Congratulations to Kacper Sehnke from BA Architecture DS3.2 on winning 2023 RIBA President’s Bronze Medal and RIBA Award for Sustainable Design at RIBA Part I

On December 14, at the 2023 RIBA President’s Medal Ceremony, Kacper Sehnke from BA Architecture DS3.2 was announced as the winner of this year’s RIBA President’s Bronze Medal (awarded for the best undergraduate project).

Kacper’s outstanding project The Council for Ecosystem Restoration was chosen from 147 entires from across the world. In addition, Kacper’s project was awarded the prestigious RIBA Award for Sustainable Design at RIBA Part I.

In the words of Harry Charrinton, the Head of School of Architecture + Cities:

“Kacper’s two awards reflect his remarkable creativity and endeavour. They also embody the wit and care of his tutors, and as well as acclaiming Kacper’s work, congratulations are owed to the staff who helped him get there. Among others these include, most immediately, his Design Studio 3.2 tutors, Eric Guibert and Bruce Irwin who set the brief and tutored his project throughout. The outstanding Technical & Environmental Studies team led by Will McLean, Pete Silver and Scott Batty. The BArch Course Leader Paolo Zaide and Year Leaders Jane Tankard, Natalie Newey and Richa Mukhia, who have raised the bar, and, together with his personal tutors Nick Beech and Elantha Evans, nurtured Kacper’s talent and confidence throughout the course.”

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

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.

Monsoon [+ other] Grounds – Full Programme_Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd of March,

Monsoon [+ other] Grounds is the third in a series of symposia convened by the Monsoon Assemblages project. It will comprise a key-note address, inter-disciplinary panels, and an exhibition. The event will bring together scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines to engage in conversations about geologies, soils, histories, spatialities, and modifications of monsoon [+ other] grounds.

The confirmed keynote speaker is:

Tim Ingold, Professor and Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. His early work involved ethnographic research amongst the Skolt Saami of northeast Finland. This led to a more general concern with human-animal relations. Most recently, he has been working on the connections between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture, conceived as ways of exploring the relations between human beings and the environments they inhabit, as mutually enhancing ways of engaging with our surroundings. Ingold is author of numerous books, anthologies and essays, including, most recently, The Life of Lines (Routledge, 2015) and Anthropology: Why it Matters (Polity Press, 2018).

Event Programme

Thursday 21 March

15.30 Registration / Tea

15.45 Welcome: Simon Joss, University of Glasgow

16.00 – 17.00 Exhibition walk-about led by John Cook

Exhibitors: Alexandra Arenes, Matt Barlow, Blue Temple, Hari Byles, Corinna Dean, DS18 students, Tumpa Fellows, MONASS, Ben Pollock

17.00 – 18.00 [multi]grounds

Chair: Ed Wall, University of Greenwich

Lindsay Bremner, MONASS: On sediment as method

Ifor Duncan, Goldsmiths College: Sedimentary Witness

18.30 Keynote Lecture: Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen

Chair: Lindsay Bremner

Friday 22 March

09.45 Registration / Coffee

10.00 Welcome + introduction: Lindsay Bremner, MONASS

10.15 – 11.30 [over]ground matters

Chair: Godofredo Pereira, Royal College of Art

Alexandra Arenes, University of Manchester: Mapping the Critical Zones

Christina Leigh Geros, MONASS: Here be Dragons

Avi Varma, Goldsmiths College: Unjust Intonations

11.30 – 11.45 Tea

11.45 – 13.00 [inter]ground matters

Chair: Kirsten Hastrup, University of Copenhagen

Owain Jones, Bath Spa University: Monsoon + Tide

Jonathan Cane, University of the Witwatersrand: Permeability, Ocean, Concrete

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch: Convivial Grounds

14.00 – 15.00 [under]ground matters

Chair: Tim Waterman, The Bartlett UCL

Anthony Powis, MONASS: The Materiality of Groundwater: Leaking, Seeping, Swelling, Cracking

Matt Barlow, University of Adelaide: Floating (under) ground

15:00 – 16:00 [in]ground matters

Chair: Alfredo Ramirez Galindo, AA

Eric Guibert, University of Westminster: Architectural Soils

Harshavardhan Bhat, MONASS: About a Monsoon Forest

16.00 – 16.15 Tea

16.15 – 17.30 [with]ground matters

Chair: Radha D’Souza, University of Westminster

Naiza Khan, Goldsmiths College: Sticky Rice and Other Stories

Beth Cullen, MONASS: Brick

Labib Hossain, Cornell University: Wetness and the City: A Critical Reading of the Dry and Permanent Ground Through the Practice of Muslin Weaving in Bengal

17.30 – 17.45 Closing Remarks: David Chandler

17.45 -19.00 Drinks

Oculus Pavilion – Invitation to Launch Event: Wednesday 13th June, 18:00-21:00

When:  Launch -13th June 2018, 18:00-21:00 | Exhibition Continues – Thursday 14th June to Friday 13th July

Where: Rear of Learning Platform, Architecture and the Built Environment, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

A new Oculus Pavilion, designed and built by third year Architecture students from the University of Westminster, will open Wednesday 13th June, at the rear of Westminster’s Marylebone Campus, as part of the London Festival of Architecture.

The circular structure with a view into the sky was inspired by architect Vladimir Tatlin’s 1919 design Tatlin Tower, a design not realised until a sculpture was built in 1971 as part of the “Art in Revolution” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. The 1971 sculpture was reconstructed at the rear patio of the Marylebone Campus, the same location where the students’ Oculus pavilion will be exhibited this year.

The project was funded by the Quintin Hogg Trust and led by Westminster Architecture Lecturers Maria Kramer and Eric Guibert.