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: Monday, 3rd of June 2024 at 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online
Eventbrite booking link is here.
Jim Coleman’s inaugural lecture will take place on Monday 3 June at 18.00 in M416, with an online option available. Jim Coleman is one of our highly skilled Professors of Practice. The lecture is titled: ‘Delivering Net Zero Places: Realities, Constraints and Opportunities.’
When: Wednesday, 19th of June 2024
Where: LG08, University of Westminster, 12 Little Titchfield St, W1W 7BY London
Please register your attendance here.
This free event, hosted by the Place and Experience research group at the University of Westminster, will bring together tourism and event professionals and academics to discuss practical solutions for the responsible consumption and production of space.
Tourism and event experiences have the power to create significant change in people, places and organisations. While many of these changes are positive, others can be very detrimental to the environment, spaces, and lives of the residents where these activities take place.
This event will consist of a panel from the tourism and events community, including: Priya Narain (KERB); Claudio Giambrone (Wembley Park London); Stroma Cole (Equality in Tourism); Belvin Tawuya (Africa Day Every Day); Claire O’Neill (A Greener Future) Chiara Orefice (University of Westminster); Louise Storch (British Standards Institute). Ilaria Pappalepore from the University of Westminster will chair the panel.
Our panellists will share their views and experiences on the responsible consumption and production of space. We will then invite our audience and speakers to engage in the 3-minute active solution challenge: can you suggest and illustrate in 3 minutes a sustainable, real-life solution to a problem affecting the consumption and production of space? Participants will get the opportunity to collaborate and share best practices, which they will be able to apply to their own professional context as a result.
This event is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2024.
When: From 21st to 23rd of May 2024
Where: 89 Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6PE
We’re thrilled to announce that the MA Interior Architecture students will exhibit their work from this year’s Technical Study at Clerkenwell Design Week.
When: Wednesday, 22nd of May 2024 at 4.30pm-8pm (BST)
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Rd, NW1 5LS
Theme: Activating PhD Research- Social Engagement and Impacts
We delve into the power of community engagement and the real-world applications of doctoral research projects beyond academia.
Guest speaker: Dr. Julie Marsh
Artist and researcher at Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) and Co-Director of the CREAM Doctoral Programme at the University of Westminster.
Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/activating-phd-research-social-engagement-and-impacts-tickets-868203719697?aff=oddtdtcreator
Full programme:
When: Thursday, 13th of June 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 OPEN 2024
Thursday 13 June 6pm
Head of School Harry Charrington cordially invites you to attend the opening of the graduating students’ degree show, OPEN 2024, featuring work from
Preview
Thursday 13 June, 6 – 9pm
Opened by George Clarke
Exhibition continues
Friday 14 June – Sunday 30 Jun
You can also RSVP to DCDI-Events@westminster.ac.uk
Image credit: Declan Slonim, Architecture BA
When: Tuesday, 11th of June 2024 at 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS
Book via Eventbrite here.
In this public lecture, Daniel Mangabeira argues that architects play a key role as builders of social well-being. His award-winning practice, BLOCO Arquitetos, asserts the social role of the architect through a meticulous process of design and construction that refrains from any preconceived aesthetic. This approach will be illustrated by a wide range of projects.
Daniel Mangabeira graduated (with distinction) from the MA Architecture programme at the University of Westminster in 2013. He was subsequently elected President of the Council of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal District of Brazil. The work of BLOCO Arquitetos is often featured in the architectural press and has been widely presented across Latin America. This is their first talk in the UK.
The event is chaired by Davide Deriu, Reader in Architectural History and Theory at the University of Westminster. Everyone is welcome.
When: Monday, 13th of May 2024 at 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online
Eventbrite booking here.
In this lecture, Prof Sadie Morgan’s will chronicle major endeavours over her twenty-five year career, including a selection of projects and roles that have provided fertile testing ground for how design can work to authentically improve people’s lives.
Morgan will focus on the lessons learnt throughout – the power of collaborative design thinking and doing; the need for real social value; gender parity and diversity within the industry; the importance of listening and gathering knowledge; the importance of collective criticism; and the need for well-being and quality of life to become central to the built environment.
The inaugural lecture will also be webcast via Microsoft Teams, with a link shared with registered delegates as an Outlook invite on the day of the event.
In-person attendees are invited to join us for a drinks reception at the close of the lecture, to the event close.
