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: Thursday, 7th of November 2024, 1pm-2pm (GMT)
Where: Online
The next Architecture and Cities Research Seminar will take place on Thursday 07 November, 13.00 – 14.00, online, when Shahed Saleem will present “Public Engagement as Knowledge Production.”
You can access the Teams link here.
All are welcome, including students.
When: Monday, 2nd of December 2024 from 6pm to 8.20pm (GMT)
Where: M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online
Book on Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance
In this lecture, Prof Rachel Aldred will reflect on over fifteen years of researching active travel, changes implemented in London and elsewhere, and the limits of those changes. She will suggest ways in which walking and cycling environments need to change to ensure that more people can walk and cycle, that these opportunities are available to currently under-represented groups, and that people’s experiences of walking and cycling are more equal than they are now. This will draw on Rachel’s own and others’ research, and will consider what we might expect or hope for in future.
When: Thursday, 31st of October 2024 at 6pm (GMT)
Where: M416 (Robin Evans Room), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online
“In our practice we have always seen a care towards the physical construction of a building as a way of caring about the people who use that building, and the people involved in its construction.”
Giles Smith
Assemble is a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art. Founded in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, Assemble has since delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work, while retaining a democratic and co-operative working method that enables built, social and research-based work at a variety of scales: both making things, and making things happen. Assemble won the Turner Prize in 2015.
Giles is a founding member of Assemble, a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design, and art. He studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Art and has taught architecture at the University of Westminster and the AA and has lectured widely internationally.
w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk – For details contact Will McLean
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
w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk – For details contact Will McLean
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.
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
w.f.mclean@westminster.ac.uk – For details contact Will McLean
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
When: Tuesday, 5th of November 2024, 17:00-18:30 (GMT)
Where: Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, W1B 2HW
Amid a widespread pressure to decolonise the curriculum in UK Universities we face crucial questions about how our learning and research environments can better reflect and challenge existing racial categorisations. This panel roundtable will delve into how universities can create inclusive spaces by embracing alternative knowledge systems—shaping a more equitable future for all.
Our speakers for the evening:
Panel chair:
Professor Dibyesh Anand, Deputy Vice–Chancellor for Global Engagement and Employability, University of Westminster
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.
When: Monday, 7th of October 2024 at 6pm – 7.30pm (BST)
Where: Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regents Street, W1B 2HW
Join us at the launch of the new open access book We Need to Talk about Climate: How Citizens’ Assemblies Can Help Us Solve the Climate Crisis, written by Graham Smith, Professor of Politics at the University of Westminster and Chair of the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA).
Graham will be joined by Miriam Levin, Director of the Participatory Programmes at Demos and lead author of the recent Citizens’ White Paper, and Clare Farrell, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Humanity Project, to debate the future of citizens’ assemblies in the UK and beyond. The event will be introduced by Peter Bonfield, Vice Chancellor of the University of Westminster.
The transition to net zero and climate resilient societies requires deep social and economic transformations that will have significant effects on citizens’ lives. Such a transition needs to engage the public directly. Citizens’ assemblies show us how we can bring the shared wisdom of ordinary people into political decision-making.
We Need to Talk about Climate explores the variety of climate assemblies that have taken place so far at local, national and international levels and explains why they have captured the imagination of governments and activists alike. It examines the different contexts and designs of climate assemblies and assesses their impact. Drawing lessons from current practice, the book demonstrates how assemblies can take us beyond the shortcomings of electoral and partisan politics and how they can have a real and lasting impact on climate policy and politics.
We Need to Talk About Climate can be downloaded and hard copies ordered on the University of Westminster Press website.
Praise for the book
“An authoritative and practical guide to one of the most promising democratic innovations for redressing the power imbalances in climate policymaking”, Laurence Tubiana, CEO, European Climate Foundation
“Full of penetrating analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows that there is another – and better – way of doing politics”, Dr Roman Krznaric, author of The Good Ancestor
“Let us heed Professor Smith’s advice before the clock stops ticking”, Professor John Gastil, Penn State University.
https://www.westminster.ac.uk/events/book-launch-we-need-to-talk-about-climate-assemblies
![Technical Studies Lecture Series: Giles Smith [Assemble] “Sludge and Rocks” | Thursday, October 31 at 18:00 (GMT), M416 Robin Evans Room + Livestream](http://www.openstudiowestminster.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/05_Assemble-1.jpg)
![Technical Studies Lecture Series: Armor Guttiérez [UEL] “Sugarcrete” | Thursday, October 17 at 18:00 (BST), M416 Robin Evans Room + Livestream](http://www.openstudiowestminster.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/03_Armor-1.jpg)
![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](http://www.openstudiowestminster.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/02-Smales-Ash-1.jpg)
