2022 Environmental Conference | Saturday, January 22 at 9.15am (GMT) | Online event

Posted on January 17, 2022January 31, 2022 by Mirna Pedalo

When: Saturday, 22nd of January at 9.15am

Where: Online Event (to book tickets please go to Eventbrite)

In recent years, there is an increasing awareness of climate change and environmental sustainability. To act on climate change and explore environmental concerns, 8 universities from the UK and Singapore have come together to organise an environmental conference to raise awareness and discuss potential solutions to related issues.

The conference is a one-day event and will have 6 sessions to cover an array of environmental subjects. This event connects students with industry leaders, through a day of presentations, Q&As and networking sessions in collaboration with our speakers.

Architecture Research Forum: “The Gardener Architect: Designing with the emergent natures of places” Eric Guibert, Thursday, April 4, 13:00-14:00, Erskine Room, 5th Floor

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Mirna Pedalo

When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 4th of April

Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus

Eric Guibert is a practising gardener architect who teaches design studio at SA+C. He did a PhD through Reflective Practice as an ADAPT-r Research Fellow at KU Leuven.

Call for Papers: The Architecture Exhibition as Environment – Deadline 1st June 2018

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Mirna Pedalo

The Architecture Exhibition as Environment

A special issue of Architectural Theory Review, edited by Alexandra Brown & Léa-Catherine Szacka

Deadline: Jun 1, 2018

The rise and professionalization, around the 1960s, of the figure of the “curator” marked an important point in the configuration of an exhibition’s authorship and process, including artist-curator overlaps, restaging or reframing of exhibitions, and questioning processes of instruction versus creation. The exhibitions of Harald Szeemann, Lucy Lippard, Seth Siegelaub, Pontus Hultén and others gave form to these new problems, as did the disciplinary provocations of conceptual art. Together, these changes contributed to the transformation of the very idea of the exhibition, from a display of discrete and primarily representational objects to more immersive and experiential environments.

In architecture, however, shifts in curatorial processes and exhibition environments trailed behind experiments in the visual arts (painting, sculpture, conceptual art). And while the practice of discussing exhibitions in terms of curators and the architectural objects they curate may appear to carve out clearly defined roles for those involved, it can often conceal more complex negotiations and overlaps in the practice of exhibition-making and the display of architecturally informed work. In the case of architecture, exhibitions that seek to display process alongside products or outcomes through forms of commissioned content invariably ask the curator to assume multiple roles in the development of the exhibition: those of the curator, the client, the critic, the advisor, and the designer. Likewise, the more totalised experience of the exhibition as environment can recast visitors or audiences as users, clients and participants, as well as embedded spectators.

Such broader shifts in exhibition practices coincided with the emergence of a wide range of architecture exhibitions conceived as, or concerned with, environments. For example, at the 1976 Venice Art Biennale, architecture entered the renowned multidisciplinary institution through an exhibition entitled Ambiente Arte (Environment Art). And by directly addressing or challenging the architectural dimension of the notion of environment, the exhibition suggested new terms on which architecture and design could be practiced, prepared and presented in both institutional and extra-institutional settings. Reflecting growing uncertainty over architecture’s capacity to meaningfully engage with the expanding networks and systems responsible for re-ordering the urban environment in unprecedented (and often intangible) ways, architecture is no longer just the object of the exhibition. Instead, the exhibition itself has emerged as an important site for reframing and representing the discipline of architecture in response to these new challenges.

This issue of Architectural Theory Review seeks to discuss the often overlooked and yet productive negotiations and tensions embedded in the postmodern and contemporary architecture exhibition as form of production. Specifically reflecting on the conflation of the architecture exhibition with environments, to what extent can the productive and problematic aspects of display be considered either as distinct from, or as extensions of, those encountered within the art exhibition? In which ways does the architecture exhibition, considered thus, challenge more traditional and unidirectional curator-artist relationships and outcomes? How might the notion of environment (as media, physical settings or systems) in relation to architecture be used a lens through which to understand new forms of exhibition making?

We are particularly interested in papers reflecting on the conceptualisation and curation of architecture exhibitions, as well as other kinds of exhibitions in which architecture or architectural (or environmental) thinking may be at stake, from the middle of the twentieth century onwards. We also welcome papers addressing biennial and/or triennial exhibitions as forms of display that particularly challenge the temporality of the exhibition as a singular event.

Full papers may be submitted to the ATR Manuscript Central site by June 1, 2018.

This issue of ATR (23, no. 1) will be published in April 2019.

Informal inquiries may be made to alexandra.j.brown@sydney.edu.au or lea-catherine.szacka@manchester.ac.uk

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Architectural Theory Review (23, no. 1), Architecture Exhibition as Environment. In: ArtHist.net, Jan 27, 2018. <https://arthist.net/archive/17218>.

