Tag: The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy

Prof Kester Rattenbury and Tumpa Fellows from School of Architecture + Cities shortlisted for the RIBA President’s Awards for Research

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Congratulations to Prof Kester Rattenbury (DS15 tutor) and Tumpa Fellows (PhD researcher within the Experimental Practices research team and BSc Architectural Technology tutor) who have been shortlisted for this year’s RIBA President’s Award for Research, in History and Theory, and Annual Theme: Building in Quality categories, respectively.

The President’s Awards for Research celebrate the best research in the fields of architecture and the built environment and have again attracted interest from around the globe, with entries from China to Peru. The scope of entries continues to illustrate a strong focus on people and community over buildings, featuring parallel themes such as social injustice and climate change.

RIBA website

Professor Kester Rattenbury was shortlisted for her project “The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy Architect.”

For more information on her project please visit here.

Wessex ‘through the camera’s eye’, Hermann Lea and Lea’s camera. ©Hermann Lea, Toucan Press

Tumpa Fellows was shortlisted for her project “Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate; making, sharing and communicating design processes.”

For more information on her project please visit here.

The Rajapur Community Building for Women’s Literacy and Healthcare – The Rajapur Centre completed and being used by the community. ©Tumpa Fellows

The winning papers and medallist will be announced at this year’s President’s Medals ceremony at the RIBA, in London, on the 3 December 2019.

Book Launch: “The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect” by DS15 tutor Kester Rattenbury, Architectural Association Bookshop, Tuesday 19th June, 18:30-20:30

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday 19th June 2018, 18:30-20:30

Where: The Architectural Association Bookshop, 32 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES

THE WESSEX PROJECT: THOMAS HARDY, ARCHITECT

by Kester Rattenbury, Published by Lund Humphries, 2018

Who is the most famous member of the Architectural Association, past or present? Rem Koolhaas? Richard Rogers? Peter Cook? Or maybe Thomas Hardy: poet, novelist, architect; and creator of one of the most famous part-real, part-imagined realms the world has seen?

The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect by Kester Rattenbury is the first in-depth study of Hardy’s work by an architectural critic, and it opens a startling new perspective on this world-famous author. Through it, we begin to see Hardy as someone who never gave up architecture: not just as a highly architectural writer, but as someone experimenting in all kinds of representation, including drawing, mapping, photography, stage design and writing; not just as a seminal English storyteller, but as England’s most influential conservation campaigner too; not just as a leading voice in literature, but as the creator of one of the greatest ever conceptual architectural projects.

Kester Rattenbury is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster. This book offers both a new way of looking at Hardy’s great works and an exploration of the how architects see, imagine, and work.