Tag: London Festival of Architecture

SA+C Tutors’ and Students’ Work Featured in Dezeen Magazine: “Architects for Gaza creates fragments of demountable clinic for Gaza”

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

As a part of the London Festival of Architecture, on June 25, 2024, Architects for Gaza, led by the Senior Tutors Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari (MArch DS22 and MA Architecture), displayed sections of an experimental clinic in Marylebone Campus that it plans to build in Gaza as soon as soon as the conditions allow for access. The prototype was designed and built in collaboration with the Senior Tutors Paolo Cascone (BSc Architecture and Environmental Design) and François Girardin (Fabrication Lab and MArch DS23) and a number of students from the above courses.

The prototype was on display until the end of June and the exhibition was covered by the Dezeen Magazine:

“On show at the University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities, the full-scale segments were designed to demonstrate how structures could be built to provide primary care in Gaza where 70 per cent of all health infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed since the most recent escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict in October.

Named Experimental Lab/Clinic, the project by Architects for Gaza was designed by curators Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari, Francois Girardin and Paolo Cascone to be built using the scarce materials available in Gaza. The clinics would also act as a kind of “atlas of possibilities” to demonstrate construction techniques that people can use to rebuild their homes and neighbourhoods.”

Dezeen, 17.07.2024

You can access the full article here.

SA+C at London Festival of Architecture: “Gaza Experimental Lab” | Tuesday, June 25, 2024 at 18:00 (BST) in Robin Evans Room, Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 25th of June 2024, 6pm (BST)

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

Please join us on Tuesday, 25th of June at 6pm (BST) for the opening of the Gaza Experimental Lab. 

This 1:1 installation is a fragment of an off the grid experimental lab typology for the context of Gaza. It brings to the surface alternative materials and techniques built out of urgency and scarcity, challenging the consumer-driven construction industry, both in UK and the Global south by re-appropriating its discards. The room in its complete form can be used as a healthcare clinic, class room or Home.

The Lab, being ongoing process of testing and making, suggests alternative use of materials including crushed concrete, R-bars, corrugated sheets, sandbags, fired/unfired clay panels and other components. The outcome may suggest a new and unfamiliar aesthetic inspired by the local context and needs.

The exhibition is hosted by University of Westminster, School of Architecture, 25-30 June. Access need assistance available at the reception.

Key partners: University of Westminster (MA Architecture + BSc Architecture and Environmental Design, Fabrication Lab), Architects For Gaza and Mobile International Surgical Team.

This event is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2024 and it was supported by Quentin Hogg Trust (QHT).

LFA 2024 – Tourism and Events Reimagined: Real-life solutions for responsible consumption and production of spaces | Wednesday, June 19, 2024 at 16:00 (BST) in LG08, 12 Little Titchfield St, W1W 7BY

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday, 19th of June 2024

Where: LG08, University of Westminster, 12 Little Titchfield St, W1W 7BY London

Please register your attendance here.

This free event, hosted by the Place and Experience research group at the University of Westminster, will bring together tourism and event professionals and academics to discuss practical solutions for the responsible consumption and production of space.

Tourism and event experiences have the power to create significant change in people, places and organisations. While many of these changes are positive, others can be very detrimental to the environment, spaces, and lives of the residents where these activities take place.

This event will consist of a panel from the tourism and events community, including: Priya Narain (KERB); Claudio Giambrone (Wembley Park London); Stroma Cole (Equality in Tourism); Belvin Tawuya (Africa Day Every Day); Claire O’Neill (A Greener Future) Chiara Orefice (University of Westminster); Louise Storch (British Standards Institute). Ilaria Pappalepore from the University of Westminster will chair the panel.

Our panellists will share their views and experiences on the responsible consumption and production of space. We will then invite our audience and speakers to engage in the 3-minute active solution challenge: can you suggest and illustrate in 3 minutes a sustainable, real-life solution to a problem affecting the consumption and production of space? Participants will get the opportunity to collaborate and share best practices, which they will be able to apply to their own professional context as a result.

