of us involved are delighted the Co-Production Workshop has been selected as a Green Gown finalist under the category of Tomorrow’s Employers as the development of complex transferable skills relevant to future practice is exactly what the workshop sets out to do. It does this by offering students a unique, immersive and experiential learning experience that challenges the ‘conventional’ pedagogy of designer-client / expert-user, by putting forward the notion of the ‘experts by experience’.”
University of Westminster website
To read more about this and other projects please visit here.
ArCCAT members took part in University of Westminster’s inaugural annual Sustainable Development Goals Workshop
Westminster academics, University colleagues and postgraduate researchers came together on Tuesday 6 June to explore what the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) mean to them, to share best practice and to discuss ideas on how to overcome challenges while embedding them into the curriculum and their work. The University also announced a new commitment to Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship at the event.
University of Westminster website
The ArCCAT Lead, Dr Ro Spankie worked with Professor Dibyesh Anand, Dr Pooja Basnett, and Morgan Lirette the Sustainable Development Advisor to organise the inaugural SDG Workshop.
5 ArCCAT Reps – Antoni Canyelles, Maja Kurantowicz, Rowan Isles, Pious Prosper Keku, and Maria Laura Poselli – helped organise the activities and host the occasion.
To read more about the event please visit here.
Technical Studies Lecture Series: architect Hugo Braddick (Haworth Tompkins Architects) + client Amandeep Singh Kalra (Be First) on “Industria” | Thursday, October 12 at 18:00 (BST), M416 + Online
When: Thursday, 12th of October, 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online (see tumblr page below for link)
Architect Hugo Braddick (Haworth Tompkins Architects) talks with client Amandeep Singh Kalra (Be First) about the incredible new ‘Industria’ building in East London.
Hugo has 20 years’ experience in delivering large, design-led construction projects for complex client bodies, on challenging urban sites, with a particular emphasis on residential and mixed-use buildings, workspace and masterplanning. Hugo leads the industrial intensification team with Graham Haworth, including the regeneration masterplan for Albert Island, a 100,000sqm brownfield development in London Docklands, in collaboration with the GLA, and Industria, an innovative 12,000sqm ramped, multi-level industrial workspace project for BeFirst, at Creek Road in Barking.Hugo currently sits on the NLA experts for logistics and industry and brings a deep working knowledge of urban industrial design at both macro and micro level, combined with an understanding of the market and development economics in the sector, and familiarity with its complex policy requirements.
Amandeep is an Architect and Urban designer. He is an Associate Director at Be First (LB Barking & Dagenham’s regeneration company), working at the intersection of public and private practice. He leads a team that is responsible for strategic visions, brief writing, research, design, and procurement, while actively engaging with residents, planners, policy makers, developers, and politicians to bring these ideas to the table. Amandeep works across urban design & architecture with over ten years’ experience across both public and private sectors. He has worked across a range of scales including large scale masterplans, regeneration schemes alongside small infill sites. More recently he has led the development of retrofit lead design codes and strategies for intensifying industrial land.
Amandeep is trustee at the charity London Neighborhood Scholarship where he continues to champion equality by providing scholarships for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. He is a Design Council Expert, member of the Bromley, Harrow, Kingston (Vice-Chair) and Hackney (Chair) Design Review Panels and was invited to join the Open City Accelerate advisory board. He has served as a guest critic at Kingston, Westminster, UCL and Sheffield University and mentors with Future of London.
For details contact Will McLean – w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk
Architecture + Cities Research Seminar: John Cook and Ben Pollock “Climate Cartographics” | Monday, October 16 at 13:00 (BST) | Online
When: Monday, 16th of October 2023 at 1pm (BST)
Where: Online [link below]
The next Architecture + Cities research seminar will be held online on Monday 16 October, 13.00 – 14.00.
At this seminar, John Cook and Ben Pollock will present the work of Climate Cartographics, a proof of concept grant to test the mapping techniques developed during Monsoon Assemblages, the ERC grant funded project that ended in 2021. The link to the seminar is here.
