Technical Studies – Page 2 – Open Studio Westminster

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “De-carbonising the Structure” by Thomas Hesslenberg, Elliott Wood | Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 18:00, Room M416, Marylebone Campus + Online

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

When: Thursday, 4th of November at 6pm

Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Online: Live stream link

Thomas Hesslenberg is a Senior Structural Engineer at Elliott Wood, a Structural & Civil Engineering practice based in London. Elliott Wood are committed to making “[…]engineering work harder for our clients, society and our planet” and they have created a phrase to capture their approach – Engineer a Better Society. Over the last couple of years, Thomas has been working around the issue of Embodied Carbon and how to reduce it in his companies’ projects, whilst also share his knowledge with the wider industry.

Through the Institute of Structural Engineers (IStructE), Elliott Wood launched the Structural Carbon Tool last year, an open-source Excel-based software, which allows construction professionals to calculate their own projects Embodied Carbon. Thomas will be talking about the tool, what his company has learnt after using it on their projects, and what changes need to be made in order to help the construction industry get to Net Zero.

Thomas is one of our visiting technical tutors/consultants for final year undergraduate and MArch Architecture.

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

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

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “Dakar Earth Bricks” Nzinga B. Mboup – Worofila | Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 18:00, Room M416, Marylebone Campus + Online

Posted on October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 21st of October at 6pm

Where: Room M416 + Livestream, School of Architecture and Cities , University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Livestream Link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/fc7cfc71b9534b29830ec5e4ae564d16

Before air conditioning, people paid attention to materials and orientation for the natural regulation of heat.
Nzinga Mboup

Senegal’s traditional dwellings were made of earth, but that construction method has slowly been abandoned. Dakar’s sidewalks today are littered with piles of sand and stones that are mixed with cement to make cheap building blocks.

Worofila and Mboup were inspired to use modern earth bricks made from soil and very small amounts of cement and water to create a mixture that is cut into blocks, compressed with a hand-operated machine and left to dry in the sun for 21 days. Unlike concrete, earth bricks require very little embodied energy to produce. Worofila have worked with Elementerre on the construction of private homes, offices and part of a train station. Elementerre, is an earth brick manufacturer founded by Doudou Deme in 2010.

This reimagining and reengineering of earth construction remains niche and it currently costs more than concrete with many clients still unaware of this as a building material. Worofila has recently been longlisted for an Ashden Award, a British prize for climate solutions, which it hopes will raise visibility of this ‘age old’ but actually very new age natural material – locally sourced and with excellent thermal performance, which acts to moderate the internal temperature and humidity of the architecture.

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

For details contact: Will McLean

w.f.mclean@wmin.ac.uk

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “Research as Practice: Material Formations” HANNAH | Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 18:00, Room M416, Marylebone Campus + Online

Posted on October 11, 2021October 11, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 14th of October at 6pm

Where: Room M416 + Livestream, School of Architecture and Cities , University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Link to join livestream https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/954cdae480dd42c7b74ca7c02d5e59df

HANNAH is an experimental design and research studio working across scales from furniture to urbanism. HANNAH’s projects mine the tension between machine means and architectural ends. They reclaim authorship over processes of construction that influence the way we can build – or perhaps ought to build in the future. Leslie and Sasa will discuss the ‘Ashen Cabin’ (upstate New York), which uses 3D printed concrete and locally sourced ‘waste’ ash timber.

Leslie Lok is a co-principal at HANNAH, an award-winning experimental design practice for built and speculative projects. Lok is also an assistant professor and the B.Arch Coordinator at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. Lok’s research and teaching explore the intersection of housing, urbanization, and mass-customized construction methods at multiple scales. At Cornell, Lok directs the Urban Construction Laboratory (UCL).

Sasa Zivkovic is a co-principal at HANNAH, an experimental design practice based in Ithaca, New York. Zivkovic is also an assistant professor at Cornell University AAP where he directs the Robotic Construction Laboratory (RCL), an interdisciplinary research group that develops and implements novel robotic construction technology. Interdisciplinary in nature, the work integrates cutting-edge materials, advanced fabrication, mechanical design, architectural computation, structural optimization, and sustainable construction.

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

For details contact: Will McLean

w.f.mclean@wmin.ac.uk

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “Creating Civilised Cities,” Chris Williamson, Weston Williamson and Partners, Thursday, November 12 at 18:00 [online via BB]

Posted on November 12, 2020March 4, 2021 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 12th of November at 6pm

Event Link (there is no need to register): https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/8cfdaba2b81a485d803c0a3181bc6da7

Weston Williamson and Partners have gained a reputation for the elegant design and craft of complex design challenges. Their work includes significant infrastructure projects such as the new station at Barking Riverside, the centrepiece of a massive regeneration scheme. Other recent rail projects include two new stations on the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) at Woolwich and Paddington Station. The Paddington project has been described by the client as “…the jewel in the Crossrail crown.”

When Chris was asked to work with Andrew Weston for group projects at Leicester School of Architecture (for no other reason than they were next to each other alphabetically) he discovered that their skills didn’t overlap but dovetailed perfectly. Their shared ambition made for a perfect business partnership. Forty years later Chris manages and directs the studio and has recently published WW+P’s vision for the next 20 years, which talks about a diverse, collaborative design studio with strong delivery skills. In addition to being a chartered architect, Chris has an MSc in Project Management and believes strongly that the art of architecture requires excellent business skills in order to be realised. Chris has recently been the International Vice President of the RIBA responsible for setting a strategy to grow into a global membership institution and to encourage more UK architects to seek work globally.

