Stefania Boccaletti – Open Studio Westminster

Fire Experience Day – Fire Service College, Moreton-in-Marsh

Posted on May 24, 2023May 24, 2023 by Mirna Pedalo

On May 22, 2023 a group of staff and students from four courses within the School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster attended a Fire Experience Training Day hosted by the Fire Service Training College. The day was sponsored by Axa Insurance, Fire Protection Association (FPA) and School of Architecture + Cities, UoW. The experience and information gathered was particularly useful with regard to the new Building Safety Bill and the developing RIBA/ARB criteria on Design for Fire and Life Safety.

Staff attending:

Scott Batty
Paolo Zaide
Wilfred Achille
Adam Thwaites
Stefania Boccaletti

Students from, BA Architecture: Umi Sakai-Stoute, Rowan Isles, Oscar Chainey, Eric Turner

Students from, MA Architecture: Galina Dimova, Ramzi Ramzi, Simon McLanaghan

Students from BSc Architecture + Environmental Design: Anastasia Suzdaltseva Kazakova, Elspeth Prowse, Michelle Lai, Sara Stabiglieri

Students from Architectural Technology: Pascal Golda, Amjad Butt, Velina Drakalieva, T’Sean Blake

ArCCAT Climate Action Week: Material ReUse Station Competition winner announced!

Posted on November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

Following the completion of the week-long design Student Competition on the ‘Material ReUse Station’ as part of the Climate Action Week (24-29 October) Group 5: The Slice was announced the winner!

Congratulations to Julie Beech (BA Interor Architecture), Adam El Hafedi (BA Architecture), Zuzanna Jodlowska (BSc Architectural Technology) and Ruhan Zaman (BSc Architecture and Environmental Design)

The video made by the winning team can be viewed here.

Congratulations to the winners and all who participated. Big thank you to all the judges and course leaders Diony Kipraiou, Paolo Zaide, Stefania Boccaletti and Tabatha Mills who organised this cross-UG-course competition, first such initiative in the School.

The next step will be collaboration with David Scott and the Fabrication Lab to work on building a prototype.

ArCCAT Climate Action Week: Launch of Design Competition for a material reuse station for the studios | Monday, October 25 at 13:00 in Studio, Marylebone Campus

Posted on October 22, 2021October 25, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Monday, 25th of October 13:00-14:00

Where: Studio, Marylebone Campus

Who: Diony Kypraiou, Stefania Boccaletti, Paolo Zaide and Tabatha Mills.

For both students and architectural designers, the physical model is a manifestation of ideas. The act of physical model-making is central to architectural education and our studios. It presents the opportunity to test, explore, speculate, compose and further the design process. How can you as students begin to challenge wasteful practice? Can we make our studio practice more circular?

Five teams of 4 L5 students each, drawn from each of the undergraduate degrees (Interiors, Architecture, AED, Technology) will participate in this design challenge for a week.

ArCCAT Climate Action Week – Monday 25th to Friday 29th of October

Posted on October 18, 2021October 19, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

The Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce (ArCCAT) has developed an exciting, slightly-longer-than-a-week programme of events between October 18th and October 28th to support the University’s Sustainability Month, a lead-in to COP 26 in Glasgow at the beginning of November.

Go here for further details of the University’s programme: here: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/about-us/our-university/vision-mission-and-values/sustainability-month.

The ArCCAT programme is as follows:

Monday 18 October 18.30 – 19.30

Cartographies of the Monsoon Exhibition Opening

Venue: Gallery Café, 309 Regents Street, W1B 2HW

Lindsay Bremner in conversation with Tom Corby, Associate Dean of Research, Central St Martins.

This exhibition will show a selection of the maps produced by John Cook for Monsoon Assemblages, a research project in the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster funded by the European Research Council between 2016-2021. The project drew on the environmental humanities, the natural sciences and the spatial disciplines to develop an understanding of the entanglements of the monsoon in everyday life, politics and planning in Chennai, Delhi, Dhaka and Yangon, four of South Asia’s rapidly growing cities. The maps were mechanisms through which the project team constructed understandings of the materiality of the monsoon and the many mechanisms that drive it.

Monday 25 October 12.30 – 14.30

What about ‘the other half’ of the ‘UN sustainability goals’?

