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.
When: Monday, 12th of February 2024 at 13:00 (GMT)
Where: Online
Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari and François Girardin will present the next Architecture + Cities Research Seminar, titled A Foot on the Earth, a Hand in the Sky: Gaza Experimental Lab. It will take place at 13.00 on Monday 12 February online.
The link to the meeting is here
When: Tuesday, 12th of December 2023 at 6pm (GMT)
Where: 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW
The ongoing crisis in Gaza has generated intense debate worldwide and exposed a range of tensions – moral, legal, and political – that continue to beset the international system.
This crisis did not happen in a vacuum and its repercussions will likely define international politics for many years to come.
In this roundtable we will situate this crisis in context, analyse the key themes and issues that make it so controversial and emotive, and speculate on its long-term impact on the existing international order.
This is a cross University event.
All students and staff welcome.
Please join MArch DS22 tutors and the founders of Palestine Regeneration Team, Senior Lecturers at the UoW, Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari, on the 10th of June 2021 at 6pm (BST) for a webinar and a book launch for Open Gaza: Architectures of hope, co-edited by the late Michael Sorkin and Deen Sharp.
In an attempt to cultivate hope, a group of scholars got together to explore imaginative spatial scenarios to heal the fractured city of Gaza. While we share some of the work, we will also be discussing the wider subjects of Architecture of Care and the Right to the City.
The event hosted by the Head of School of Architecture + Cities, Professor Harry Charrington, is a tribute to Michael Sorkin and a testament to his insistent cry for a right to the city and a spatial justice for all.
The event is part of London Festival of Architecture.
For further details and to register for the event please go to Eventbrite.
How can communities outside the Middle East, including diaspora, engage in influencing the decolonization of public space and architecture?
Alongside the exhibition, a panel discussion on the Arab cities of Mosul, Baghdad, Riyadh, Ramallah, Beirut, Damascus and Gaza will take place to unpack their vanishing landscape and the way it is being ‘Dressed and Undressed’. Notions such as Home, re-production, re-construction and re-imagination of space will be interrogated by different researchers through film, drawings and mapping.
This event is FREE and open to all but registration is essential to attend.
To book please go to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dressingundressing-the-landscape-panel-discussion-tickets-57315042836
The event will be organised by PART and the panel discussion will be led by PhD students and researchers from the University of Westminster and University College London.
Curator Yara Sharif invites guests to explore the concept behind the exhibition, and its importance as an alternative lens into a world of responsive architectural design.
The discussion will address the social and environmental issues of colonisation, where foreign architecture and spatial design can demolish not only functional space, but with it, layers of history, culture, memory and identity.
Chair : Dr Nasser Golzari
Panelists: Dr Murray Fraser & Yara Sharif
Exhibitors:
AWAN, which is about to enter its 5th edition, showcases the work of contemporary Arab women artists in the UK, Europe and beyond, providing opportunities for artists and audiences to celebrate, be informed and network whilst exposing new audiences to the work of emerging and established artists.
AWAN is produced by Arts Canteen and supported by Rich Mix London
When: Friday, 1st of March 2019, 18:00 – 20:00 GMT
Where: Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
Dressing/Undressing the Landscape explores means to rethink the current cultural landscape of the Middle East.
In a dialogue between architecture, art and spatial design, female architects and artists from the Arab world and beyond, bring forward new insights to the cities of Gaza, Mosul, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Ramallah and the rural villages of Palestine.
The works provoke the current geography of the Middle East and the way it is being represented, exploited and imagined — especially with the on-going colonial project that continues to dress it with alien layers and new sceneries.
The contributors question through design, what might a landscape crafted by women be like? They offer alternatives that resist the legislated power of men, the power of war and the power of image, which have been constantly reinvented.
In the cities of Mosul, Damascus and Baghdad Dressing/Undressing the Landscape goes beyond the surface to cultivate hope; contributors share the beauties of everyday life and the hidden agencies that shape their cities.
In Palestine, Undressing the Landscape is a way to expose the hidden potentials of the ‘edges’ and what has become a leftover landscape. In Beirut however, the work reveals the naked reality of what appears to be a ‘magical’ setting; it narrates the underground life of Syrian Refugees.
Exhibitors:
This exhibition is curated by Yara Sharif from Palestine Regeneration Team (PART).
It will be accompanied by a panel discussion on Arab cities and the making, redefining and reclaiming of public space, on 9 March 2019 as part of Arab Women Artists Now Festival @ Rich Mix main space from 14.00 – 16.00pm.
AWAN, which is about to enter its 5th edition, showcases the work of contemporary Arab women artists in the UK, Europe and beyond, providing opportunities for artists and audiences to celebrate, be informed and network whilst exposing new audiences to the work of emerging and established artists. www.awan.org.uk
AWAN is produced by Arts Canteen and supported by Rich Mix London
This private view of the “Dressing/Undressing the Landscape” exhibition event is free and open to all but registration is essential to attend.
To book please go to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dressingundressing-the-landscape-tickets-56815700289?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Artists, architects, actors, teachers, photographers, film makers and families get together in London and Gaza to inaugurate the exhibition Here, There, Everywhere.
Join us at P21 gallery 6.30 pm today –with a live streaming from Gaza at 7 pm — and get a taste of the work from an adaptation of of Tolstoy’s War and Peace to installations by postgraduate students of architecture from DS22 University of Westminster, to self-build initiatives for reconstruction by Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), the works will reflect on moments of hope to celebrate life.
This is part of a great initiative by Az Theatre to mark 10 years of collaboration with Gaza.
Event Curator: Jonathan Chadwick
When: 7th November 6.30pm
Where: PS21 gallery, 21-27 Chalton Street, London NW1 1JD
Read more here.
Congratulations to John Wildsmith, this year’s winner of the BFF-sponsored Project Illustration Prize!
John is a Year 1-MArch DS22 student, whose drawing Resurrection from the Rubble: Exploring & renewing the edge condition of Gaza won him the prestigious prize. The award is given to the best individual drawing at the University of Westminster’s end-of-year student exhibition.
To find out more about the selection process and what the judges had to say about John’s work please go to: http://www.bff-architects.com/news/2017/6/21/john-wildsmith-wins-bff-sponsored-project-illustration-prize
The drawing is exhibited at the OPEN2017 in our Marylebone studios and on show until Sunday 2nd July, every day 9am to 9pm.
