Tag: Architecture

UoW + London Festival of Architecture: Hamza Shaikh “Drawing Attention: Architecture in the Age of Social Media” | June 8, 2023 at 6.45pm (BST) in MG14, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, June 8, 6.45pm-7.45pm

Where: MG14, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Rd, NW1 5LS

The School of Architecture + Cities is excited to host its alumnus Hamza Shaikh, who will be speaking about his recently published and timely book on architecture and social media.

Drawing Attention – Architecture in the Age of Social Media by Hamza Shaikh is a new book published by RIBA which provides practical drawing guidance from leading figures around the world.

In the context of huge changes occurring in the profession of architecture as well as the education system, Shaikh’s book sets the tone for a new era of architectural dissemination. “New tools, media, interfaces and ideas are emerging through social media; our new digital common for inspiration and communication. Students now go to Instagram for drawing guidance as universities tend not to explicitly teach artistic expression – arguably the most useful skill for visionaries and creative professionals. However this book provides step-by-step insights into a huge variety of drawing styles and methods to help people gain confidence in their creative potential”.

Join Hamza Shaikh at the University of Westminster for an in-depth dive into the journey of writing his book and understanding the exciting but unknown future of architects in the age of social media.

LFA Website

For more information and to book your free ticket please go here.

Shape to Fabrication 2023 [ STF #8 ] | Workshops: 22nd – 24th April 2023 | Conference: 26th-27th April 2023 at the University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Workshops on Saturday 22nd, Sunday 23rd, and Monday 24th of April 2023 | Conference on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th 2023

Where: University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Rd, NW1 5LS

The School of Architecture + Cities is hosting Shape To Fabrication 2023. This is the first time that the industry leading event has been hosted by a university. The conference sessions are co-moderated by Arthur Mamou Mani (MArch DS10 tutor).

Shape to Fabrication is an Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) and Design focused conference, presenting innovative real world projects going beyond the theoretical. Focus is on proven application and evidence based project delivery.

Presenters at the conference represent an international field of Architects, Engineers, Designers, Fabricators and Software Developers, all working at the cutting-edge of their industries within AEC and Design.

The 8th iteration of Shape to Fabrication is presented in partnership with the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, and the 2-day conference takes place at the University of Westminster’s Marylebone Campus, London, on the 26th & 27th April 2023.

For more information and to book tickets please go here.

University of Westminster staff and students, to book please use the links below:

Featured Image: Shape to Fabrication, Brian Gillespie, Robert McNeel and Associates, 2018

Architecture History + Theory Guest Lecture: Hélène Binet, “The Making of a Photograph” | Thursday, March 30 at 18:00 (BST) in Robin Evans Room (M416)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 30th of March 2023 at 6pm (BST)

Where: Robin Evans Room (M416), University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Rd, NW1 5LS

“The making of a photograph is constructing a microworld: it has its own technique, craft and aim. Through this lecture, we will explore thirty-five years in the making.”

Over a period of more than thirty-five years Hélène Binet has captured both contemporary and historic architecture. She is a fervent advocate of analogue photography, working exclusively with film, and a firm believer that ‘the soul of photography is its relationship with the instant’.

Binet’s work has been exhibited in both national and international exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai, in 2019. She was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2007 and in 2015 was the recipient of the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award. She was also the recipient of the 2019 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize, awarded to a woman who has made a major contribution to architecture, and is one of the Royal Photographic Society’s Hundred Heroines.

ALL WELCOME

Architecture History + Theory Guest Lecture: Joseph Cook, “Ethnography and Architecture” | Thursday, March 16 at 6pm (GMT) in Robin Evans Room (M416) + online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 16th of March at 18:00 (GMT)

Where: Robin Evans Room (M416), University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Rd, NW1 5LS + online

Due to the rail strike this lecture will also be live streamed via MS Teams:

Click here to join the lecture online via MS Teams

In this lecture, Joseph Cook (UCL Anthropology) will introduce links between anthropology and architectural practice going back to the turn of the 20th century, from studying lighting levels in Chicago, to turning the tables on Margaret Mead to design the office of the future. The second half of the lecture will focus on ways in which taking a more ethnographic approach to design could lead to both an improved built environment, and a more considerate culture of design education.

Joseph Cook is a former BA Architecture student at Westminster, currently completing his PhD at UCL Anthropology, having undertaken an ethnography within a multinational design firm. He also works with UCL Urban Laboratory and is a Research Assistant with the School of Population Health at Queen Mary University of London.

Featured image: Participant testing a Herman Miller Office Nap Pad in 1964.

Architecture + Cities Research Seminar: Nick Beech “Translating Ferro/Transforming Knowledge: Sergio Ferro, William Morris and a new field ” | Wednesday, March 8 at 1pm (GMT) | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday, 8th of March at 13:00 (GMT)

Where: Online (link below)

The next Architecture + Cities Research Seminar will be given by Nick Beech, Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Architecture, a member of the Architectural Humanities Research Group and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE), at 13.00 online, on March 8. The topic of the seminar is: 

      Translating Ferro/Transforming Knowledge: Sergio Ferro, William Morris and a new field (details below). 

The link to the seminar is here. 

Ramadan Pavilion 2023 designed by Shahed Saleem | Ramadan Tent Project and the V&A | Friday, March 3 – Monday, May 1, 2023

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Where: Exhibition Road Courtyard, V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL

When: Friday, March 3 to Monday, May 1, 2023

Congratulations to Shahed Saleem, Reader in Architecture in the School of Architecture + Cities and BA Architecture DS2.3 tutor. Since the Pavilion’s inception in the days before the pandemic, Saleem has involved students in all aspects of its creation, and over 20 students from our School have helped in its fabrication.