Venue: Studio

UoW students-as-co-creators project team 2021: Dana Al Khammach, Elantha Evans, Rebecca Kelly, James Mason and Lavinia Peninno.

Join us for a curated, interactive and enjoyable 15-20 min session anytime between 12.30-14.30 on Monday 25th October 2021. This is about what YOU think we can do together, and is part of a wider project about architecture, empathy and the empathic imagination. Come along! And sign up here for more info on the project and future collaborations.

Offered as part of ‘Sustainable Disclosures’ // Expanding architecture education to better nurture people, places and practices for sustainable, inclusive futures (http://eepurl.com/hFy9q1).

Monday 25 October 13.00

Launch of Design Competition for a material reuse station for the studios

Venue: Studio

Doiny Kypraiou, Stefania Bocoletti, Paolo Zaide and Tabatha Mills.

Five teams of 4 L5 students each, drawn from each of the undergraduate degrees (Interiors, Architecture, AED, Technology) will participate in this design challenge for a week.

Monday 25 October 16.00 – 17.00

The King’s Cross journey to carbon neutrality

Venue: Robin Evans Room (M416) and online; book at Eventbrite: https://www. eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-kings-cross-journey-to-carbon-neutrality-tickets-183433162527

Organiser and Moderator: Johannes Novy

Speaker: Stephen Kellett, Sustainability Manager, Ardent Services LLP

Discussant: Roudaina Alkhani

The King’s Cross Estate is one of Europe’s most significant regeneration projects – this talk will highlight the key decisions made from the projects inception through to the design of its buildings and the management in operation that have enabled it to achieve carbon neutrality, on its journey to net zero carbon.

Monday 25 October 17.30 – 18.30

Opening of the ArCCAT Sustainable Design + Research Exhibition

Launch of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Campaign

Venue: Marylebone Learning Platform

Speaker: Peter Bonfield

Curators: Lindsay Bremner, Grace Lancto, François Girardin and David Scott, with the assistance of Chris Meloy and John Whitmore.

An exhibition of staff and student work from the School of Architecture and Cities supporting sustainability goals accompanied by the launch of a Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Campaign by the Fabrication Lab and the University’s Estates team.

Tuesday 26^th October, 18.00 – 20.00

Practicing Sustainability: from Portfolio to Practitioner

Venue: Robin Evans Room (M416) and online | to book tickets please go to Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/practicing-sustainability-from-portfolio-to-practitioner-tickets-191649176847

Organiser and Moderator: Harry Charrington

Speakers: Chris Morgan; John Gilbert Architects, Glasgow; Gordon O’Connor-Read; Rural Urban Synthesis Society and Laing O’Rourke.

How do you take the ideas and commitment of your student portfolio into architectural practice? How can you build a career that reinforces your ideals and aims, rather than compromises them? These two talks, by architects at very different stages of their careers will illustrate ‘how they do sustainable practice’, and the challenges and success they have had in addressing the concerns they had as students through their built projects.

Thursday 28^th October, 18.00 – 20.00

Environmental Design Sourcebook Book Launch and Panel Discussion

Venue: Room M416 and available on https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

Organisers: Will McLean and Pete Silver

To coincide with Climate Action Week and the recent publication of Environmental Design Sourcebook: Innovative Ideas for a Sustainable Built Environment (RIBA Publish- ing, 2021), the authors Will McLean and Pete Silver will host a book launch and panel discussion. The discussion will feature contributors from the publication including industry collaborators, and University of Westminster staff and student researchers: Kirsten Haggart (Waugh Thistleton), Rosa Schiano-Phan, Guy Sinclair, Urangua Sodnamjamts, Pete Silver and Will McLean.

This panel discussion about design for climate change is the first of a planned series exploring knowledge transfer networks and partnerships with industry. These discussions are hosted by the University of Westminster (on and off-site) and are supported by Dr Stephanie Lasalle from the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office.

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

PLAYWeek returns to Marylebone campus and various locations around the city

Posted on February 2, 2017February 3, 2017 by Mirna Pedalo

Play is our brain’s favourite way of learning. (Diane Ackerman)

Following the success of previous year, PLAYWeek 2 was back in November 2016, with more than ten workshops on offer. The play-dates took place on the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th November, on Marylebone campus and various locations around the city.

