Tag: Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce

ArCCAT Student Representatives + Square Mile Farms: How to farm vegetables from hydroponic wall installed at Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

In 2022, the students in the School of Architecture + Cities received the funding from the Green Fund Scheme to install the hydroponic (green) wall at Marylebone Campus. The University of Westminster’s Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation (CETI) set up the Green Fund Award together with the Sustainability Team to support the students’ sustainability related projects.

The hydroponic wall demonstrates a sustainable method of growing plants without soil, by using water through which nutrients are pumped. This method produces crops quicker and uses 90% less water than soil-based growing methods, as well as requiring no pesticides. The ability to grow plants indoors also allows ‘farmers’ to control temperatures and lighting schedules to improve plant production.

This year, the ArCCAT student reps have been trained by Dhiresh Tailor, Farm Operations Manager at Square Mile Farms, to look after the hydroponic wall, including how to carefully monitor the nutrient solution, and adjust iron and PH levels weekly.

University of Westminster News

The ArCCAT student reps who took part in this initiative are Anna Prideaux, Architecture and Environmental Design BSc Honours; Julie Beech, Interior Architecture BA Honours; Antoni Canyelles, Architecture BA Honours; Maja Kurantowicz, Architecture MA; and Marie Laura Polselli, Interior Architecture MA student.

To find out more about this event please visit here.

LFA 2022 + ArCCAT | Architecture Acts: A Climate Performance in Three Parts | University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, June 24, 2022, 14:00-17:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, 24th of June 2022 from 2pm to 5pm

Where: University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

Architecture Acts asks participants to think beyond carbon calculations as architecture’s response to climate change. It is predicated on the understanding that architecture acts on and with the environment and that acts of protest can be affirmative and inclusive.

Act 1: The Conversation, initiated by Sarah Ichioka, co-author of Flourish: Design Paradigms for our Planetary Emergency (2021) and Elisa Iturbe, guest editor of Log 47, ‘Overcoming Carbon Form’ (2019), with Peg Rawes and Jeremy Till as respondents, discusses architecture’s implication in climate change and its potential for alternative action.

Act 2: Postcards to our Planet. In 1909 architecture student and suffragette Elspeth McClelland was posted to the Prime Minister, an action designed to allow women’s voices to be heard. We will make postcards as acts of solidarity, conversations with our planet.

Act 3: A Tea Party to honour McClelland’s action. Participants will be asked to perform readings of their postcards.

This event is free, but to attend please register here.

Featured Image [segment of the original]: Daisy Solomon and Elspeth McClelland with a post boy, police and an official outside 10 Downing Street, attempting to get themselves delivered as letters LSE Library – https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/22934656091/ On reverse of photo is printed ‘Copyright: World’s Graphic Press Limited, 36-38 Whitefriars Street, Fleet Street, London’.

Announcing the new ArCCAT reading group

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The Architecture + Cities Climate Action Taskforce is starting a monthly online reading group. We will begin with Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, by Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn. This will take place on 2nd March, 16.00 – 17.30. If you wish to join the reading group, please contact Ro Spankie at r.spankie@westminster.ac.uk and she will send you the Teams meeting link.  

The reading group is open to all staff, students and other university employees who are interested in engaging with debates around architecture’s response to the climate crisis.   

Readings will be short. For the first reading group meeting, all we ask you to read is the Introduction to Flourish (pp.1-19). The library holds an e-copy which you can access, or if you wish to purchase a copy, go here: https://www.triarchypress.net/flourish.html. In addition, Sarah and Michael have a wonderful podcast series in which they engage with a number of interesting people about the issues the book raises: https://www.flourish-book.com/flourishsystemschange-podcast 

We are aware that 02 March is a potential day of strike action, but we feel a reading group is not ‘work’ and are also hopeful the University and Union might reach an agreement. 

ArCCAT flag flies outside Regent Street campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Thanks to the support of our VC Peter Bonfield, and the efforts of Dain Son Robinson and Matt and Jessica in the University’s design team, an ArCCAT flag has been produced and is hanging outside the Regent Street building this week. Once it is taken down, it will find a permanent home in the M416, the William Cullen Room. 

Congratulations to all involved and thank you for this endorsement of the work we are doing in the School of Architecture + Cities towards addressing climate change and wider sustainability goals.  

The School of Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce (ArCCAT) Forum | Wednesday, January 26, 14:00-15:00 (GMT) | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday, 26th of January 2022 from 2pm to 3pm (GMT)

Where: Online event

The School of Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce will convene a Forum in January for all interested in finding out what the taskforce has accomplished since its formation last year, what its current projects are and what it plans for the new year.

The Forum will be held as an online event via Microsoft Teams on 26 January 2022, 14.00-15.00 and is open to all Students and Staff of the University.

Register for the event (via Eventbrite)

Those registering should automatically receive the Teams link on completion of Eventbrite, however this will also be shared with attendees (via email) on the morning of the event.

Sustainable Cities and the Urban Environment Research Community + ArCCAT: Panel Discussion “Good COP / Bad COP” | Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 16:00 (GMT)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday, 19th of January, 4pm-6pm (GMT)

Where: Online event

Book tickets via Eventbrite here.

The Sustainable Cities and the Urban Environment Research Community and the Architecture and Cities Climate Action Taskforce invite you to a panel discussion to reflect on the successes and failures of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow in November and its implications for the future of the planet. Participants will reflect on their experiences in Glasgow, give their assessment of the outcomes of the meeting and discuss potential avenues of urban and environmental research and action they call for.

Discussants

Melanie McGlone (Westminster Law School)

Radha D’Souza (Westminster Law School)

Martin Matthews (Westminster Business School)

Tom Cohen (Active Travel Academy)

Jamie Williams (former MArch student, School of Architecture and Cities)

Moderators

Andrew Smith (SCUE)

Lindsay Bremner (ArCCAT)

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

Posted on 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: Practicing Sustainability – from Portfolio to Practitioner | Tuesday, October 26 at 18:00 (BST), Robin Evans Room (M416) + online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 26th of October 6pm – 8pm

Where: 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.

ArCCAT Climate Action Week: Opening of the ArCCAT Climate Action Exhibition + Launch of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Campaign | Monday, October 25 from 17:30 (BST), Marylebone Learning Platform

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Monday, 25th of October at 5.30pm – 6.30pm

Where: Marylebone Learning Platform

Speaker: Peter Bonfield

Curators: Lindsay Bremner, Grace Lancto, Francois 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 tea