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.
This new international ideas competition launched by the Landscape Institute will be of interest to students and/or professionals.
The aim of the competition is to respond to the current debates on the design and use of our urban landscape in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Deadline 4th December.
https://competitions.landscapeinstitute.org/transforming-the-urban-landscape/
Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows, an architect, researcher, and the BSc Architectural Technology Year 2 leader has published an article in The RIBA Journal on how the architects can use their skills to help improve conditions for the disadvantaged and marginalised communities and members of our society.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities and highlighted the urgency for community collaboration towards positive societal changes. The pandemic has changed our lives in many ways. My family is grieving the loss of several family members and friends (of Bangladeshi origin), living in the UK.
Research issued by Public Health England reveals that you are more likely to die from Covid-19 if you are BAME than someone who is white, and people of Bangladeshi ethnicity are twice as likely to die from Covid-19 than those who are white and British. The recent global protests for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement brought to focus communities’ collective actions to rise up against racial injustice and various social and health inequalities which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The power of community action and collective response has become urgent for communities worldwide, whether they are affected by racial injustice, health inequality or new developments in their neighbourhood (sometimes resulting in eviction) and for all those passionate to change systemic racism and inequalities.
As practitioners and architects, we could act many ways to facilitate the voices of those who have been marginalised in the society. One of these is to get involved in local planning issues: for example, by alerting the planning authority to any new development that negatively affects low-income communities in the neighbourhood through gentrification.
I am passionate about being part of the change in my area, so volunteered to be part of my borough’s design review panel. There I have the opportunity to help address some of the issues and push the design team and the developers, to hear and respond to the voices of the community. Unfortunately, in all the recent projects we have reviewed (which happened to be led by influential architects), the design decisions did not reflect local engagement (in an area with one of the largest BAME communities in London), and showed a lack of communication with the community they had designed for. Very little work had been done towards any such local engagement in the design process. […]
Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows for RIBAJ, October 2020
To read the full text please go here.
The University of Westminster represented by MA Architecture student Iman Keaik, is excited to host an online webinar about the four conflicting powers in London.
Who owns London? Are people becoming intangible and invisible in the city of conflicting power? How can we imagine a city of consumption ripped from its money power and transformed into a city of production?
This project ‘Challenging Deep Pockets’ explores London as a conflicted city of powers, where people’s right to the city is a forgotten phenomenon, and the citizens step through controlled life marks as a part of the capital’s powers.
The project disrupts the system. It aims to highlight the much-needed new way of thinking, bringing back people’s right to the city by fighting this powerful explosion that has almost irreversibly affected the city. The new London becomes the land of production, rethinks the power of trade and becomes a place where people PRODUCE, TRADE AND BENEFIT.
This new approach to transform the city into a cashless city revolving around its production is also analysed after the unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19. This pandemic helped us read the High street of Oxford Street as containing non-essential shops where most of them where closed in an emergency state. The imagined scenario is that the pandemic lasts few years while the state of the city deteriorates and the bird’s nests take over the streets. These empty unused shops will, therefore, accommodate new functions that serve the in-house production of London.
The session will include the following:
Join us for an open conversation that will lead to sharing of fresh ideas and views about conflicting powers in London.
The webinar will be held via Zoom, after registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
MA Architecture Website: www.instagram.com/maarcwest/?hl=en
MA Architecture Instagram: @maarcwest
When: Saturday, June 6, 2pm
Where: Instagram Live @twoworlds.design
This Saturday, 6th of June at 2pm Hamza Shaikh, DS23 MArch student and the creator of a popular podcast series Two Worlds Design will be joined by three inspiring professionals in the field of architecture to discuss the difficult questions around employment in post-COVID-19 world.
Hamza says:
Many students, myself included, are anxious and confused about the job landscape in architecture. There are many questions to be asked, but we don’t know whom to ask and when to ask. Well, the time to ask is now, and some of the people to ask are joining me this Saturday for this one-off event, LIVE on Instagram. But we need YOU to engage for this to work. Our last event was very successful, and this time we want to hear your voices. If you have any questions, views or experiences on this topic, PLEASE send me a message. We are looking for 3 people to join this event. Otherwise, send your general questions about what you would like to be addressed. See you there!
The event will end with the announcements from Arthur Mamou-Mani and a collective Muslim Women in Architecture, so make sure you tune in!!!
