Tag: Workshops

PLAYweek, Thursday 15 – Friday 16 February: Call for Workshops & Events

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

CALL for WORKSHOPS & EVENTS

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about: their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity. ( Montaigne 1580 )

Introduction

PLAYweek is organised by the Department of Architecture and the Westminster Architecture Society, WAS.

It is a creative and disruptive 2-day event that cuts across the ‘dip-drip’ of the Department’s week-by-week teaching to suggest new and playful ways of working.

This year, things are a little different:

  • Thursday 15 February, there will be an all school crit, with mixed student, staff and guest panels looking at work drawn from across the school.
  • Friday 16 February, we will run one-day intensive workshops – which students and staff are free to propose, run, and take part in.

Aims

  • To hold an all school event
  • To enable students and staff to see a cross-section of the ongoing work of the Department
  • To test out innovative ideas through short, intensive workshops
  • To give students and staff the opportunity to explore an area of interest which they would normally not have the time, or freedom, to investigate

Friday workshop proposals

All students and staff can make a proposal for a workshop or event – and teams may include people drawn from outside the Department

Workshops can include traditional workshop activities, as well as performances and lectures, walks, seminars and film-showings – or any other form of activity. They can take place on or off-campus, and include people from outside the Department.

For more details on how to submit a proposal please go here.

Featured image from last year’s Tensegrity workshop, lead by Geoff Morrow, Gavin Weber, Will McLean, Pete Silver and Scott Batty.

KSDIY17: Kurt Schwitters ‘DIY’ Summer School, 14th-22nd July in Cumbria

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Kurt Schwitters ‘DIY’ Summer School for architects, craft/design artists and art students will take place between 14th and 22nd July 2017 at the Merz Barn site, Elterwater, Cumbria – the site of Kurt Schwitters’ last Merzbau experiment.

“Schwitters’ Merzbau experiments were an important influence on the development of early modern architecture..” (Rem Koolhaas, OMA)

The Summer School will offer creative workshop opportunities*, architectural experiments and construction skills projects located in the dramatic landscapes of the Lake District National Park:

  1. Merzbau Art Museum: design and construction of large scale architectural models as the basis for a future Kurt Schwitters Merzbau art museum; the narratives of Kurt Schwitters’ four Merzbauten projects (1923-48)
  2. New Rural Design and Architecture workshop skills: learn traditional rural craft construction skills – dry stone walling, coppice/benders, and sleeping pods in the orchard;
  3. Traditional scything, hay rope making and hay meadow management: an introduction to the use of the Austrian (light) and English (heavy) scythes; basic scything skills, grass architecture and hay rope making, and basic introduction to hay meadow ecology and management;
  4. Self-directed projects: e.g. in painting, drawing, photography, video, audio arts, and printmaking, etc., are also encouraged.

There is a small gallery and tools store on site, but students are responsible for their own materials, food and cooking arrangements.

*NB the workshops are informal and programmed according to demand. They can also be offered as one or two half day intensives by arrangement so that people can mix.

Highlight of each KSDIY Summer School – music, food and BBQs!!

Fees: £195 including fully equipped bunk barn accommodation (9 nights) and workshops tuition £100 non-bunk barn, free use of camping facilities, showers, etc. on site at the Merz Barn

For further information and bookings please contact: The Merz Barn project (Ian or Celia) More details are available upon request.

email: littoral@btopenworld.com

tel: 015394 37309

mobile: 07796 617167

web-site: https://merzbarnlangdale.wordpress.com/