“The Ramadan Pavilion is a purpose-built architectural structure and showpiece of creative art and design to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. The Pavilion will host a series of public events and two Open Iftars as part of the annual Ramadan Festival curated by Ramadan Tent Project.

The aim of the annual Ramadan Pavilion is to celebrate the lived experiences of Muslims across the UK and globe during the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, and to bring attention to the core values and traditions of Ramadan through architectural expression, experimentation and associated public arts programme. ”

V&A website

More info on the project here.

The opening event will take place as a part of the Ramadan Conference 2023 on Sunday, March 5 at 1pm. More info about the event here.

V&A: Make Good Symposium 2023 | Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 11:00-17:30 (GMT) at V&A South Kensington

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday, 1st of March 2023, 11am – 5.30pm (GMT)

Where: V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

For the second Make Good symposium the V&A brings together international speakers from a wide range of disciplines, spanning science, design, architecture and forestry to look at the opportunities and challenges of sourcing and making with natural, renewable and local materials, in particular wood. As such it takes a cue from the Field Notes Summer School, which was a collaboration between the environmental charity Sylva Foundation and the V&A. This day of talks and conversations, presenting ongoing projects and research, forms a collection of field notes to inform and inspire future initiatives in sustainable design and manufacture.

To book and for more information please go here.

UoW School of Architecture + Cities with Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF): Fully funded interdisciplinary PhD studentship | Application deadline: Friday, January 20, 2023

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities (UoW), in collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF) welcome applications for an interdisciplinary PhD studentship funded by Technē under its Doctoral Training Partnership Scheme, to begin in September 2023. Applicants will be shortlisted via the UoW online application and interview arrangements and be subject to approval via the subsequent Technē online application process.

Project Overview and Research Outline

Zaha Hadid was the first woman and Arabic architect to win architecture’s Pritzker Prize (26th Laureate), yet there are few academic studies of her ground-breaking career as an international pioneer in the continuation of Modernism and the emergence of ‘parametric’ design. This first PhD project with the newly formed ZHF will combine reinterpretations of her ethnic and gendered context with detailed exploration of her seminal role in reshaping architecture through digital production. The ensuing work will contribute to the development of a major research foundation. 

This PhD may span or link three key areas. The work will chart and analyse the translation of her world-famous speculative paintings through emerging digital technologies to inform major innovations in architectural practice; will test her often-vehement criticisms of professional barriers to gender, especially women and those from global minority backgrounds; and will combine these to offer new histories and interpretations of her work. Moreover, the outcomes will test, in practice at the ZHF, how the capturing of digital and process-driven design can shape the construction of architectural archives. 

For more information go here: 

On Jobs.ac.uk:

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CWA034/interdisciplinary-phd-studentship-funded-by-techne-under-its-doctoral-training-partnership-scheme

On the UoW website:

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-degrees/studentships/school-of-architecture-and-cities-studentship

On Find a PhD:

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/interdisciplinary-phd-a-collaboration-between-university-of-westminster-and-the-zaha-hadid-foundation/?p153368

Featured image: Zaha Hadid with Zaha Hadid Architects, London 2066, Vogue Magazine (UK), 1991 © Zaha Hadid Foundation

The Robin Evans Lecture 2022: Andrew Holmes – IMAGINATION: From Ink to Light | Tuesday, October 25 at 18:00 (BST), Robin Evans Room and online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 25th of October at 6pm (BST)

Where: Robin Evans Room, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS + Online

About the Speaker

Born in 1947 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Andrew Holmes moved to London in 1966, and attended the Architectural Association.

He is best known for a series of 150 photo realistic colour pencil drawings exploring the apparently anonymous mobile infrastructure of cities. In addition his work encompasses printmaking, photography, film, and design.

The work in all its forms has been exhibited, and published widely for fifty-five years. Holmes is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University, Guest Professor at the Technische Universitaat, Berlin, and a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. He lives and works in London.

http://www.andrewholmes.me.uk

About this event

Andrew’s personal view is not the conventional idea of imagination. He will be talking about his experience of drawing.

During his working life the digital revolution has enabled a transformation. The craft of pencil and ink on paper has been joined by the skill of drawing with light. Andrew is fascinated by the ways in which an idea in the mind can be represented to the outside world.

The talk comprises an intense collection of images and visual effects. It offers observations about the unique quality of handicraft and the elements of three traditions:

Art is evidence, and an ability to select significant objects and experiences.

Art is the residue of engaging the existing systems with particular mechanical techniques and processes.

Art provides the possibility of fabricating new versions of reality.

About the Robin Evans Lecture Series

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.

Registering for the event

This year’s lecture will take place in the Robin Evans Room in hybrid format, with a limited number of places available for in-person attendance by students, staff and externals – in line with capacity for the room (100). Additionally, there is capacity for up to 500 attending remotely via Zoom. You must register if you plan to attend.

The in-person iteration will be followed by a short drinks reception in the Robin Evans Room, closing at approximately 21:00.

Register via Eventbrite

Performance Architecture: Body, Movement, Space | Online Summer School | Deadline for applications: June 22, 2022

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Course dates: 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th of July

Deadline for applications: 22nd of June 2022

Free webinar: 18th of June 2022 at 10am

Performance Architecture Online Summer School is an exciting learning journey designed to inspire, broaden, and challenge the possibilities of spatial representation and design.

Participants are invited to work on ways of designing that use the body as an instrument of thinking, sensing, drawing and sculpting space. It is designed to give an alternative, critical view to the study, use and production of space on both urban and architectural scales.

Architecture has for long been considered a static discipline. This course focuses on applying the toolbox of performance in architectural thinking, to the production of spatial actions and bodily geometries in space.

For more details and to apply please go here.