Premier: “A Story of Dreams” film about Jaime Lerner – RIBA, 17th October, 19:00-21:00

Posted on October 8, 2017 by Mirna Pedalo

On Tuesday 17th October, RIBA will host a European premiere of “A Story of Dreams”, film on Jaime Lerner’s groundbreaking work as a mayor of Brazilian city of Curitiba.

Jaime Lerner is a community architect and transformational city leader who believes ordinary people, with their positive energy can upgrade their environment. As Parana State Governor, Curitiba Mayor, and practicing architect within the America’s and Africa, he believes sustainability succeeds by releasing ordinary people’s latent energy to survive and prosper.

To find out more and book tickets: https://www.architecture.com/whats-on/premier-a-story-of-dreams-a-film-about-jaime-lerner#

OPEN2017: The Future of Architecture _ Part 2/2

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Mirna Pedalo

Hello and welcome to Part 2 of our report on OPEN2017.

Here we bring you some of the MArch RIBA Part II, Interior Design (BA Hons) and Architectural Technology (BSc Hons) students’ work, which had been on show in our Marylebone studios from June 15th until July 2nd.

MArch RIBA Part II

The MArch programme is underpinned by critical agendas, which through its studio culture, are explored as speculative realities. […] The evolving nature of the city, environmental intervention, digital craft, cinematic investigations of space, chance operations, spaces of conflict, industrial regeneration – these are just some of the themes explored by staff and students. (Darren Deane, Course Leader, OPEN2017 Catalogue)

DS10 lead by Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani believes that architecture should be fun and is obsessed with giving the students an opportunity to build their own projects in the real world. The studio is focused is on physical experiments tested with digital tools for analysis, formal generation and fabrication. This year, students worked on three different briefs: From Symbols to Systems: Pavilion Proposal, Pavilion Construction and The Big Plan. The three briefs are 3 steps towards a creation of a pavilion for Burning Man 2017. This year’s field trip was to the utopian city of Auroville and the many temples of Hampi Valley.

DS11 lead by Andrew Peckham, Dusan Decermic and Elantha Evans, had chosen Budapest as the location and focus of their studio projects this year. This choice was directly related to an initial interest in the constitution of twin cities, where twinning as a theme might be understood at different scales: from a transnational context to that of the city itself, its urban districts and interiors. The studio developed three short study project themes, however the main Year One design project was Reconfiguring the Baths, and the Year Two design thesis associated with Architectures of Stasis and Flux. Both were introduced before the visiting Budapest and conducting a city survey.

DS12 lead by Ben Stringer, Peter Barber and Maria Kramer, focused on imagining and designing densely populated and ‘publicly owned’ city island villages in the Thames Estuary, a project that intersects issues of housing, industry, ecology and environment. A key issues that studio deals with is a severe shortage of housing in London and the construction of the Thames Tideway ‘super-sewer’, which will help bring new life to estuary ecology. Both were taken as catalysts for imagining new and better modes of existence and new ways of designing the cities. At the beginning of the second semester students went on a field trip to India, where they visited three big cities: Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

DS13 lead by Andrew Yau and Andrei Martin operates as an applied think-tank, performing cultural analysis and design research. This year the studio focused on the role, relevance and political agency of architecture in contemporary cultural landscape defined by affect, mood, atmosphere and sensation. This was done through the context of Hong Kong’s urban transformation.

DS15 lead by Sean Griffiths, Kester Rattenbury and Ruby Ray Penny studies ‘chance’ as a design method via the transposition into architectural design of the American composer John Cage’s aleatoric techniques for musical composition. The studio’s approach encourages students to divest themselves of existing prejudices, tastes and preconceptions in the development of inventive design processes that challenge the underlying assumption that design is rational, linear and preordained activity predicated on intentionality.

DS16 lead by Anthony Boulanger, Stuart Piercy and Callum Perry returned from a sabbatical this year to continue to build on an ethos that challenges students to create experimental spatial design project that are informed by a critical response to social, cultural, political and economic contexts with an emphasis on an engagements with materials and an understanding of craft. The year began with an intense 5-week creative collaboration with the ceramics expert Jessie Lee at the Grymsdyke Farm. From there the investigation shifted to Porto, Portugal, which became a base for the main individual design project, where students conceived their own briefs and conducted their research.

DS18 lead by Lindsay Bremner and Roberto Botazzi has been participating in the research agenda of Monsoon Assemblages since 2016, a 5-year ERC funded project taking place in three cities in South Asia: Chennai, Dhaka and Delhi. These cities are places where neoliberal development is conspiring with changing monsoon patterns to produce floods, heatwaves, outbreaks of disease or water shortages and making urban life increasingly vulnerable. In 2016/17 the studio began simulating monsoon rain as a way to develop its programme and aesthetics. The students visited Chennai where they were hosted by the School or Architecture and Planning at Anna University.