When: Friday, 17th of May 2024 at 6pm (BST)
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS
Book tickets via Eventbrite
Architectural Humanities is one of five research groups established by the School of Architecture and Cities in 2021. It focuses on the historical and cultural processes and practices of architecture. Founded on humanities-based methods and including interdisciplinary arts and social science approaches to research, our members address critical questions about architecture and its contexts. These include: archival and documentary analysis, theoretical debates, oral histories, visual studies, drawing, participatory research, installations and exhibitions.
https://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/groups-and-centres/architectural-humanities-research-group
The one-day symposium, organised by Davide Deriu and Kate Jordan (group convenors), will showcase research in progress by members of the group. It will feature a keynote lecture by Professor Christine Wall (Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow); a roundtable discussion, chaired by Dr Elizabeth Darling (Chair of the Society of Architectural Historians Great Britain); and additional contributions by external speakers. The event is open to all.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Featured image by Leonio Berto – mignon, 2016
When: Friday, 26th of April 2024, 10am – 5pm (BST)
Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS
The Emerging Territories Research Group is hosting a one-day event to celebrate the Max Lock Centre (MLC) and its legacy, and to discuss the future perspectives of current international urban and sustainable development-related research undertaken at the School of Architecture and Cities of the University of Westminster.
In the morning, as a contribution to a discussion of innovative methodologies applied to international planning projects, the MLC team will trace the history of its key projects over the almost thirty years of activity. These include, among others, the master planning of the city of Kaduna in Nigeria, ongoing since the initial work undertaken post-independence in the 1960s, by architect-planner Max Lock and his partner and a former director of MLC, the late Dr Mike Theis. A roundtable with UoW alumni working in international planning and sustainable development, and urban design will follow.
In the afternoon, current multi-disciplinary research undertaken in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East will be briefly presented, and a final workshop on International Urban Dialogues will be organized to reflect on how to shape an open and inclusive global hub of international urban research, practice, and knowledge exchange. A research agenda will be launched, building on the legacy of the MLC and its original idea of ‘Planning by People’ and community participation.
The day will end with the opening of the MLC exhibition, a retrospective of Centre projects illustrating its methodology and historic work from the Max Lock Archive. This will include a repeat-showing of “Civic Diagnosis and City Design: Exploring the life and international influence of the pioneer British Architect-Planner Max Lock 1908-1988. RIBA sponsored exhibition first shown at the University in 1996
Scholars and practitioners working in international planning and development, have been confronted, in recent years, with an increasingly uneasy globalization of urban practices, based on abstract models and discourses of sustainable urbanization, generally lacking context-based understanding of local problems. Beyond the technical skills required by international experts, local understanding of governance issues, power relationships, complex actors networks, and the need of communities are crucial factors to enable projects to kick-off successfully and to ensure their long-term resilience.
However, these practices have been in some cases unsuitable to interpret the diversity and variety of local contexts, and therefore they have often generated extractive and unsustainable local solutions.
One of the underlying questions that will be raised is how to reconcile the international planning practice with emerging and alternative experiences of urbanism from the South? These experiences are tied to new narratives of inclusion and justice focused on the specificity of places, communities and their vulnerabilities, in the attempt to establish genuine dialogues between different world views and cultures.
These experiences have the potential to challenge existing power relationships, nurturing a more equal collaboration between the Global North and Global South. It is under these premises that the symposium has the ambition to define new forms of international urban dialogues, bringing together ideas and concrete proposals to generate an open and inclusive global hub of Research, Practice, and Knowledge Exchange, at the School of Architecture and Cities of the University of Westminster.
10:00 Introduction to the day
10:05 – 11:15
Max Lock Centre: Projects, Methodology, and Achievements
Tony Lloyd Jones, with Michael Mutter, Ripin Kalra, Fede Redin
11:15-11:45 Coffee Break
11:45-13:00
Working in International Planning and Development
A roundtable, face-to-face and online, with MAIPSD and MAUD Alumni, moderated by David Matthewson
Students: Abu Siddiki (London); Darshana Chauhan (London); Nahid Majid (London); Martyn Clark (Geneva), Richa Joshi (Dubai); Moshin Ganai (New Delhi? India), [and other invited online participants (?)]
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
14:00-15:15
Current International Urban Research
Moderated by Krystallia Kamvasinou with short presentations from: Lindsay Bremner (India), Corinna Dean (Pakistan), David Matthewson (Rwanda), Ripin Kalra (Kazakhstan), Ben Stringer (India), Giulio Verdini (Morocco); Paolo Zaide (Philippines), John Zhang (China) and others.
15:15-16:30
Workshop: International Urban Dialogues
Introduced and facilitated by Giulio Verdini, based on the recent RIBA Horizon Scan 2034 on ‘Emerging Economies’. People in the room responding to key questions in breakout groups: Key challenges today in international urban research and practice? Main opportunities for the future? How we can shape an open, and inclusive global hub of international urban research, practice, and knowledge exchange at the UoW?
16:30 Conclusion and Opening of the MLC Exhibition
17:00 Wine Reception
When: Thursday, 11th of April 2024, 13:00-14:00
Where: M322, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS
The final Architecture + Cities Research Seminar for the semester will be presented by a visiting scholar from Copenhagen Business School, Kristian Nielsen. His seminar titled “Behavioral Research on Climate Change Mitigation” will be given in person in M322.