This event is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2024.

Urban Radicals (Era Savvides and Nasios Varnavas), Millimetre and AKTII selected for “Navigating Change: Reimagining the Square Mile”

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Congratulations to Urban Radicals with Millimetre and AKTII who have been selected by LFA and City of London BIDs as winners of the “Navigating Change: Reimagining the Square Mile” competition to design a trail of architectural interventions across the City of London.

Urban Radicals is a collaborative studio run by Era Savvides (Level 5 Year Lead for BA Interior Architecture at School of Architecture + Cities) and Nasios Varnavas (Tutor BA Architecture at School of Architecture + Cities) with an interesting take on regenerative use of materials – their proposal requires them to deliver four public pavilions across the City this summer which will be activated by public events run by various institutions, schools and stakeholders.

More details can be found here.

Featured image: Era Savvides (left) and Nasios Varnavas (right), LFA website

OPEN2023: MArch Exhibition Videos by Kevin Wong from DS10

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Now that OPEN2023 has closed, please enjoy these wonderful videos of the MArch design studios at this year’s graduating students’ exhibition. They were made by our talented 1st year MArch student Kevin Wong from DS10.

Credits (videos + featured image):

Email: wongkevin2020@gmail.com

Instagram: Kevinwth

Web: www.wthproduction.work

ArCCAT + LFA: “The Common Stream” experimental walk

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

On Friday, June 23 an ‘experimental walk’ organised by ArCCAT (Corinna Dean and Diana Periton), as a part of London Festival of Architecture 2023, took place along the River Lea.

The walk started at Bromley-by-Bow and ended at Cody Dock, where the group gathered in the newly built ‘Growing Space’, a project designed and realised this year by MArch DS20 students led by Maria Kramer and Corinna Dean. 

The walk was jointly led by Corinna Dean, Lindsay Bremner, and Diana Periton, all from the University of Westminster’s School of Architecture and Cities. The group was joined by a Pakistani performance artist, Abuzar Madhu, whose performance practice embodies a profound communication with nature, becoming an act of resistance against prevailing power structures. 

SA+C & LFA: The Common Stream – an experimental walk | Friday, June 23, 2023 starting at Bromley-by-Bow tube station at 15:00 (BST)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, 23rd of June 2023, 15:00 – 18:00

Where: Meet at Bromley-by-Bow tube at 3pm (BST)

Register on Eventbrite

Rowland Parker’s book The Common Stream tells the history of a Cambridgeshire village through the stream that sustains it. The stream is water source, sewer, communication channel, and common element around which the village coheres.

On this walk from Bromley-by-Bow to Cody Dock along the River Lea, we open a conversation about how bodies of water enact their common presence, raising provocations to be discussed as we walk. What is water as a material – what does it mean to drink it, contaminate it, remediate it? What is water as an entity – what is its legal status, what are its rights? How does water connect – how does the River Lea speak to the creeks of Manila or Chennai and the River Ravi? We will gather our discussions in the Cody Dock Open Air Classroom.

The walk will be jointly led by Corinna Dean, Lindsay Bremner, Stroma Cole and Paolo Zaide, all from the University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities.

The performance artist Abuzar Madhu will be joining, who’s performance practice embodies a profound communication with nature, becoming an act of resistance against prevailing power structures.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-common-stream-tickets-607394602607?aff=oddtdtcreator

Please contact Corinna Dean directly with any event queries

LFA & SA+C: Re-Imagining Coral Reefs | Wednesday – Friday, June 28-30, 2023 from 10:00 to 19:00 (BST) daily | MG28, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday – Friday, 28th – 30th of June 2023, 10am-7pm daily

Where: Ground Floor Learning Platform Room MG28, University of Westminster Marylebone Campus, 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS

We are delighted to invite you to Re-Imagining Coral Reefs – a virtual reality (VR) experience aimed at communicating the climate science of coral reef research to a wider audience.