DS20 lead by Gabby Shawcross and Stephen Harty uses film to design and represent architecture. The aim of the studio is to explore animated relationships between architecture and occupants, simulate moving experiences of space, describe dynamic events and speculate on future scenarios. The year the students looked at motion in architecture and architecture in motion. They made journeys through space (quick direct routes and choreographed spatial sequences) in search of architecture that permits encounter and elicits delight.

DS21 lead by Clare Carter, Gill Lambert and Nick Wood is interested in edgelands. Working within a post-industrial landscape, the studio made a proposition for revitalising and re-imagining the town of Doncaster and its former mining colonies. The year began with a forensic study of the land, resulting in richly illustrated mappings, followed by production of artefacts which came as a result of working with the material culture of local communities. The major design project Doncaster Works had students speculating on the idea of a resurgent Doncaster, whether to make a new civic space, repurpose an existing structure or suggest a new industrial infrastructure for the town and its environs.

DS22 lead by Nasser Golzari and Yara Sharif aims to create a strong link between the practice, research and academia, so this year the studio continued ‘research by design’ journey across ‘absent’ and uncertain landscapes where time and mobility have become irrelevant. Looking at the Mediterranean sea as a prototype for hyper-connected and enduringly fragile world of present, leading to the edges of the Red Sea, Dead Sea and Persian gulf, the students tried to unpack the and expose the hidden layers and dynamic potential of coastal cities.

Light and Flight is a collaborative project between DS22, Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) and Golzari-NG Architects, in collaboration with Amos Trust. Exhibited at the OPEN2017, the project was also part of London Festival of Architecture (LFA). The installation celebrates notion of memory – this year’s theme at the LFA.

Interior Architecture (BA Hons)

Interior architecture is a distinct context-based practice concerned with re-reading, re-using and altering an architectural shell. Whether at the scale of the city, a building, or a room, the ‘interiorist’ always starts with something and within something. By altering those structures, Interior Architecture allows a building to have many different lives. London is our campus and projects this year included study spaces in the Victoria and Albert Museum, installations at Wilton’s Music Hall, live-work dwellings on Columbia Road and a broadcasting facility in Unity House, Woolwich. (Ro Spankie, Course Leader, OPEN2017 Catalogue)

Year 1: lead by Lara Rettondini (Module Leader), Sue Phillips, Yota Adilenidou, Allan Sylvester, Matt Haycocks

In the first year, students on the BA Interior Architecture course are introduced to underlying concepts and principles associated with the discipline and learn fundamental processes, skills and techniques relevant to conceive and develop, resolve and communicate spatial design proposals. They are also get to grips with the use of graphic design, CAD and 3D modelling software, as well as the Faculty’s Fabrication Lab. The projects undertaken over the course of the first year range from short-term tasks in semester one, followed by a study space design for researcher-in-residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum, to the interior design of a small building in semester two.

Year 2: lead by Matt Haycocks, Mike Guy, Mohamad Hafeda, Tania Lopez Winkler, Alessandro Ayuso (semester one includes: Julia Dwyer, Diony Kypraiou, Ro Spankie)

This year the students were asked to look at two very different buildings: Wilton’s (a Victorian music hall in London’s East End) and Unity House (a marine engineering workshop on the banks of the Thames in Woolwich). Both studio projects were focused on the role of the existing building fabric in the process of regeneration, but also the role politics and the place play in interpreting the present and imagining the future. In semester one the students joint the third year students to work on the ideas related to domesticity and home, then worked on design proposals for the temporary inhabitation of Wilton’s Music Hall and finally in semester two they devised their own proposals for the adaptation and reuse of Unity House.

Year 3: lead by Ro Spankie, Alessandro Ayuso, Diony Kypraiou, Matt Haycocks (semester one includes: Julia Dwyer, Mike Guy, Mohamad Hafeda, Tania Lopez Winkler)

Third year students started this academic year working together with second year students on a joint project Home Acts. The aim was to explore an idea of home constructed through acts and rituals, rather than brick and mortar. Their own experience of home was then rehoused to a public realm, culminating into an installation and/or performance at Wilton’s Music Hall. The final Major Project in BA Architecture is self derived with students selecting their site and setting their programme.

Architectural Technology (BSc Hons)

Architectural Technology offers specialism in the technological, environmental, material and detailing decisions necessary to solve design problems. It requires sound understanding of design process, design and architectural composition, construction technology, and management tools for the effective communication of design information. (Virgina Rammou, Course Leader, OPEN2017 Catalogue)

This year, the second year students were asked to design a nursery school for 85 children and the third year students a new building for White Cube Galleries.

Year 2: lead by Adam Thwaites, Paul Kalkhoven, Tabatha Harris Mills, Virginia Rammou

Year 3: lead by Adam Thwaites, Paul Smith, Tabatha Harris Mills, Virginia Rammou