Chris and Weston Williamson also generously provide academic partnership and support to March studio DS22 run by Nasser Golzari and Yara Sharif.

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

Technical Studies website – https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

Friday Technical Surgeries

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Mirna Pedalo

Each year, the final year MArch and Year 3 BA students are invited to attend the Friday Technical Surgeries, to help them develop the technical side of their design projects.

The tutorials are organised by Dr Will McLean, and the University of Westminster (UoW) Technical staff is joined by the visiting structural engineers, environmental consultants and practising architects who act as consultants for the students.

In attendance last Friday were:

Scott Batty (UoW)
Will McLean (UoW)
Andrew Whiting (HUT) (UoW)
Chris Leung (UCL) (UoW)
Paolo Cascone (UoW)
Alison McLellan (UoW)

Plus:

Henry Burling, Morph Structures
Thomas Hesslenberg, Elliott Wood
Thecalin Cheung, Architecture PLB
Cath Hassell, ecH20

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “Risk Management in London Underground” James Macrae, Transport for London / Senior Risk Manager, Thursday, November 7, M416, Marylebone Campus, 18:30

Posted on October 30, 2019November 6, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 7th of November, 18:30

Where: M416, Robin Evans Room, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

James Macrae graduated from St John’s College, Cambridge in 1976 with a degree in Engineering, and joined Taylor Woodrow International as a Graduate Civil Engineer. He became a Chartered Engineer (MICE) in 1980, and worked in West Africa, Dubai and the Caribbean. James left to do an MBA at City University in 1987, and then joined Euro Log, a small project risk management consultancy, where he worked in many different industry sectors, including Oil & Gas, Defence, Construction and Transportation. He spent 4 years as Director of Risk and Planning at the New British Library project at St Pancras. In 2005, he joined London Underground as a risk manager, where he has worked on many large projects, including the £15Bn Crossrail project. He now manages risk for the TfL Stations, Capacity and Infrastructure portfolio, which includes the Bank and Elephant and Castle Station Capacity Upgrades, and all TfL involvement in the HS2 Project. James is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institute of Risk Management.

For lecture details contact Will McLean

w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “Material Matters!” Carmen Rist-Stadelmann, Institute of Architecture and Planning at the University of Liechtenstein, Thursday, October 24, M416, Marylebone Campus, 18:30

Posted on October 21, 2019October 22, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday 24^th of October, 18:30

Where: M416, Robin Evans Room, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Materials influence the design and outward appearance of our built architecture. Therefore it is important to perceive of material as a whole, as a unity of form and construction, and to make it understandable as a driving force, as the origin of form and construction in the design process. But how do we offer our students a way to understand the meaning of these aspects? To achieve this, the tectonic discourse, promoting a sensitivity for the material, in short, about generating a sense of joy in and curiosity about the interaction between material, its design and construction, that is, the symbiosis between art and technology in the design and realization. The cultivation of working with materials at full (1:1) scale in the University of Liechtenstein during the past ten years has been an attempt to contribute to the tectonic discourse in combination of different materials in the teaching of architecture in Europe.

Carmen Rist-Stadelmann graduated in Architecture from the Technical University Vienna, Austria and received her PhD from the same university in 2015. During her studies, she was an exchange student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She has practiced professionally in Austria and Malaysia and is currently a senior lecturer at the Institute of Architecture and Planning at the University of Liechtenstein. She runs design studios at undergraduate level and her current research project “Hands- on: An added value for teaching in architecture” focuses on building on a scale of 1:1 with students and professionals as part of their architectural education. Her publication “Crafting the façade: stone, brick, wood”, published by the Swiss publisher park books in 2018, presents the findings of an interdisciplinary design process with the materials stone, brick and wood, which was funded by the European Commission and carried out by three European architectural schools. Her current teaching project, also funded by the European Commission and titled “Wood: Structure and expression”, focuses on the tectonic method for connecting wooden joints to a structure on a scale 1:1. The course is run in cooperation with the industry and three European architectural schools and its results will be completed and published in 2020.

For lecture details contact Will McLean

w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk

https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/

Technical Studies Lecture Series: “Building Communities” Don Murphy, VMX Architects, Amsterdam, Thursday, October 17, M416, Marylebone Campus, 18:30

Posted on October 16, 2019October 22, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 17th of October, 18:30

Where: M416, Robin Evans Room, 35 Marylebone Rd, London NW1 5LS

We design and build attractive spaces for people. As socially committed architects, our mission is to improve the build environment and thus the quality of life. In all our projects we focus on the users and facilitate interaction between people, thereby helping to create healthy communities. Our buildings therefore communicate clearly with their users and with the surroundings.

Don Murphy is an award winning architect, he has lectured extensively internationally, teaches regularly at Universities across the Netherlands, and is adjunct Professor at Hanyang University in Seoul. Don will share his philosophies and principles as creative director and Architect at VMX, and as supervisor for Urban planning at the Municipality of Amsterdam. VMX have an interesting and rich variety of work in typology and complexity and the lecture will reflect this: The idiosyncratic SODAE-House, the incredible multi-storey bicycle park at Amsterdam Central Station and the innovative Noordbuurt housing blocks, with indoor/outdoor transformative garden spaces.

VMX architects is an internationally operating, prize-winning office founded in 1995 in Amsterdam. Their work ranges from the typically Dutch bike shed to a VIP terminal at Schiphol airport, and from social housing to university buildings in Shanghai. Their social commitment is reflected in frequent lectures, their contribution to education, and the Thinking City Summer School – A two-week program which approaches contemporary urban issues from an interdisciplinary perspective.