Part of the London Festival of Architecture (LFA)’s programme of events, Re-Imagining Coral Reefs is funded by the QHT Small Grant, and co-created with students from across the School of Architecture and Cities.

Read more about the event here.

Register:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/re-imagining-coral-reefs-tickets-633628308327

Background:

Hosted at the University of Westminster and as part of the London Festival of Architecture, visitors to the event venue are invited to try on VR headsets and experience healthy, degraded and re-imagined coral reefs from both human and non-human perspectives. Their virtual experiences are projected in real-time in the event space, which also contains 3D printed models of the virtual corals they’re experiencing. Coral reefs are vital ecosystems that sustain 30% of all ocean species. Their degradation is a visceral example of the Climate Crisis. Research into and restoration of these rich habitats constitute a critical enterprise that bring together the scientific community, local citizens, designers, governments, and NGOs, towards the common goal of preserving our biodiversity. Created via a range of digital tools typically deployed in spatial and game design, and utilising the audio and 3D photogrammetry data collected from the field in Indonesia, the installation is a collaborative creation between design students, marine biologists, and architects.

OPEN2023 continues until Sunday, July 2 in our Marylebone studios

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, June 16 – Sunday, July 2 (Monday-Friday: 10am-6pm; Saturday-Sunday: 10am-4pm)

Where: School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS London

On Thursday, June 16 we launched OPEN2023, our graduating students’ degree show, featuring work from: 

  • Architecture BA
  • Architecture and Environmental Design BSc
  • Architectural Technology BSc
  • Designing Cities BA
  • Interior Architecture BA
  • MArch

The School is committed to its Polytechnic inheritance, and its aim remains to offer ‘a transformative higher education for all’. We view the diversity of our students drawn from across London and the world as key to our success, and we see difference, and a mix of experiences and views, as critical to our exploration of architecture and place. The impact of our student-staff initiatives, such as our Equity Forum and climate action taskforce, ArCCAT, can be seen increasingly in how the School’s projects contribute to meeting our societal and planetary challenges. We embed London practitioners in our core teaching teams to keep us alive to the dynamism of contemporary practice, and continue  to develop cross-disciplinary collaborations, such as with Imperial College Medical School and Westminster Council, and our Live Design Practice – currently on show at Cody Dock. That, in turn, our students are so valued by practices is hugely gratifying.

Harry Charrington, Head of School of Architecture + Cities, OPEN2023

The show was opened by Philomena Wales and it’s a part of the London Festival of Architecture. It continues daily in our Marylebone studios until July 2.

For those unable to visit us in person, the online version of the exhibition can be accessed here.

Photography by Rory Lindsay

LFA & SA+C: The Cody Dock Growing Space | Saturday, June 3, 2023 from 11:00 to 13:00 (BST) at Cody Dock

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Saturday, 3rd of June 2023 from 11am to 1pm

Where: Cody Dock, 11c South Cres, London E16 4TL

Staff and students from the University of Westminster have designed and built a QHT funded Therapeutic Horticulture Centre in collaboration with Cody Dock, OfCA and WebbYates Engineers. The pavilion is designed as a lightweight timber structure with a butterfly roof and demonstrates that plants growing and humans can happily co-exist in one space. There will also be an exhibition about the making process.

Cody Dock is a fantastic charity and social enterprise transforming the dock into a creative industries quarter with community gardens and footpaths – opening up the Lower Lea River whilst promoting regeneration for conservation, environmental and cultural benefit.

Students took part in stakeholder engagement to better understand needs and aspirations. We then developed designs for a visionary community space based on the initial research, suitable for the local context and site. We introduce new ways of working collaboratively across sectors and take our multidisciplinary skills within academia and use these in live projects to serve communities and have a positive impact on society whilst introducing students and staff to alternative practice, providing a deeper understanding of the multiplex relationships.

This Live Project was initiated by Maria Kramer and supported by Corinna Dean.

The event is FREE.

For more information about the project please go here.