Judging by the voting results, students were keen on learning new skills, either through the use of new software and technologies, or through more hands-on approach in the FabLab.

An Introduction to Programming Light and Colour, organised by Richard Difford and Jonathon Hodges, offered an opportunity to explore the creative possibilities of Processing and Ardunio with DMX lighting to design and prototype architectural lighting (cover image). The final product was definitely a crucial component which helped lift the mood of the final exhibition, and brought a party vibe to the end of the PLAYWeek.

Digital Traces workshop organised by Stefania Boccaletti and Roberto Bottazzi was an opportunity to delve into the world of Big Data, machines, algorithms and numbers, where the students themselves were being the subjects of investigation. The information stored on students’ hard drives, primarily images, were used as raw material which was mined and eventually visualised with a help of Grasshopper and ImageJ free software. The aim of this two-day workshop was to give students a light and fun introduction to the issues and opportunities engendered by Big Data, not only through the use of software, but also through discussions and presentations.

For those with a penchant for VR, gaming and non-linear immersive experiences, Shot Disco workshop, lead by Gabby Shawcross and Ross Cairns of the design studio The Workers, was an ideal place to learn more about gaming engine Unity. The students were given a chance to produce their own interactive environment with dance floor, dynamic disco lights, smoke and mirrorballs.

The use of different softwares was crucial in Art Forms in Nature workshop, lead by Harry Paticas and Tom Raymont. Inspired by a publication “Art Forms in Nature” by Ernst Haeckel, participants of this workshop were invited to look for patterns of complex order in natural objects, such as shells, bones and seed-cases. Working with 20 unusual natural artefacts and using a 3D scanning, drawing and modelling tools by the end of the PLAYweek students have produced a shared library of digital models and an exquisite drawing each.

Lara Rettondini, Matt Haycocks, Yota Adilenidou, Sue Phillips, Allan Sylvester and FabLab staff joined together to organise the Design of Display / Display of Design / Play at the V&A workshop where students were given an opportunity to work with the V&A Museum as a client, to address an external agenda and specific client requirements. Workshop started on Wednesday at the V&A Museum where students met Johanna Agerman Ross, the Curator of the 20^th Century and Contemporary Furniture and Product Design and had a chance to engage with the space in which they were to intervene. Thursday and Friday were studio days where the students worked within three groups on different proposals, which were presented on the last day of the workshop. Due to the complexity and size of the project the group aims to carry on working on it as an extracurricular activity over the coming months.

Those who were eager to get their wellies out way before the festival season went for the Earth Building workshop at the EnvLab. Working with rammed earth, by Friday the participants were very proud of their newly built bench.

Quite a spectacular structure was built and dismantled by the participants of Tensegrity workshop, lead by Geoff Morrow, Gavin Weber, Will McLean, Pete Silver and Scott Batty. Previously showcased at Vision London this lightweight pavilion with a tensegrity ring and tensile fabric membrane was assembled and then taken down at the Pod during this two-day workshop.

Maria Kramer offered students an opportunity to develop their own briefs and projects in her Your Project workshop. Experimenting with different shapes, sizes, materials and lighting, participants were encouraged to try out different solutions and options to strengthen their design ideas.

Some of the activities took place off campus, such as Lantern Walk with Harry Charrington, where the students met at the Blackfriar armed with their sketchbooks, and were taken on a “good walk through our city”.

Elly Ward from Ordinary Architecture gave a private tour of the exhibition “Origins: A project by Ordinary Architecture” on show at the Royal Academy. At the Origin Myths one-day workshop participants were encouraged to embrace their own erroneous theories, misunderstood theories, personal mythologies and speculative wild-goose chases to invent new origins of architecture. Their drawings and models were exhibited and presented at the end of the day.

And while the workshops, walks and tours were underway, an alternative vision of the PLAYWeek was being created by the participants of the Drawing PLAYWeek workshop. Lead by Alessandro Ayuso, Mike Guy and Ro Spankie, this group explored how to depict inhabitation in architectural drawings, and celebrate the inventiveness and liveliness of the students and staff’s inhabitation of the building, by ‘populating’ the drawings.