The Robin Evans Lecture 2023 | Alison Killing: “Investigating Xinjiang’s network of detention camps” | Tuesday, October 17, 2023 from 18:00 to 21:00 (BST) | M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus
When: Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at 6pm (BST)
Where: M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS
To register, please go to the Eventbrite.
We are pleased to be joined by journalist and Architect Alison Killing for the 2023 Robin Evans lecture, both in-person and as an online streamed event.
‘Investigating Xinjiang’s network of detention camps’
China has built a vast network of detention camps in the north west region of Xinjiang, as part of its campaign of oppression against Turkic Muslims. It is believed that more than a million people have been detained. Our team used satellite imagery, architectural analysis and eyewitness interviews to uncover the camp network and investigate what was happening there. Alison will talk about the process of doing this Pulitzer Prize winning investigation, as well as the wider relevance of architectural skills in investigative journalism.
About the Speaker
Alison Killing is an investigative journalist and licensed architect. In 2021 she and her colleagues Megha Rajagopalan and Christo Buschek won the Pulitzer Prize for an investigation that uncovered a secret network of detention camps in Xinjiang, China. She is a senior reporter on the FT’s Visual Investigations team.
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.
CREATECH ’23 | Friday, September 22, 2023 | Conference from 09.30 to 17:00 (BST) + Exhibition Private View / Arch-asino from 17:00 to 22:00 (BST) | Fabrication Lab + Ambika P3
When: Friday, September 22, 2023 | 9.30am-5pm & 5pm-10pm
Where: Fabrication Lab + Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Please join us this Friday for a one-day international conference on creative technologies for the design, creative + digital industries. Following the conference, we invite you to attend a Private View in Ambika P3 of a new exhibition of work from contributors from the UK, Canada, and North America using creative technologies in a diverse range of built projects, installations, films, posters, and interactive workshops.
The Private View will also feature for one night only a unique Arch-asino designed and created by first-year MArch students from the School of Architecture + Cities. You’ll be able to play architecturally-inspired reinventions of classic Casino games between 18:00 – 20:00 (strictly no money involved!) with awards for the winning games and best players at 20:15. Dress code for the Arch-asino is Black Tie (creative interpretations allowed).
Admission to both the Conference + Exhibition Private View / Arch-asino is free but booking is essential to guarantee your place:
Conference – Friday 22 SEP – 09:30 – 17:00
createch23-conference.eventbrite.co.uk
Exhibition Private View + Arch-Casino – Friday 22 SEP – 17:00 – 22:00
createch23-exhibition.eventbrite.co.uk
Full conference and exhibition details on the CREATECH website: https://createch.london/about
MORE2023 | Exhibition opening on Friday, September 22, 2023 at 18:00 (BST) in Marylebone Studios
When: Friday, 22nd of September 2023 at 6pm (BST)
Where: 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS
To register please go to Eventbrite.
Join us on Friday 22 September for the launch of MORE 2023, an exhibition of the University of Westminster’s School of Architecture + Cities Master’s students’ thesis project, across the following disciplines:
- MA Architecture
- MA Interior Architecture
- MSc Architecture and Environmental Design
- MA Urban Design
- MA International Planning and Sustainable Development
- MA Event Design & Management | MA Tourism Management
- MSc Logistics and Supply Chain Management
- MSc Transport Planning and Management
- MA Urban and Regional Planning
- RIBA Part 3
- Research
- PhD
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 2023 – which will also launch on the evening of Friday 22 September at:
Welcome to MORE 2023
OPEN2023: MArch Exhibition Videos by Kevin Wong from DS10
Now that OPEN2023 has closed, please enjoy these wonderful videos of the MArch design studios at this year’s graduating students’ exhibition. They were made by our talented 1st year MArch student Kevin Wong from DS10.
Credits (videos + featured image):
Email: wongkevin2020@gmail.com
Instagram: Kevinwth